Registered Democrat and Obama supporter Walter Russell Mead assesses Al Gore’s suitability to lead the global warming movement. (H/T Newsbusters)

Excerpt:

You can be a leading environmentalist and fail to pay all of your taxes.  You can be a leading environmentalist and be unkind to your aged mother.  You can be a leading environmentalist and squeeze the toothpaste tube from the middle, park in the handicapped spots at the mall or scribble angry marginal notes in library books.

But you cannot be a leading environmentalist who hopes to lead the general public into a long and difficult struggle for sacrifice and fundamental change if your own conduct is so flagrantly inconsistent with the green gospel you profess.  If the heart of your message is that the peril of climate change is so imminent and so overwhelming that the entire political and social system of the world must change, now, you cannot fly on private jets.  You cannot own multiple mansions.  You cannot even become enormously rich investing in companies that will profit if the policies you advocate are put into place.

It is not enough to buy carbon offsets (aka “indulgences”) with your vast wealth, not enough to power your luxurious mansions with exotic low impact energy sources the average person could not afford, not enough to argue that you only needed the jet so that you could promote your earth-saving film.

You are asking billions of people, the overwhelming majority of whom lack many of the basic life amenities you take for granted, people who can’t afford Whole Foods environmentalism, to slash their meager living standards.  You may well be right, and those changes may be necessary — the more shame on you that with your superior insight and knowledge you refuse to live a modest life.  There’s a gospel hymn some people in Tennessee still sing that makes the point:  “You can’t be a beacon if your light don’t shine.”

This old story from the UK Telegraph has more on Al Gore’s demagoguery and profiteering.