AlGore's Testimony - More Waste

Make no mistake, this wasn't a debate, just more shrill testimony and screaching political brinksmanship. Sadly, this is something that should be worked on, but because neither side is willing to even approach reasonable, it will continue down the path of inaction.

I was especially irritated by the Repugs on this. It's one thing to hold Algore to his statements, but this goes beyond that.

"You're not just off a little -- you're totally wrong," Joe Barton (Tex.), the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told the former vice president at a hearing on global warming yesterday morning.

"One scientist is quoted as saying, 'This is shrill alarmism,' " said Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.). The reviews only grew more savage when Gore crossed over to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in the afternoon for a second hearing. "You've been so extreme in some of your expressions that you're losing some of your own people," announced Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.), the committee's ranking Republican and the man who has called man-made global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."

I agree with the point that Gore is an alarmist. But that doesn't really matter when the right thing to do is begin actions to solve a problem that may indeed become a major issue in the future, if it isn't already.

Barton informed Gore that some of his ideas "are just flawed." Under Gore's plan, Barton said, "we can have no new industry, no new cars and trucks on the streets, and apparently no new people."

But this was no match for Gore. "The planet has a fever," he lectured Barton. "If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that tells me it's not a problem.' If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame-retardant. You take action."

Right Algore, the problem is that the action you take isn't to dump the baby in an ice bath either. This is where the arguments start to diverge on the "scientific consensus." There most scientists state that there is a man-made part in global warming though quantification of the effect is still debated, but Algore has taken that to the extreme stating that the changes are nearing catastrophe. This over-reaction is causing lots of resistance, because most of the proposals to fix the problem require an economic disaster for this country. Self-interest is something that resists change, and Algore isn't helping by playing chicken-little.

And in conclusion, I'll snipe at a favorite target:

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called Gore a "prophet" -- and his Democratic colleagues treated him as such. Gore got a hearty ovation when he visited the House floor during a lunchtime vote.

Prophet? What a buffoon. Markey and his ilk prove the contention that global warming has become a religion and has fallen away from scientific responsibility.