How big is your carbon footprint?

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The Inconvenient Truth about Muslim Extremists

The Inconvenient Truth about Muslim Extremists
Jason Rantz
Author: Jason Rantz
Source: The Family Security Foundation, Inc.
Date: February 7, 2007

While a documentary based on questionable science is honored at the Academy Awards and shown throughout college campuses, another one based on the cold stark facts of our real world is not.  FSM Contributing Editor Jason Rantz explains how such a travesty could happen.

The Inconvenient Truth about Muslim Extremists

By Jason Rantz

Former Vice President and apocalyptic visionary Al Gore is one happy man today. Fresh off a win for Best Documentary Film by the Academy Awards Sunday night, Gore – and his “crisis climate” friends – are seeing copies of the documentary get screened all across the country on college campuses.

Since An Inconvenient Truth was released in theaters last year, college administrators, professors and hippie, self-aware students have flocked together to discuss how on earth they can save… the earth. Pushing the facts about global warming aside, they have created a false sense of urgency and are propagandizing their classmates to fix the “crisis” by showing the documentary.

Indeed, a screening of An Inconvenient Truth kicked off “Green Week” at George Washington University. Free screenings have aired at Penn State, Holy Cross, Macalester College, University of Rochester, and other colleges, big and small. All this, despite the questionable science behind the film.

Even though Gore seems to think the debate on global warming is over, actual scientists and other experts tend to disagree. National Review Online author and senior fellow in environmental studies at the CATO Institute Patrick Michaels strongly questions the fuzzy science behind Gore’s documentary and declares “When it comes to global warming, apparently the truth is inconvenient.” Oregon State’s climatologist George Taylor “has said human activity isn’t the chief cause of global climate change.” And two terrific books, that should be mandatory reading on many college campuses, lay out the inconsistencies of the climate crisis studies: Marlo Lewis, Jr. of the Competitive Enterprise Institute penned the A Skeptic’s Guide to An Inconvenient Truth and Chris Horner, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, recently published the Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism).

Yet despite the lively debate over global warming, campuses seem to move ahead to fix a problem that is not really considered an immediate threat. They seem utterly convinced that global warming can take this planet at any time.

Ironically, there is an immediate threat that faces not just the United States, but civilized countries across the globe, which isn’t tackled with the sense of urgency that it demands – Jihadism.

Whereas An Inconvenient Truth is welcomed with open arms, Obsession is not. Obsession is a frightening documentary on the extreme Muslims who wish to destroy Western civilization and everything it stands for.  Rather than get support from American campuses, administrators and students are doing whatever they can to get the documentary screenings shut down.

Indeed, at the University of California at Los Angeles, dozens of protestors showed up to a screening of Obsession. The screening’s intent was to denounce “militant Islamic radicalism,” but the PC-left didn’t think it was appropriate.  According to the Daily Bruin, “Representatives from the Muslim Student Association and Students for Justice were gathered outside the event because they said it portrayed Islam in a negative light in that it highlighted the radical sects of the religion.”  (An aside: I wonder if these students protested outside theaters that showed the Academy Award nominated Jesus Camp, which highlighted the radical sects of Christianity; one wonders if they protested during seminars that portrays big business and capitalism as a leading contributor to the “climate crisis”).

As I reported several weeks ago, Pace University pressured the campus Jewish group to cancel its screening of Obsession. (After conservative bloggers and publications reported this, Pace quickly backed away and tried to spin their actions). Similarly, at State University of New York at Stony Brook, the campus Jewish group was pressured into canceling their Obsession screening.

Unlike An Inconvenient Truth, there is not much serious debate over the dangers of the extremists portrayed in Obsession.  Indeed, the student protestors and critics of the film are mad that the film accurately portrays the extremists in the religion and not the normal practitioners of Islam. The only people who seem to think we’re not at war with terrorists are the New York Times and CBS.

Why are leftist campuses so eager to accept An Inconvenient Truth, but so hesitant to accept the inconvenient truth about militant Islam? It’s pretty simple, really: anti-American sentiment.

You see, those behind the “climate crisis” lunacy are the same people who hate our capitalistic ways. They want big business to suffer; every time they see a Starbucks or WalMart, they scream in anger. They see capitalism as exploiting the poor and weak, all while polluting Mother Earth. And they just hate it!

