Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) challenged Al Gore’s motives for supporting climate change legislation including his links to a firm that will make millions from cap and trade:
Blackburn noted Gore’s role as partner in Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, a venture capital firm that invests in technology to address global warming.
Blackburn asked Gore if he stood to benefit financially from cap-and-trade legislation, which would force companies to reduce carbon emissions. Companies would likely turn to the kinds of technologies Kleiner Perkins helps develop.
“This bill is going to fundamentally change the way America works.” Given the magnitude of those changes, I think it’s really important that no suspicion or shadow fall on the foremost advocates of climate change legislation. So I wanted to give you the opportunity to kind of clear the air about your motives and maybe set the record straight.”
Transcript:
BLACKBURN: I’ve got an article from October 8th, the New York Times Magazine about a firm called Kleiner Perkins. A capital firm called Kleiner Perkins. Are you aware of that company?
GORE: (LAUGHS) Well yes, I’m a partner at Kleiner Perkins.
BLACKBURN: So you’re a partner at Kleiner Perkins. OK. Now they have invested about a billion dollars in 40 companies that are going to benefit from cap and trade legislation. So is the legislation that we’re discussing here today, is that something you are going to personally benefit from?
GORE: I believe that the transition to a green economy is good for our economy and good for all of us. And I have invested in it. But every penny that I have made, I have put right into a non-profit, the Alliance for Climate Protection, to spread awareness about why we have to take on this challenge. And Congresswoman, if you’re, if you believe the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed, you don’t know me.
BLACKBURN: I’m not making accusations. I’m asking questions that have been asked of me. And individuals, constituents that were seeking a point of clarity–
GORE: I understand exactly what you’re doing, Congresswoman. Everybody here does.
BLACKBURN: Well, are, you know, are you willing to divest yourself of any profit? Does all of it go to a not-for-profit that is an educational not-for-profit.
GORE: Every penny that I have made has gone to it. Every penny from the movie, from the book, from any investments in renewable energy. I’ve been willing to put my money where my mouth is. Do you think there’s something wrong with being active in business in this country?
The Heritage Foundation has more on Al Gore’s testimony here.
I blogged about the increases we can expect in energy prices here.
So much that last August Tipper and Al Gore used twice as much electricity in their two-building property as an average U.S. household uses in an entire year, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, a think tank, reported Tuesday.
Public power and gas bills turned up by the group show that the man behind the Oscar-winning global warming wakeup documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” uses much more overall carbon-based fuel than the average American, spending thousands of dollars a month on electricity and gas.
But the leaked DHS report is not the only problem that conservatives are facing from the fascist left. The tolerant left, champions of diversity and tolerance, doesn’t like the idea of hearing things that might hurt their feelings. Every word you say has the potential to incite violence against them!
So, they’ve proposed this new Hate Crimes bill so that they don’t have to listen to people they disagree with anymore.
Committee members allowed that, yes, the law could result in the imprisonment of religious leaders. Conceivably then, a threat might be perceived in the preaching from a Bible (the weapon), perceived as inciting “radicals” to do bodily harm to non-believers or gays or whoever. Thus the perception allegedly received by the alleged victim holds total sway over the actual occurrence, which in actuality might have been completely benign.
If the validity of the actual occurrence is not the basis for justice, then there is no justice under this proposed law; it is an invitation for persecution by allegation of personal offendedness, a legalization of internal outrage as the definition of a crime regardless of whether the outrage is legitimate.
Protection from outrage is not possible; so persecution of the hated must substitute. Justice misapplied can become persecution, and it undoubtedly will if H.R. 1913 becomes law.
We elected Obama, and now the whole country will look like the university campuses, where leftist fascism is the rule, and conservatives need bodyguards and police escorts in order to be able to speak.
BONUS:
Michele Bachmann talks with Neil Cavuto about cap and trade, and the recession: (H/T The Maritime Sentry)
Sensible science, sensible energy policy and sensible pollution reduction. Why won’t the socialists just listen to her? Just do whatever she says to do and we’ll get out of this mess that the Democrats put us into.
UPDATE: Welcome visitors from 4Simpsons! Thanks for the link!
No one doubts what can be proved in the lab or in the fossil record about the ability of organisms to adapt to their environment. Finch beak sizes can change, bacteria can become resistant, etc. Perhaps even some limited “speciation” between ancestors due to geographic isolation. But that isn’t what Darwinism-skeptics object to. We object to naturalistic accounts of the origin of life and to macro-evolution.
But Darwinism, like global warming, is one of those beliefs that is long on faith and short on evidence. And the way you can tell that you’re being sold a pig in a poke is by taking a look at how welcoming Darwinists are to debate. Do they organize public debates and publish books with their opponents? Or do they simply have them fired and black-listed from the academy? Let’s talk a look at the data.
The case of NPR media bias
Here is an interesting article from Evolution News by ID proponent Casey Luskin. Casey was interviewed by the government-run, taxpayer-funded National Public Radio, regarding the recent decision favoring critical thinking in science by the Texas Board of Education.
Casey writes:
Last week I did an interview with an NPR reporter, Bob Garfield, for his NPR show “On the Media” about the recent Texas decision…
The interview started with benign questions about the recent decision of the Texas State Board of Education to welcome scientific critique of evolution into the curriculum. This quickly descended into various “how dare you” type questions, about whether this was all a plot by the “Religious Right” to insert religion into public schools, and why I rejected all the fossil and cosmological evidence that shows the universe isn’t 10,000 years old. “Huh?,” I replied. I quickly informed Mr. Garfield that not only do we oppose advocating religion in science classrooms, but that I’m not a young earth creationist, and that the debate in Texas has never been about young earth creationism. The new Texas Science Standards only require scientific critical analysis of evolution, and in no way shape or form invited biblical creationism or religion into the classroom.
