USA Today Rusty Kennedy August 10, 2006
Al Gore has spoken: The world must embrace a “carbon-neutral lifestyle.” To do otherwise, he says, will result in a cataclysmic catastrophe. “Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb,” warns the website for his film, An Inconvenient Truth. “We have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tailspin.”
Graciously, Gore tells consumers how to change their lives to curb their carbon-gobbling ways: Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs, use a clothesline, drive a hybrid, use renewable energy, dramatically cut back on consumption. Better still, responsible global citizens can follow Gore’s example, because, as he readily points out in his speeches, he lives a “carbon-neutral lifestyle.” But if Al Gore is the world’s role model for ecology, the planet is doomed.
For someone who says the sky is falling, he does very little. He says he recycles and drives a hybrid. And he claims he uses renewable energy credits to offset the pollution he produces when using a private jet to promote his film. (In reality, Paramount Classics, the film’s distributor, pays this.)
[ … ]
Maybe our very existence isn’t threatened.
Gore has held these apocalyptic views about the environment for some time. So why, then, didn’t Gore dump his family’s large stock holdings in Occidental (Oxy) Petroleum? As executor of his family’s trust, over the years Gore has controlled hundreds of thousands of dollars in Oxy stock. Oxy has been mired in controversy over oil drilling in ecologically sensitive areas.
. . . more
Ah yes, the usual right-wing hit piece about liberal hypocrisy, unaccompanied by any hint of hypocrisy on the other side. Fair and balanced as usual.
The problem with this piece is that the author cherry-picks things that support his case while ignoring the things that don’t. If Gore lived barefoot in a cave and wore fig leaves the right-wing hit squads would find some other line of attack. You know, it would be the smoke from his campfire that would be the “clincher.”
The author says that Gore controls “hundreds of thousands of dollars in Occidental Petroleum stock. Oh no! OXY has something like 15 billion dollars of stock out there, which means that Gore owns less than a tiny fraction of one percent of the company. Again, it wouldn’t matter what he owned stock in, because the right-wing would use THAT as a weapon.
But the most interesting part of the article is this: “Maybe our very existence isn’t threatened.”
The principle here is that if someone fails to live up to his message in any way, then the message might be false. Which by extension means that if Christians don’t live up to their message in any way, then Christianity is cast in doubt. And I suppose the more hypocrites, the more doubtful the message. This is how it works, right?
Glad to see you affirm that Gore is acting hypocritically here, Jim. The part I don’t understand is the charge that hypocrisy must be porportional. Does that make Gore’s hypocrisy any less hypocritical?
The author is not obligated to present “hypocrisy on the other side.” It’s that theory of neutrality at work again, as if two wrongs cancel each other out. They don’t. The only point the author wanted to make (which he does successfully) is that the lauded spokesman of the global warming movement likes to tell others how to live but exempts himself from his own demands.
It’s the same thing as liberals opposing school vouchers while sending their children to private schools, or Michael Moore (sat next to Carter at the Democratic convention, remember?) owning stock in Halliburton while he was bashing the company, or Ed Kennedy piling his inherited wealth in off-shore, non-taxable trusts, while demaning every other American forfeit 50% of their inheritance to the government. See a pattern here?
As for conservative hypocrisy, have at it. The liberals have been doing it for years. I won’t defend it though.
In Christianity Phariseeism = Hyprocrisy, i.e., putting burdens on others that one is unable or unwilling to bear for oneself. Such activity is denouced by Jesus, Paul and many others. Christian hypocrisy is not simply continuing in sin. We all do that. The judgement of others while giving oneself a free pass is hypocrisy. It can be quite difficult to prove in a Christian sense, as it is impossible to know the depth of someone else’s repentance.
In any case whether it is political or religious, we should do our best not to generalize the hypocritical acts of one person to the greater whole. While hypocrisy may not invalidate a particular message, it surely does weaken it if public proponents of a message are willfully hypocritical, even cynically so.
Fr. Hans writes: “Glad to see you affirm that Gore is acting hypocritically here, Jim.”
I don’t know if he is or he isn’t. With these large lifestyle and environmental issues it is virtually impossible to be consistent in everything. If you invest anything in stocks or mutual funds, I suppose one could make the argument that you are in part morally responsible for everything that all those companies do, but it’s not an argument that I find persuasive.