On the other hand, they secretly agree with some anti-American Islamo-fascists who want to put an end to our Western ways.  Much like our Islamic enemies, they see a problem with Western culture: our excess, our waste, our “arrogant” attitudes.  No, the environmentalist hippies don’t want us to suffer car bombs or planes-as-missiles – but they do want to put a dent in the ways of big business.  And an easy way to get us to stop driving SUVs or drinking coffee from Starbucks or buying cheaper good from WalMart is to tell us – subtly and sometimes not-so-subtly – that every time we partake in big business, we are helping to destroy the planet.  And no one wants to be told their actions will lead to our extinction.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Jason Rantz is a producer and talk radio show host based in Southern California whose program has been called “irreverent and skillfully witt.y. His program frequently broadcasts on Free FM in San Diego, California. Check your local listings or listen to his show online at his website http://www.JasonRantz.com.

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Note — The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of The Family Security Foundation, Inc.

Carbon credits: indulgence or commutation fee?

Thomas Lifson
The ability of wealthy individuals like Al Gore to purchase what amounts to rights to pollute by buying carbon credits is a repulsive moral dodge, demanding us to consider useful analogies. One comparison that has occurred to many is the sale of Papal Indulgences that so infuriated Martin Luther. Taxprof picked up on this analgy in commenting on the “get out of jail free” card for pollution guilt that was part of the gift bag given to all Academy Awards presenters.

This year’s Oscar goodie bag contained gift certificates representing 100,000 pounds of greenhouse gas reductions from TerraPass, which describes itself as a “carbon offset retailer.” The 100,000 pounds “are enough to balance out an average year in the life of an Academy Award presenter,” a press release from TerraPass asserts. “For example, 100,000 pounds is the total amount of carbon dioxide created by 20,000 miles of driving, 40,000 miles on commercial airlines, 20 hours in a private jet and a large house in Los Angeles. The greenhouse gas reductions will be accomplished through TerraPass’ [program] of verified wind energy, cow power [collecting methane from manure] and efficiency projects.” Voila, guilt-free consumption! It reminds us of the era when rich Catholics paid the church for “dispensations” that would shorten their terms in Purgatory.” [hat tips: Instapundit, Clarice Feldman]

But I think there is another good analogy, much closer to hand, both geographically and temporally.
During the Civil War, it was possible for well-to-do men who were drafted to pay a $300 “commutation fee” and escape the draft. The move sparked much public outrage, creating the impression that the war was a “rich man’s war” and probably contributing to the disgraceful draft riots in New York City, which led to the lynching of African Americans.
It seems to me that the purchase of carbon credits is a direct imitation of commutation fee. I don’t expect to see SUV-deprived soccer moms lunching the wealthy outside of fixed base operator terminals at haunts of private jet-setters like Teterboro and Santa Monica Airports,  but I do expect public revulsion to rise and rise, as sacrifices demanded of ordinary people are evaded by the wealthy. The war on global warming seems very much a “rich man’s war.”
Everyone who preens about personal enlightenment by virtue of a “position” on global warming should sign a green pledge to reduce actual personal carbon emissions, not just pay a commutation fee in the form of carbon credits.  Anyone who emits more CO2 than the average citizen does should be subject to relentless ridicule. They can no more claim virtue than could Civil War-era draft evaders who paid their $300 bucks claim moral parity with wounded veterans.

A Modest Proposal to Eco-Celebs

Clarice Feldman
The day after Al Gore won an Oscar for his crockumentary on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, which  warns that the earth is threatened with horrific catastrophes unless we all cut our energy consumption instantly, it turned out that the real inconvenient truth is that he, like  the celebrity eco-warriors is a hypocrite

Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself.

Then there is the troubling matter of his energy use. In the Washington, D.C., area, utility companies offer wind energy as an alternative to traditional energy. In Nashville, similar programs exist. Utility customers must simply pay a few extra pennies per kilowatt hour, and they can continue living their carbon-neutral lifestyles knowing that they are supporting wind energy. Plenty of businesses and institutions have signed up. Even the Bush administration is using green energy for some federal office buildings, as are thousands of area residents.

But according to public records, there is no evidence that Gore has signed up to use green energy in either of his large residences. When contacted Wednesday, Gore’s office confirmed as much but said the Gores were looking into making the switch at both homes. Talk about inconvenient truths.

