Peter Schweitzer, Al Gore, and hypocrisy

Posted by David Roberts at 1:36 PM on 17 Aug 2006

About a week ago, USA Today published a piece by Peter Schweitzer, who's a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. It accused Al Gore of hypocrisy, for asking viewers of An Inconvenient Truth to scale back their lifestyles and carbon emissions while ... well, there were a number of charges. According to Schweitzer, Gore owns three homes and stock in Occidental Petroleum, still receives royalties from a zinc mine on his property, does not participate in the green-power option his utility offers in Nashville, and lets Paramount pay for his carbon offsets.

As per standard practice, the conservative media machine spread the charges far and wide -- most recently they popped up on Glenn Beck's show on CNN and, bizarrely, in a recurring poll on AOL's homepage.

Gore's communications director, Kalee Kreider, sent a letter to the editor to respond to the piece, but we all know only a fraction of the folks who read the original piece will read the letter.

First things first: I talked to some of Gore's people today, including Kreider, about the specific charges. Suffice to say, they're false. Gore receives no royalties from the mine, which shut down in 2003. (USA Today actually printed a correction about this, way down on page 10A.) Gore owns no stock in Occidental, and never has (his father did; it was all sold over six years ago). Gore does in fact take advantage of the green power options his utility offers, and was in the process of adding photovoltaic solar cells to his house when the article came out. He pays for his own personal carbon offsets, in addition to the institutional offsets purchased by Paramount (movie distributor) and Rodale (book publisher), which make both the book and the movie completely carbon neutral.

All that picayune nonsense aside, some might consider it more relevant that Gore has devoted his life to this problem, traveling around for years giving thousands of slideshows, co-founding an investment firm devoted to supporting green companies, making his book, movie, and new TV channel carbon neutral (Current will be carbon neutral by the end of the year), donating all the profits from the movie and book to the global-warming fight, and almost single-handedly raising the profile of the issue higher than it's ever been.

Also, if we're talking about hypocrisy, perhaps we should mention that Schweitzer's Hoover Institution -- home to professional climate cranks (and former tobacco cranks) like Fred Singer and Thomas Gale Moore -- is funded by the far-right Scaife Foundation along with, you guessed it, Exxon. Schweitzer is paid to launch baseless attacks on Al Gore; Al Gore donates the profits from his advocacy work to the issue he cares about. Who's being more honest with the public?

In the end, though, none of this matters. This kind of ad hominem back and forth is exactly what Gore's well-paid conservative attackers want. They want to drag the debate down to this level. It muddies the waters and causes the public to tune out.

The fact is, Al Gore is not perfect, environmentally or any other way. He does not claim otherwise.

Nobody is perfect on climate issues. Why? Because our political and cultural system makes it extraordinarily difficult. That's the issue: changing the system to make it easier to act in environmentally benign ways, and harder not to. That means pushing our leaders -- from the neighborhood level all the way up to the federal level -- to change public policy. It means pushing them to partner with business leaders to make eco-friendly products, power, homes, and transportation options more easily and readily available. It means pushing them to take a stand, to marshal the American people behind the grand historical quest to put our society on a sustainable path. It means pushing them to lead.

As I've argued again and again and again and again and again and again, the lifestyle choices of any given individual are beside the point. Those who try and fail to be righteous are better than those who are unapologetically wicked. Those who speak the truth and fail to fully live by it are better than those who speak lies. Those who advocate societal changes and fail to make individual changes are better than those who do the reverse, and better twice over than those who seek no change at all.

We need to change our laws, regulations, tax codes, and business practices. We need to change our minds about what is and isn't acceptable in a 21st century society. If Al Gore can help that process along, that will mean a hell of a lot more than all the carbon offsets and utility bills in the world.

For story: Peter Schweitzer, Al Gore, and hypocrisy
12 Comments | Post a Comment

Well put.

Amen

by disdaniel at 3:24 PM on 17 Aug 2006

Preach it!

Put your hands together and let me hear you say yeah!

All of your previous posts about hypocrisy are gems, but this is the best yet because it engages a moral inquiry. Stewardship of the planet is partially a moral issue, and so a concern with moral hypocrisy is not irrelevant.

However, there is a furious attempt going on by the polluters and their supporters to frame the issues and box environmentalists into a no-win situation. On the one hand, if you use the status quo system to advocate improvement, you cannot avoid doing some harm, because the status quo system is structurally harmful. Anyone who lives the contemporary American lifestyle can be criticized on a variety of environmental grounds.