I think what the author is calling “hypocrisy” is more like a the normal failures and complexities that are part of the life of any person who has an idealistic view of how things should be. And there’s a note of moral equivalence here — that just because Gore has big houses and owns stock in an energy company, he’s a hypocrite just as much as Newt Gingrich was when he was banging a woman not his wife at the same time he was married and denouncing Clinton as a “relativist.”
Fr. Hans: “The author is not obligated to present “hypocrisy on the other side.” It’s that theory of neutrality at work again, as if two wrongs cancel each other out. They don’t.”
Well, the author wouldn’t, because he’s a hit man for the right. He wouldn’t criticize someone on the right any more than Luca Brazzi would criticize Vito Corleone. The interesting thing to me is why a web site with an Orthdox theme would feature articles on alleged hypocrisy on the left, while ignoring the hypocrisy of the right. Here’s a simple question: is being a right-wing Republican a precondition for being an Orthdoox Christian? Maybe not, but I guess it helps.
Fr. Hans: “It’s the same thing as liberals opposing school vouchers while sending their children to private schools . . . ”
Would it be hypocritical for a liberal to give his children private violin lessons while supporting music programs in public schools and also opposing the idea that tax money should be spent on private lessons for students? How is that hypocrisy?
Fr. Hans: “Michael Moore (sat next to Carter at the Democratic convention, remember?) owning stock in Halliburton while he was bashing the company.”
So in acting against his own financial interest by criticizing the company, that constitutes hypocrisy? By the way, when you own stock in a company, that gives you some (admittedly tiny) clout in how the company does business.
Fr. Hans: “Ed Kennedy piling his inherited wealth in off-shore, non-taxable trusts, while demaning every other American forfeit 50% of their inheritance to the government.”
That’s a little better. But then again, Kennedy is doing the same thing that any other rich person could do. Actually, my favorite liberal hypocrisy is politicians who oppose private ownership and carrying of handguns, while they themselves are protected by armed bodyguards.
Fr. Hans: “As for conservative hypocrisy, have at it. ”
I’ll pass. Most of it is pretty disgusting sexual stuff from the “family values” crowd.
As a “Crunchy Conservative”, Al Gore and his Global Warming crowd hit close to home for me. Conservatives get tarred with the greed brush as a general rule. I do get a bit tired of the “holier than though” attitude of most liberals when it comes to enviromental issues. They act as if it is their exclusive domain and any attempt to live a more enviromentally friendly lifestyle by a conservative is viewed by them as a “liberalising” act rather than a simple act of conservative based responsibility.
My family has taken on the task of trying to live a better more enviromentally and community friendly life, sometimes to the detrement of our pocketbook. And it had nothing to do with the enviromentalist movement and everything to do with our “conservative” Christianity. I think my family have a pretty good leg to stand on when it comes to allegations of hypocrisy concerning enviromental concerns from non-conservatives. I would say my family does more to eat and consume more carefully than any “liberal” I know and most of the self proclaimed enviromentalist I have met. Hey, ask me about “cheap chicken.” 😉
That being said.. sure when it comes right down to it, everyone can be called out on the charge of hypocrisy. Republicans and Democrats do not have different consumption habits when it comes right down to it. As Rod Dreyer says, the Republicans are the party of greed and the Democrats are the party of sex but when you go into their houses, look at their checkbooks, and look in their refrigerators.. guess what, it all looks exactly the same.
My beef with Al Gore has everything to do with science and nothing to do with his life and whether or not he practices what he preaches, though being a Tennessean I have quite a bit to say about Gore the man. But that can wait for another time. I am far more concerned with his basing of his entire enviromental policy FOR THE WHOLE WORLD on flawed science. And I am not the only person to say this. Many, many scientist have taken a look at the science and come to the same conclusion. To make broad policy proclamations concerning the world wide enviromental situation when the science is still so new and untested, it is foolish. The simple fact that Gore and his ilk always bend and twist the facts to get the politically correct emotional response from the public, the fact that the scientific method has not been applied to the fullest extent when one examines their data… these things bother me.
As is shown in my family’s personal choices, I am not against the idea of change that might not benefit or might even harm me financially but will in the end make the world a better place for me, my family, and all the people of the world. I think that as a Christian and a “conservative” I should wish to conserve that which we have been given BUT I also think our global decisions should be made using valid and widely accepted science, not based on emotion, tugging heart strings, and knee jerk reactions. Otherwise the very remedies to the “problems” we see may do more harm themselves than the problems we sought to fix.