I’m trying to figure out why Norman Lear with a 26 car garage insists we cut our driving and Barbra Streisand from her well-staffed mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean advises her fans to air dry their laundry outside. And Teresa Heinz and John Kerry, who use a private plane to travel to their 5 mansions and SUVs, warn us all to cut back on our energy use.
Of course, it is laughable.
It is unworkable for most people. We use a lot of energy because it makes us a more productive society and a more productive society is one which makes a higher standard of living available for more people. The technologies we invent make life easier and more productive for the less fortunate of the globe.
Goat herders in the Sahal use little energy but their lives are hard and their way of live unenviable. And they contribute nothing to the rest of the world’s welfare and progress.
I think I’ve figured it out what this naked hypocrisy is really about. It’s not just scientific and economic illiteracy on their part: It is a narcissistic desire to widen even further the gulf between themselves and those beneath them on the economic and social ladder, while clothing their desires in some moral purpose. This is nothing new of course. At various times and places throughout the world, what one wore-including colors, fabrics, length of swords, how much the tips of your shoes could curl -were set by law to make sure no one mistook the milkmaid and yeoman for the lord and lady.
Because ample energy supplies are critical, and continued economic growth is vital to the health of the nation and the only significant way to help the poor and starving of the world, this movement, if successful, would add to the tragedies already wrought by the combination of stupid celebrities and scientific ignorance. They spearheaded the destruction of the nation’s nuclear power industry and the immiseration and death of people throughout the world by the banning of DDT to fight malaria. (Some of the eco-warriors are changing their minds on these two issues but only after they caused enormous damage for no reason. They naturally would like us to forget altogether what listening to their idiocy has already cost us)
So, I have a modest proposal for the eco-celebs. We’ll give you the exclusive right to wear certain colors, shoes, swords and clothing and you can pick what these are. Only those of you who have won Oscars^TM, married ketchup queens or created hit TV shows, inherited substantial wealth or whose earned  income exceeds by some substantial degree that of the upper middle class-say $10 million a year –will be in this class. In exchange, you have to promise to confine yourself to staying out of politics, pretending you know beans about energy or the environment and leave the rest of us alone.

Global Warming as European Imperialism

By James Lewis

The great Global Warming scare is only the latest eructation of European imperialism. Euro-imperialism used to be known as socialism. Before that, it was just called British or French imperialism, because those countries were very proud of it. There was no need to lie. The only reason today’s huge European effort to control the world isn’t called “imperialism” any more, is that its supporters hate that word. The reality of imperial control is fine with them.
According to one dictionary, imperialism is

“the policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries, or of acquiring and holding colonies and dependencies.”

