I hadn't actually thought of this until I recently finished his "Assault on Reason" book. It should have been titled The Assault on Bush as he joked about it not being, in a video interview, because there's hardly a page in it that doesn't mention GWB and his minions. One could hardly articulate such a sophisticated blackballing, however, Al Gore actually did while bending over backwards to not step into "conspiracy theorist" world. And his trouncing of the Bush Junta is well deserved and I do recommend all people read this book.

It's important that Gore didn't go full blown conspiracy theorist as that would obviously implicate him with things like 9/11 and Depleted Uranium.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1135846.stm

In page after page Al attacks Bush's very essence, and in particular Bush's environmental policies and the Iraqi Invasion / Occupation. Al slams Dubya on Iraq, while patting himself on the back for the Balkans sectarian conflict that they engineered.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline= ...

The most notable common thread between these 2 conflicts and these 2 men is the Depleted Uranium issue. Others include the engineering conflicts, sectarian conflict scenarios, the use of Al Qaeda as an instrument of tactical subversiveness, and even oil (pipelines).

It turns out that DU has a 4.5 BILLION Year halflife. The "Clinton-Gore Administration", as Al calls it at every chance in his book, used DU munitions in the conflict that started and lasted over virtually the entire 8 year reign of the Clinton-Gore Administration.

Now we have Shrub using the same stuff that is absolutely sure to contaminate the environment until what could be considered the end of time (science models predict that the Sun and life on Earth will expire well before one billion years before the DU munitions reach their half-life), but oddly enough Al Gore somehow managed to forget to mention this little tidbit in his all out partisan Bush crucifixion hit-piece book that focuses on both the Iraq imperial power move and the environment.

"Of course, a sincere apology required an admission of error and a willingness to accept responsibility and to hold people accountable. President Bush seems not only unwilling to acknowledge error, but thus far has seemed unwilling to hold anyone in his administration accountable for the worst strategic and military miscalculations and mistakes in our entire history. "
-Al Gore, The Assault on Reason, page 177

He pushed his way into the media and hogged up a bunch of issues with a media sledgehammer.

It's time for Eco-Whizzes to look around and find some other, more appropriate figureheads and leaders...

Probably there is something that can be done in between those extremes.

Just for starters I will forgive Al's worlds most frequent flyer status. Let's say his work balances the greenhouse gasses he personally puts into the upper atmosphere where they do the most damage.

According to Al Gore he knew about Global Warming years before any of his peers or for that manner years before any of us. They why did he buy a house where he had to wait for local laws to change before he could install solar panels or geo-exchange HVAC?

Why is George Bush's Crawford ranch arguably more green than any property Al Gore owns? I freaking HATE the chimperer and Al Gore gives the GOP a freebie on this one.

Why didn't Al Gore assign an aid to making sure that he had an electric car or series hybrid instead of his phony-hybrid Toyota Highlander that doesn't actually save much gas. It's not like the technology isnt' off-the-shelf or like he's too poor to afford a custom job as a demo platform.

Do any of Al's carbon offset programs actually put carbon BACK INTO THE GROUND? NO. They are phony programs designed to create profits first. Does Al have carbon negative farming practices working on his farm? Not so that you would know it. Do these programs exist elsewhere? Yes.

Al Gore, the most prominent proponent of Global Warming, is a fraud. He has used his prominence to place himself in front of an issue that was gaining prominence anyways. In his personal life Al is exemplary of practices that have to be stopped if we are to have a chance of stopping the accelaration of Global Warming.

He's like a guy who says "Oh my god look how fast I'm going, I'm going to crash." to everyone else in the car as his foot firmly presses down on the accelerator. The guy with the control is complaining to his passengers about how bad the situation is while making it worse.

I've voted straight Dem. in every election. That doesn't mean I think they are on the ball on this.

Put the Carbon Back

He also supports the continuation of American empire with a huge military budget even as he opposes the particular stupid war we are in.  The solutions he supports to the global warming include a lot of pro-corporate quack remedies - offset trading, clean coal, biofuels.  But there is no reason to suppose he is insincere in supporting such things;  they fit with his ideology. A lot of smart people support them. Why wouldn't he be in their favor.

Gore is NOT he leader of environmentalists. "You are against global warming because Al Gore said so" is a classic trope of wingnuts with foam dripping from their fangs. But he has proven one of the most effective educators out there on the reality of global warming. I'm not ever going to spend a lot time either criticizing or defending Gore. But he accusation of hypocrisy offends the logical part of my brain.

Supporting a corporate liberal viewpoint in a logically consistent way is not hypocrisy. In some issues, such as single payer health, he moves beyond the classic corporate liberal conventional wisdom. I suspect that is because he is smart enough to think more moves ahead than a lot so-called centrists, and not that he is not fundamentally someone who wants to preserve our system pretty much as it is. My feeling about corporate liberals is I suspect the same way they feel about me (if they bother to notice me). I'll work with them on issues where we are on the same side, oppose them on issues where we are on opposite sides. But before I accuse them of hypocrisy I need evidence not only that they are wrong, but that the consequences they expect from their actions are contrary to their proclaimed beliefs.