Mr. Garfield was also reminded that many of the 13 members of the Texas State Board of Education who voted for the new science standards both professed to accept evolution and stridently opposed the teaching of creationism, and thus it would seem highly unlikely that the new Texas standards were a “Trojan horse” for teaching religion. Nonetheless, the final story favorably quoted members of the evolution lobby saying this is all a ruse for creationism.
But during our interview, having lost his argument that the new Texas Science Standards were a conspiracy to bring religion into the curriculum, Garfield shifted our conversation to the science. Again, he asked various “How dare you?” type questions, making assertions like virtually “100%” of scientists accept evolution, or that evolution comprised the unchallengeable “consensus,” or that there is no fossil evidence that challenges evolution. I reminded him that a critical mass of well-credentialed scientists in fact don’t support neo-Darwinian evolution, and that a number of Ph.D. biologists testified in Texas about scientific weaknesses in evolution. He then accused me of cherry-picking data because, outside of the Texas hearings, he asserted that essentially the “universe” of scientists support evolution. Not true, I told him. I replied that while surely majority of scientists do support evolution, there are credible scientists who dissent from it–hundreds of Ph.D.s in fact–and that there are plenty of discussions of doubts about core claims of neo-Darwinism in the scientific literature. I also discussed some of the reasons for these doubts-ranging from the inability of empirical evidence of natural selection to be extrapolated to bolster the grand claims of neo-Darwinism to the lack of confirming fossil evidence.
And the result of this cloistered, close-minded, intolerant, bigoted, echo-chamber caricature of evolution critics?
Mr. Garfield’s reply to my discussion of the science was that we were getting outside of his field, and he cut all of my discussions of the scientific weaknesses in neo-Darwinism from the final story. There’s no shame in him not knowing much about science, but it’s troubling that despite his self-professed ignorance on the science, he acted like he knew for a fact that skeptics of Darwinian evolution had no scientific basis should be treated like crazy religious fanatics.
But isn’t the left-wing elite media right to think that opposition to evolution is entirely from Bible-thumping, snake-handling, shotgun-toting, pick-up-truck driving rednecks?
As a last ditch attempt to discredit Darwin-doubters, Garfield compared teaching critique of evolution to teaching Holocaust denial. I replied that not only is there a world of difference between the two (hundreds of serious Ph.D. scientists doubt neo-Darwinism, and one cannot find such credibility supporting something as pernicious as Holocaust denial!), but I also told him that given that I (as well as many other Darwin-skeptics) am Jewish and had close friends impacted by the Holocaust, his comparison was not just fallacious, but out-of-line. I mentioned that even more scientists would come out of the closet to express their doubts about evolution were it not for the intolerance in the scientific community towards dissent from Darwinism. His reply was to twist my position into allegedly arguing that scientists don’t really believe in evolution, they’re just forced to pledge allegiance to it due to pressure.
I replied that this was not at all what I was saying, because of course a great many scientists harbor purely bona fide scientific support for evolution. My point was that were it not for the climate of intolerance, we’d see far more doubters and skeptics breaking their silence. However, in the final story, Garfield apparently sliced and diced my response so that it sounded like I affirmed his assertion that any “consensus” over evolution is the result of intimidation, when that is not at all how I responded to his question and false characterization of my views.
The article goes to explain how NPR cited a well-known critic Ken Miller of intelligent as an authority on intelligent design, despite the fact that he elementary errors on obvious details about the ID research program. I recommend reading the entire article, as it explains a lot about leftism and their propensity for group-think, censorship and fascism.
The same way that they’ve been winning on global warming alarmism. By avoiding a fair, open debate on the merits!
First, by intimidation, censorship and ridicule of anyone who opposes them. To say that their treatment of skeptics is like McCarthyism would be a tremendous insult to McCarthy. These are fact-averse fideistic fascists, plain and simple. If they had the evidence, they wouldn’t be firing peope left, right and center in the academy – they would be welcoming public debates.
Second, by deliberate deception. Jonathan Wells’ book “Icons of Evolution”, showed multiple serious inaccuracies in the way that Darwinism is presented in textbooks. To take just one, the images of Haeckel’s embryos used in textbooks are fraudulent and have known to be so for decades! And this fraud is debunked in the highest research journals, like Science and Nature.
[Abstract:] Using modern techniques, a British researcher has photographed embryos like those pictured in the famous, century-old drawings by Ernst Haeckel–proving that Haeckel’s images were falsified. Haeckel once admitted to his peers that he doctored the drawings, but that confession was forgotten.
Third, by judicial activism. Since Darwinists cannot win a debate on the evidence, in the public square, the next best thing is to win by judicial fiat. Judges typically have no relevant qualifications, either in science or in philosophy of science. They can also be intimidated by peer-pressure to conform to the opinions of the elite, regardless of the evidence.
Conclusion
The reason why critical evaluation of Darwinism is not permitted in the public square by Darwinists is because they would lose the debate. I will be posting a few of the debates that have occurred between faith-based Darwinists and their fact-based critics later in the week, and you will be able to see how well their case for naturalistic evolution holds up.
WINTERY KNIGHT 