That is exactly European policy today with regard to Global Warming.
But that’s only the dictionary. The media don’t follow the dictionary definition of imperialism. They follow Vladimir Lenin’s definition instead. For Lenin, imperialism had to be a capitalist plot. Only capitalists could exploit colonies for their resources; the fact that this is plain unvarnished nonsense was part of its charm. It’s like the slogan that Blacks can’t be racists. It makes no sense, but to certain people bigger nonsense means more profundity. 
So Lenin told the world that a proletarian power can only conquer other nations to liberate them, not to exploit them. So it must be true that the Soviet Union was not imperialist, regardless of the Hungarian and Czech invasions, the wholesale carting of East German industries to Russia after 1946, and 70 years of the immiseration of Russia, Eastern Europe, China, and North Korea (even today). Assuredly, Moscow’s centralized control of worldwide communist parties didn’t count as imperialism. Got that? The Soviet Empire could not be imperialist, no matter how it acted; US leadership was imperialist regardless of the facts. If you don’t get that, you’re just not thinking like a media clone.
Everybody in the media knows the US attacked Saddam in Iraq to steal the oil. That’s imperialism. It would have been a lot easier to keep our troops in Kuwait in 1992, because Kuwait has plenty of oil and is easier to control than Iraq. We could have cut a deal with Saddam and divided it in half. But thinking is not the strong suit for these folks.
There’s another little word missing in the Global Warming discussion: Europe.
All self-respecting capitals of 19th century Europe had their empires. There was the Habsburg Empire, Napoleon’s French Empire, Bismarck’s Reich (Empire – later the Nazi Reich).  Queen Victoria reigned over the British Empire, on which the sun never set. The Dutch had an empire in the East Indies. The Belgians owned the Congo (and behaved brutally even by European standards). Even the Swedes and Danes had empires.  The Russian Tsars were Emperors (the word “Tsar” comes from “Ceasar.”) The Turks had the Ottoman Empire. Spain and France tried but failed to get theirs in South America; and the Germans were just boiling mad that the British Navy ruled the oceans so they couldn’t get an empire in Africa. Poor disunited Italy had to wait until the 20^th Century to catch up with its empire, too late for the respectable 19^th century club . They all felt deserved their own colonies. Imperialism was in.
So the next time you tour Europe to goggle at the public buildings, the equestrian sculptures, the museums, the Eiffel Tower, Nelson’s Monument, the castles and the palaces, just remember one little word: “imperialism.” Many of  those famous tourist spots are mementos of bloody conquest and violent domination of subject peoples. That will help anchor your Europhilia in reality.
Comes the Bolshevik Revolution in 1914, and suddenly no progressive intellectual wants to be an imperialist any more. But here’s the kicker: nothing changes but the words. Europe still sees itself as the center of the world and the most advanced human civilization. Each European capital has the right — nay, the duty — of imposing its language, its utter conviction of superiority, its educational system and its ruling class on properly obedient colonial peoples. Today that pervasive sense of superiority still inspires the European Union — the new empire-to-be — and it is a lifelong obsession among French politicians like Dominique De Villepin. French foreign policy is shot through with old-fashioned imperialist ideology. It’s why they’re so nasty.
Even though Moscow had all the trappings, the world-conquering mission, the bullying of neighbors, the goose stepping Red Army, the KGB, the worldwide espionage (which got Stalin his atom bomb), the egomania, the global export of self-glorifying ideology — it could not be imperialist because the USSR was not a nation, verstehen Sie? It was the harbinger of Peace on Earth. It was Socialism in One Country, until Stalin found it regrettably necessary to appeal to Russian patriotism to stop the Nazi Blitzkrieg.  Russian peasants wouldn’t die for the Party, but they would risk all for Mother Russia. In any case, the True Believers never dropped the pretense that Soviet imperialism of the worst kind could not be imperialism, because the USSR was not a nation, but a hope.
Today’s European Union also denies being a nation. Like the USSR, the EU is something never heretofore seen. It is a Platonic Ideal realized in flesh and blood. It is the Transubstantiation of the Da-Sein to the Nichts-Sein. It is the socialist meme applied to Brussels rather than Moscow. And it’s something Americans better get straight, because we will be flooded with EU-propaganda for the next fifty years arguing that the European Union is not an imperial enterprise, contrary to all appearances.
Now Europe has two practical problems, imperialism-wise. One is that it’s pathetically weak and occupied with bitter arguments behind the scenes, between the French, the Germans, the Brits, the Low Countries, and now the Poles-Czechs-Greeks-Spaniards-Italians-Serbs-Austro-Bulgo-Hungarians. (See: Airbus, Concorde, German subsidies for French farmers, etc., etc., etc.). The EU is not a union; it’s a vendetta.
The second weakness is that Europe has relied on the United States for its real defense since 1946. And still does. So the European Empire can’t resort to the imperialist shtick of expansionist warfare. Instead, its tax money goes to universal health care, welfare payments for the fast-growing offspring of Muslim immigrants, the latest vote-buying schemes, plus sex, drugs and rock n’ roll to distract the people. The Romans called it “bread and circuses” — keep the common folk well-fed and staring at the boob-tube, and you can do whatever you want.