On the other hand, if you live a life of total ecological purity, living in a tepee and eating stinging nettles, you'll be so far from the mainstream developed-world lifestyle that you'll be viewed as an oddity -- an admirable but unattainable paragon at best, or a weirdo at worst. Very few will willingly follow you into what looks like ecological fanaticism. Plus, without technological tools and systems you'll be sidelined and unable to network and advocate environmental improvement.

Hypocrisy is asking other people to do what you aren't willing to do yourself. A lot of what gets called hypocrisy isn't really hypocrisy, but rather the imperfection we are all subject to by virtue of living with an imperfect system. If someone travels by jet to advocate rail transportation, that's not necessarily hypocrisy. Presumably the rail advocate would travel by rail if we had a functioning train system that was viable for business travel.

One reason I think the Viridian/Cradle-to-Cradle/Bright Green set of ideas is powerful is because it addresses these ideas forthrightly. It starts with a quality of life focus and then seeks environmental improvements that will maintain or even improve that quality of life.

Ped Shed Blog

by Laurence Aurbach at 4:50 PM on 17 Aug 2006

Institutions not Individuals

At some point we need to look at individual choices, but in order for individuals to HAVE good choices, we need to change the environment as dictated by institutions.

patrick

by bookerly at 8:07 PM on 17 Aug 2006

How soon we forget!

How soon we forget! I haven't seen an Inconvenient Truth, and I won't see it, because every time I look at Al Gore, I see the ghosts of several hundred thousand Iraqi civilians who died as a result of the vicious embargo that was imposed by the first Bush regime, and then maintained by the Clinton-Gore regime. Madeleine Albright, their secretary of state, when asked about the horrendous death toll, replied, "We think the price is worth it." Al Gore did not speak out against the embargo blockade while he was vice president. The blood of those innocent victims of the American Imperium is on his hands (as well as on Bush I and II and Clinton, and the members of the 6 Congresses that reigned during the embargo years.

I think that individual choices do matter. If people don't walk their talk, then they have no authenticity. If leaders are not being the change they want to see, then the blind are leading the blind right straight into a ditch.

I am not impressed that he is buying "carbon offsets" to reach some kind of carbon neutral zone. Are they anything other than an accountants trick? The rich and powerful always think that money can buy anything, but i just don't think that is true when it comes to pollution and energy consumption. That sense of personal entitlement to a high energy lifestyle is a primary aspect of our "American Problem".

There is no such thing as a government that can make the choices ahead "easy" because very few of those choices will be easy even if the Green party captured control of all governments -- local, state, and federal -- in North America. Pretending that there is an easy way out gets us nowhere, it only makes things worse as people continue to consume and destroy, confident that just as soon as we get the politics right, saving the planet will be easy!

I am hoping that as things progress, we will find some leaders who aren't mass murderers. I actually don't think that is too much to ask.

www.justpeace.org www.bettertimesinfo.org www.energyconservationinfo.org www.oklahomafood.coop runningonempty2@yahoogroups.com

by jpeaceokc at 9:42 PM on 20 Aug 2006

Wow, once again the point it totally missed

You really have to reply to the issue on the table jpeaceokc, but because I do practice what I preach (as is the case with Mr. Gore), I'll respond to yours in order:

1. You said: "I haven't seen an Inconvenient Truth, and I won't see it, because every time I look at Al Gore, I see the ghosts of several hundred thousand Iraqi civilians"

We're talking about his actions on Global Warming advocacy not Iraq. Additionally, the last time I checked it was the Pres that holds the decision cards not the VP (Mr. Cheney's case not withstanding).

I've aslo addressed the inability of the right wing skew the Gore issue at The Conscious Earth

2. You said: "I think that individual choices do matter. If people don't walk their talk, then they have no authenticity."

He is walking the walk. That is the whole point. Al Gore practices what he preaches, but Schweizer lied by saying he didn't, and used false evidence to support his claims.

3. You said: "I am not impressed that he is buying "carbon offsets" to reach some kind of carbon neutral zone. Are they anything other than an accountants trick?"

No they are not an accountants trick, but if that isn't good enough for you, Mr. Gore is also installing photo voltaic cells in his home, and buying green energy from his utility provider.

4. You said: "I am hoping that as things progress"

I do to, and the first things we need before progress can be made is for people to stop engaging in baseless character assualts on true leaders and for them to keep their eye on the ball when engaged in debate. I think your comment came up short on both fronts.

by odiyya at 11:10 AM on 22 Aug 2006
[ Parent ]

oops typo....

on point 1:

"I've aslo addressed the inability of the right wing skew the Gore issue at The Conscious Earth"

Should read: "I've also addressed the right wing's practice of skewing debate off topic at The Conscious Earth"

by odiyya at 11:57 AM on 22 Aug 2006
[ Parent ]

Global Warming and War

I am delighted Al Gore is doing his best to convince Americans about the problems associated with Global Warming.