Xenia: If Al Gore is deceitfully “twisting the facts”, than so are the leaders of the Orthodox Churches in America, as well as our nation’s most respected scientists.
Archbishop Demetrius of the Greek Orthodox Church of North America has signed a statement that states “global warming is a scientific fact“. (see link below from Goarch.org website).
http://www.goarch.org/en/news/NewsDetail.asp?id=177
The SCOBA (Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas) heirarchs have issued a statement that reads: “God’s creation delivers unsettling news. Earth’s climate is warming to dangerous levels“. (see link below from Goarch.org website).
http://www.goarch.org/en/news/releases/articles/release9302.asp
Finally, the most respected body of scientists in the United States, the National Academy of Science, has issued several statements unanimously finding that the “Earth is heating up and that “human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200590,00.html
Jim writes:
Yes, precisely. The problem is they impose their idealism on others and don’t meet the demands themselves. Three houses, hundreds of thousands tied up in oil stocks, — the whole enterprise rings hollow. (Hypocrisy is always a “normal” failure.)
The same with the school voucher issue. Why are underperforming schools good enough for America’s poor but not the children of wealthy liberal politicians? Why does Kennedy insist middle America should forfeit 50% of their inheritance to the government when he shelters his?
Note 6. Dean, sometimes the GOA falls under the sway of the NCC. This is one of those times. Watch the Hellenic Voice. I take another potential statement to task (NCC related). Haven’t heard if they will publish it yet, but they’ve published all my other ones. Once published, I’ll post it on the main site.
Dean wrote:
Archbishop Demetrius of the Greek Orthodox Church of North America has signed a statement that states “global warming is a scientific fact“. (see link below from Goarch.org website).
http://www.goarch.org/en/news/NewsDetail.asp?id=177
~~
With all due respect for the Patriarch and SCOBA, that is their opinion. They are more than free to have an opinion. The Patriarch can sign anything he wants as an individual person concerned about the state of the world but until he and his fellow Patriarchs declare Global Warming church dogma then I in no way must take his stand on this as anything other than his personal stand. I and the Patriarch (and SCOBA) disagree on a great many geopolitical issues including global warming. We do not disaggree on the nature of the Church or God. That is the point.
We can throw scientific experts back and forth all day long.
http://reform.house.gov/UploadedFiles/UA%20-%20Christy%20Testimony.pdf
http://www.nationalcenter.org/KyotoSingerTestimony2000.html
http://www.john-daly.com/singer2.htm
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=d0235a70-33f1-45b3-803b-829b1b3542ef&p=1
There are just as many scientist who believe that man is the root cause of the supposed increase in the Earth temperatures as there are those who would rather us step back from the politics and examine the historic data of global warming and cooling with an unbiased eye. The simple truth is that the Earth has experienced drastic changes in temperature over its long history and that while fossil fuel usage has obvious local effects, taking such data and applying it to the world as a whole is very tricky.
My thinking is less emotion, more science. Why is calling a theory a theory and treating it with some sceptisim so threatening?
If the world keeps falling further and further from God’s Energies, blastpheme him, and misses every mark that he has set for us, the world might possible be hotter than hell some day. It will have nothing to do with CO-2 buildup
Fr. Hans writes: “Three houses, hundreds of thousands tied up in oil stocks, — the whole enterprise rings hollow.”
Hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock is not all that big of an iinvestment. If you own stock in a company you have some small influence in how that company does business. If you sell the stock, than you don’t have influence in how the company does business. What does that accomplish?
When you’re talking about each family’s environmental impact, that is a very complex situation. Surely at that level some level of hypocrisy is unavoidable. But in the Christian perspective, isn’t this a consequence of living in a fallen world? As the Apostle said, the good that you would do, you don’t do. And in the case of investments that is built into the structure of how things work.
With all respect, you seem to be arguing for a kind of moral purity that in this life is not possible to accomplish.
Fr. Hans: “Hypocrisy is always a “normal” failure.”
With all respect, no, not at all. Some hypocrisy is part of being human. Other acts of hypocrisy really are sinful, reflecting an attempt to benefit personally from presenting a false face.
Jim writes:
Not really. It’s just fun to see the tables turned on the moralizers, that’s all. No one really takes Gore, Moore, et. al. that seriously anyway except the hard left and the MSM.