Bottom line: Europe needs the United States but despises us. Not because of anything we do — anti-Americanism goes back long before we were a power to reckon with. It’s a major historical theme. You can see it in European literature — in the Sherlock Holmes stories, for example, where a disproportionate number of its sex-obsessed villains come from the American West and the colonies. Thomas Jefferson as Ambassador to Paris was outraged to hear that the French intellectual class was convinced that American animals are invariably smaller than European ones — because they were degenerate offspring of the Euro originals. That conviction of innate superiority has always been part of the European psyche, and nothing has changed today.
So Europe needs to control America in order to carry out its imperial mission. Don’t ask why; that’s the wrong question. Europe needs to control us because they do. The explanations change from time to time. Today the explanation is that the US is just not as peace-loving as the hopelessly weak and gutless elites of Europe. In the 19th century it was the opposite: The US was not warlike enough compared to the Prussians, the Russians, the French and the English. Europeans felt sure about it. They were the proud aristocrats. We were their weakling rejects, remember?
So how does one control America from Brussels? One way is to shout at us until we give in, a method pioneered by the Soviets and other bullies. A closely related method is to apply all the principles of agitprop, learned during the Soviet phase, from spontaneous popular demonstrations (these days it’s polls) to the voices of “world renowned scientists” to put their stamp of approval on the Global Warming scam.  Give Al Gore a Nobel Prize, and stack international gathering spots like the UN and Davos with party members. 
We can’t forget how close the European Left came to exporting Eurosocialism to America: Harry Hopkins, FDR’s closest advisor, turns out to have been a Soviet source, perhaps an agent of influence, perhaps a spy. (It’s hard to know exactly.) Ronald Reagan turned against Stalinists when he saw how they tried to control the unions in Hollywood. Henry Wallace was almost elected Democrat candidate for President over Truman. Al Gore Sr. was a close friend, ally and financial beneficiary of Armand Hammer, the millionaire KGB paymaster in the United States, who boasted of owning his personal US Senator from Tennessee.
(Al Gore Jr., the leading American agitator for Global Warming, was therefore raised to become a member of the American ruling class, and president some day. Which is why the Florida recount came as such a shock to poor Al; it wasn’t supposed to be that way. He was fated to rule America. He’s still shell-shocked. The Nobel Peace Prize, the Oscar^TM, even worldwide acclaim as the Goracle of Global Warming will never be good enough.)
And then the Soviet Union, through Castro’s Cuba, almost managed to provoke Marxist rebellions throughout Latin America, with the enthusiastic help of our Democrats — leaving a legacy of anti-American hatred that still pervades the chattering classes South of the Border. Those were all different aggressive salients of European Imperialism.
Americans are prone to ask “why do they hate us?” A good answer is that we’re the leading pop culture of the world — which is why teens all over the world imitate American rock music, wear torn jeans, and cuss in English. Europe is elite-driven, and elites despise ordinary people; it’s their main source of self-esteem. So today they say they hate us because of Global Warming, but for many years they hated us for the West’s failure to help the Soviets and Chinese become high-polluting industrial giants. It used to be not enough pollution; today it’s too much.    
The underlying psychological drive hasn’t changed.  Imperialism has always been primarily driven not by greed but by a lust for glory: The self-glorification of elites with fragile egos. When you do the math, some scholars aver, the British Empire under Queen Victoria cost more pounds than it earned for Britain, but that wasn’t the point. The Empire demonstrated the superiority of the British ruling class. Today, substitute the “BBC Class” for “British upper class,” and you’ve got the same thing.
The BBC Class considers itself internationalist, socialist, and Green (and not just with envy). The Greens are of course Reds with camouflage paint. After the USSR fell of its own internal contradictions around 1989, the Left needed a new shtick. They could not admit that free markets and democracies worked better than their engrained ideology. So they found a different set of reasons to do the same thing. The old way was European imperialism à la Karl Marx. The new way was European Imperialism à la Al Gore.
The big problem with the Global Warming riff is that China and India will never accept it, and they are quickly outpacing the West in carbon dioxide emissions. China was tyrannized in the most horrific way by European Socialism, first as the “Chinese melon” carved up by the European powers, and then under Mao Zedong, killing tens of millions of  his people. India never had a Communist revolution (though it was tried), but instead adopted Jawaharlal Nehru’s British Public School Socialism, which Nehru had learned in London. It ruined the Indian economy for decades.
Having been burned badly by Europe’s ideological imperialism in recent history, will India and China swallow the new version, a.k.a. Global Warming? And sacrifice their own growing prosperity to avoid a disaster that never will be? When even Europe itself is just pretending to be lowering CO2 emissions?
India and China would be utter fools if they fell for Europrop again. How many decades of ruin do you need, before you begin to suspect the snake oil salesman?
So watch for Al Gore to run out of steam in a couple of years. Soon the Greens will be looking for another false alarm to scare the chickens with. What will it be? Asteroids crunching the earth? Aliens from outer space? That old stand-by, the international Jewish conspiracy? Regardless, you know who will be wearing the White Hats and the Black Hats. Because the story always stays the same. Only the details are changed.
James Lewis is a frequent contributor to American Thinker, and blogs at www.dangeroustimes.wordpress.com