Personally, I agree with jpeaceokc about the blood on Al Gore's hands, but really, the blood is on all of our hands (Americans). And generally speaking (not for any specific individual), we don't care.

So, really, Al Gore is just like most Americans, which is why he is a good spokesperson to attack global warming.

Should we seperate the issues? In an ideal world, no. In a world where most Americans don't care, the issues have already been seperated.

If people object to Al Gore and care about the Iraqi deaths, they should look for other leaders. Since most people don't care, then it is for most people, a non-issue.

Global Warming needs to be addressed as an issue by those who care about other things, AND by those who don't.

patrick

by bookerly at 4:51 PM on 22 Aug 2006

Al Gore

I have to say, never having met the guy but knowing a few who have, he comes across as a typical politician - i.e. an actor with few discernable, deeply-held, morals.

That said, he at least 'acting' on a few of the right issues.

And yes, the Iraq wars and the criminally-obtuse sanctions are an indictment on the whole US population. As a democracy, you voted for them...

Whiskerfish

by Whiskerfish at 5:42 AM on 14 Dec 2006

Apparent hypocrisy may not actually be hypocrisy

Let's say that Al Gore travels even 5 million miles per year in a pollution-generating vehicle, to spread his message. If his doing so results in 250 million people cutting back on their discretionary travel by 1000 miles per year, thereby saving a total of 250 billion miles of polluting travel by others, then Al Gore has had a HUGE POSITIVE net effect on the environment overall, in spite of his so-called hypocrisy in not having below-average carbon emissions himself for now.

Sometimes a speaker in Congress has to say, "Please be quiet everyone, because I'm giving a speech now and not being quiet myself!", or a basketball coach has to say, "I'm standing on the sidelines, NOT handling the basketball at all, but you guys need to go out on the floor and handle the basketball a lot!" This is NOT hypocrisy: it is simply the reality that leaders have different functions than the audience they are leading at that time.

The true test of hypocrisy or integrity is what Al Gore does during his personal non-traveling hours, in terms of cutting back personal carbon emissions, and planting trees and creating other carbon offsets, assuming he has time to do that now without losing a few billion tons of carbon dioxide reductions as a result of persuading others. I don't know Al, but I suspect that he strives to act consistently with his message-- in other words, I believe he is passionate, driven, and sincere. --Kent

by mrwinwin at 7:23 PM on 16 Jan 2007

Dave, don't forget the tragedy of the commons

"Nobody is perfect on climate issues. Why? Because our political and cultural system makes it extraordinarily difficult."

You have this largely right, but I think that you can state the problem more clearly in a way that will both show the CEI's that you understand climate change in terms that are close to them and difficult to deny and will also help to explain the problem to the common man.

Specifically, you can point out that the atmosphere (and the climate system which it moderates) is a common, open access resource which all of us, and all economic activty, to some degree make use of - without charge and irrespective of the consequences. With modern industrial activity, the lack of any cost for using a resource or any responsiibility for the consequences of such use means we all over-use the resource.

Given the fact that the resource is open access, single users can achieve nothing by limiting their own use, since this will not affect how others use the resource. Thus the only effective response MUST be collective. I might know that tuna populations are collapsing, but my refraining from eating tuna sushi - or putting more on the plate - simply does nothing to solve the problem. Only the fishermen getting together to set meaningful limits on catches will work.

The conservatives and libertarians cannot deny the logic of this argument and can only respond on the merits - by saying that the problem isn't big enough yet to merit the expnse of solving it. If they are forced to agree on principles, then much of the battle is won.

by TokyoTom at 12:19 AM on 17 Jan 2007

Single and collective

Actually, single users do have an impact, they set examples and influence others through their actions.

Collective action is certainly called for, though.

If individuals refuse to act (by eating more Tuna, for example, when they think that Tuna are endangered), they are part of the problem. The idea that what individuals do doesn't matter is a fallacy, and is often used as an excuse for inaction.

Individual action must be combined with collective effort. Indiviuals who refuse to act are (as Gore has been falsely) accused of hypocrisy, which can reduce their effectiveness.

If one cares about collapsing tuna populations, and piles it high on his/her plate, that person is contributing to the problem, and any attempts at advocacy by that person will be ineffective.

patrick

by bookerly at 2:30 AM on 17 Jan 2007

Fair enough, patrick

by TokyoTom at 5:33 AM on 26 Jan 2007

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