Inconvenient Truths Novel science fiction on global warming.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjI4NTc0YWMzNTA3ZjRmYmJiMDRjNmI5MGEwZTFhM2E=

Gore’s Film an Oscar Favorite but Violates Academy Standards, Critics Say

Gore’s Film an Oscar Favorite but Violates Academy Standards, Critics Say
By Kevin Mooney
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
February 22, 2007

(CNSNews.com) – Al Gore’s movie on climate change is likely to win an Oscar for best documentary on Sunday even though it arguably violates the Academy’s own criteria and should be disqualified, critics say.

But, they argue, the way in which the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has handled the issue in the past shows a clear political bias.

Documentaries that distort reality and shade the truth are insulated from criticism so long as they advance left-wing causes like global warming and gun control, said independent filmmaker Dan Gifford, a former Oscar nominee and Emmy Award winner.

According to the “rule 12″ standard for documentary films established by the Academy, while it is permissible to employ storytelling devices such as re-enactments, stock footage, stills and animations, the emphasis must be on fact and not fiction.

The critics argue that in the case of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the criteria are not met.

One point of contention in Gore’s movie is animated footage of a polar bear struggling to find stable sea ice. Gore has argued that human-induced global warming is directly impacting polar bears’ habitat and sea ice in particular. Consequently, he suggests, polar bears are forced to swim longer distances and sometimes drown in the process.

“A new scientific study shows that for the first time they’re finding polar bears that have actually drowned swimming long distances – up to sixty miles – to find the ice,” Gore says in the movie.

John Berlau, author of a new book on the environmental movement entitled “Eco-Freaks,” claims the polar bear scene alone should disqualify Gore’s film from consideration for best documentary, because it departs from reality.

Berlau noted that while the movie’s companion book says the bears were drowning in “significant numbers,” the study Gore is most likely referring to only found four polar bear carcasses in the sea off Alaska.

That episode took place after a severe storm, he noted, but Gore makes no reference to a storm during the film’s animated polar bear sequence.

Gore also never cites a source for his polar bear claim, Berlau points out, but scientists on both sides of the polar bear debate told Cybercast News Service he was probably referring to a recent report filed by the U.S. Minerals Management Service.

Researchers with the service in 2004 found four dead polar bears floating in the sea off Alaska but said in a report that the bears “are believed to have drowned as a result of the storm.”

Berlau, an analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) – an organization known for global warming skepticism – who has also written about the entertainment industry, said the polar bear sequence does not square with a large body of scientific evidence.

“The polar bear cartoon was the emotional linchpin of this movie for a lot of people, but the science behind it was not rooted in truth and is a violation of rule 12 on many levels,” Berlau told Cybercast News Service.

“If the context of this film were not something politically correct like global warming, it would not be considered for an award,” he said.

Scientists and animal experts dispute whether polar bear populations are in decline, and if so, whether climate change is the main cause (see related story).

Gore “crosses a line” that takes his documentary from fact to fiction by flatly claiming polar bears are drowning, when in reality, there is no hard evidence to substantiate his claim, Berlau said.

In past years, the Academy has applied “very strong standards against the manipulation of animal scenes in film,” Berlau said.

He cited as an example a 1958 Disney documentary “White Wilderness,” which won an Oscar but was subsequently discredited. Film crew had apparently induced lemmings to jump off a cliff in an effort to highlight the species’ suicidal behavior.

If those standards were still in effect, “An Inconvenient Truth” would be disqualified, Berlau said.

Other more recent examples involving storytelling techniques described in rule 12 include “The Thin Blue Line” (1988) about the shooting of a Dallas police officer, and “Touching the Void” (2005), a film about a near-fatal climb in the Peruvian Andes.

Both films received critical acclaim but, Berlau said, ultimately fell short of serious Oscar contention because the Academy took issue with the use of re-enactments.

‘Gore’s the contrarian’

Another area in the movie that has raised eyebrows is Gore’s suggestion that climate change could lead to a 20-foot sea level rise, jeopardizing coastal areas of the U.S., including Florida and Manhattan.

The film shows computer-generated images of water flowing into New York City and covering the area where the World Trade Center once stood, as Gore draws a link between global warming and 9/11.

“Is it possible that we should prepare against other threats besides terrorists?” he asks. “Maybe we should be concerned about other problems as well.”

But climate experts who have spoken with Cybercast News Service scoff at the “alarmist” claim.

Even the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), supposedly the basis of scientific “consensus” on the issue, does not project sea rise levels anywhere near 20 feet.

Instead, the IPCC predicts a sea level rise by the end of the 21st century of between 0.3 feet and 2.8 feet with a “central value” of 1.5 feet.

Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, told Cybercast News Service the IPCC estimates avoid the more alarmist positions and are not far off the mark, according to his own estimates.

“I think Al Gore’s out of the mainstream,” Singer said. “He’s a contrarian.”

‘Creative license is necessary’

Michael Shashoua, an entertainment journalist and member of the Gen Art Film Festival Screening Committee in New York City, said rule 12 is legitimate insofar as it encourages documentary makers to hue as close to reality as possible.

But the rule could also be interpreted in such a way that precludes effective films from receiving their due, he told Cybercast News Service.

“Sometimes it is necessary to be subjective when exploring a part of reality and to put your best interpretation on events,” Shashoua said. “Rule 12 should not get in the way so long as the filmmaker is not playing fast and loose with the material. A little creative license is necessary, especially when actual footage is not available.”

Gore’s film passes muster in Shashoua’s view, because the film is built around a college lecture, and it “doesn’t stretch the truth to show Gore using devices in the same manner a professor might.”

Nina Gilden Seavey, director of the Documentary Center at George Washington University in Washington D.C., also does not anticipate any complications for “An Inconvenient Truth” involving rule 12 or any other standards.

Since the thrust of the film is about “Al Gore’s quest,” Seavey said, there should be no contention as long as “nothing is fictionalized about Gore’s quest.”

‘Rule is selectively enforced’

Nonetheless, Gifford, the filmmaker, sees a political agenda behind Gore’s predicted success.

Even if material in Gore’s film is “proven beyond a shadow of doubt to be untrue,” the Academy will not invoke rule 12, because the subject matter is politically correct, Gifford told Cybercast News Service.

“The fact is the Academy doesn’t care. The rule is selectively enforced depending on the politics,” he said.

To back up his argument that ideology is a factor, Gifford pointed to Michael Moore’s film “Bowling for Columbine,” a 2003 Oscar winner for best documentary.

To promote the view that the National Rifle Association (NRA) was indifferent toward shooting victims, Moore “faked scenes” and created a false reality with footage including edited excerpts of speeches by then NRA president Charlton Heston, Gifford charged.

David Hardy, an Arizona attorney and author, has written in depth about the issue of whether Moore’s movie met the definition of a documentary.

Shortly after Moore won the award, Gifford wrote a letter to the Academy urging a probe into the film’s eligibility.

“Should that investigation determine that ‘Bowling for Columbine’ contains, as claimed, fabricated scenes and video of real people that has been edited to manufacture a fictional reality intended to mislead viewers, then the director and producer of this film should be stripped of their award,” he wrote in the letter to Academy executive director Bruce Davis.

“Failure to conduct such an investigation and act according to its findings will diminish the stature of the Oscar, establish an exploitable precedent for future rule violators and be grossly unfair to the other nominees who did follow the rules,” Gifford wrote.

He confirmed Wednesday that he had received no response, written or verbal, from the Academy.

Gore’s movie is likely to be given a free pass, Gifford said, because, like Moore, he has definite left-of-center point of view that resonates with the Academy.

Waco

Gifford has himself enjoyed success with documentaries, including an Oscar nomination – and an Emmy Award – for the 1997 film “Waco: The Rules of Engagement.”

He co-produced and narrated the documentary, about the 1993 confrontation between the Branch Davidian sect and the FBI, which ended when the group’s compound was consumed in flames, killing 81 people.

Gifford recalls that the documentary came under fire. Since President Clinton was in office at the time, entertainment industry liberals were inclined to defend the government’s position, he said.

“We were in a place politically and culturally in the 1990s where you were labeled as a right-wing nut to even suggest the government’s official story was untrue,” Gifford said.

“The same ones now saying you can’t trust your government and you can’t trust what they’re saying about Iraq are ones who said it was disloyal and unpatriotic to say you can’t trust your government back in the 1990s,” he added.

Gifford said the Waco documentary withstood the criticism because actual footage was used and compelling evidence introduced.

The office of Laurie David, producer of “An Inconvenient Truth,” declined an invitation to comment, instead referring queries to Paramount Pictures.

Repeated phone calls to Megan Colligan, executive vice-president of publicity for Paramount Vantage, were not returned. Paramount Vantage is the specialty film division of Viacom-owned Paramount Pictures.

Cybercast News Service also contacted Teni Melidonian at the Academy’s public relations department. She indicated that Academy executives were unlikely to comment but did ask for a copy of the story to be emailed to her, to pass on to the appropriate officials. No Academy comment was received.

Al Gore’s Recycled Doom

Al Gore’s Recycled Doom
By L. Brent Bozell III
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 23, 2007
Al Gore may not have won the presidency (thank God), but over the last two years, he’s been given an enormous consolation prize by his friends on the left. He’s been designated as the Savior of the Planet. First came the warm wave of supportive publicity surrounding his slide-show documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” Katie Couric and Harry Smith and Oprah Winfrey all touted Gore as so warm, so vulnerable and self-effacing, and his predictions so impossibly scary. Last May, Gore and Couric sat together on a sunny day in Central Park and unspooled the doom. Manhattan would be under deep water soon if we don’t take drastic measures, they warned.

Now comes another warm wave of media smooches and applause with the news of his plan for an international set of “Live Earth” concerts to promote massive government action to curb humanity’s excessive reliance on energy. Impending global doom has become such a hip cause it’s now pushed by Cameron Diaz, Jon Bon Jovi, and a flock of other Hollywood astrophysicists, the homelessness issue having become passe.

Ever since the whole planet-panic kicked in around Earth Day 1970, there have been repeated predictions of impending doom, which didn’t exactly work out. When will someone in the media ever admit this?

Go back to 1989 and 1990. Instead of NBC’s Katie Couric handing the microphone over to Al Gore to lament how Manhattan’s about to go underwater, the same NBC network handed its microphone and camera crew directly to left-wing “Population Bomb” author Paul Ehrlich, awarding him large chunks of air time to imagine America losing the nation’s capital and the entire state of Florida.

In May of 1989, Ehrlich claimed, global warming was going to melt the polar ice caps, causing a flood in which “we could expect to lose all of Florida, Washington D.C., and the Los Angeles basin…we’ll be in rising waters with no ark in sight.” Ehrlich didn’t give a time frame, but his panicked report clearly suggested doom around the corner.

The panic was necessary to sell an extremely harsh “solution” of “enormous, rapid change.” Ehrlich commanded that to forestall doom, the world needed to cut its energy use in half over 20 years. Industrialization needed to be dragged to a screeching halt, not only in America, but especially in the Third World. Ehrlich felt the next generation of Americans should be denied the Earth-strangling prosperity of their parents, saying the world’s ecosystems “cannot support the spread of the American lifestyle to the Third World or even to the next generation of Americans.”

Ehrlich was back on NBC in January 1990 to sell his “inconvenient truth” line again. This time, he gave a more concrete timeline. Antarctica’s ice sheets were slipping, and then “we’ll be facing a sea-level rise not of one to three feet in a century, but of 10 or 20 feet in a much shorter time. The Supreme Court would be flooded. You could tie your boat to the Washington Monument. Storm surges would make the Capitol unusable.”

It’s been almost twenty years, we never cut our energy use in half, and Florida is still above water, not to mention D.C. and Los Angeles. We have yet to tie our boats to the Washington Monument. But the media are still handing over their microphones and their accolades to panicky predictions, with no apparent expectation that anyone will ever question their accuracy in a decade or two. How many decades do we wait to question these predictions?

Despite this, too many media outlets approach global warming with a surprising arrogance, insisting that all the facts are in and that anyone who seeks to confuse the public with dissent is too harmful to be heard. CBS reporter Scott Pelley scoffed “It would be irresponsible of us to go find some scientist somewhere” to cast doubt on the doomsayers. He went on to suggest any scientist who disagreed was probably paid off by fossil fuel interests.

Skeptics of global warming are even being compared to Holocaust deniers. It seems that climate science isn’t the only thing leftists monstrously exaggerate.

Don’t expect that in 2027, NBC will challenge Al Gore to explain why his “climate crisis” talk of Manhattan under water never occurred, it being assumed that NBC will still be broadcasting out of New York. By then, the torch of panic will be passed on to a new generation, which will no doubt also ignore the collapsed predictions of yesteryear as they pat themselves on the back as the vanguard of planetary compassion.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT KYOTO

http://www.conservativejoe.com/

With the three Canadian opposition parties joining together to force the present Conservative government to honour Canada’s catastrophic commitment to Kyoto, Prime Minister Stephen Harper finds himself between a rock and a hard place.

Being told he must now do, by law, what the Liberals themselves failed to do with a majority mandate, Stephen Harper has two choices. He can abide by the new law or let his government fall. While the act compelling our government to enact legislation and to table a plan within 60 days is not yet officially the law of the land, it will no doubt sail through the Liberal dominated Senate, thus becoming a reality.

So, what is Mr. Harper to do about Kyoto? I have a few suggestions. They may sound outrageous, but given the timetable which the Liberals and NDP feel comfortable foisting upon Canadians, there is little room to maneuver.

Here is my short list:

1) Place an immediate ban on any scientist, their families immediate and extended, and any member of the World Wildlife Fund, the Sierra Club, and a host of other militant, political, environmental lobbies from owning, driving, and/or riding in a private vehicle. They must now use public transit for any and all transportation.

2) Close our borders immediately. There will be an immediate cessation of any immigration. Any non-resident who leaves our country will not be allowed to return and any non-resident not already within our borders will be denied entry. Our national birthrate is so low that our population should immediately begin to plummet. This will reduce our Co2 emissions.

3) End any and all grain and oil exports. While these do feed and fuel the needs of millions of foreigners, these goods need to be transported, thus creating Co2 emissions. Bad. Very bad.

4) Close the oil sands. Of course foreign investment would flee, but to hell with it. The oil sands are dirty. Just think of the thousands of people who will lose their shirts when real estate plummets in Alberta. This is good. Poor people don’t buy new goods, thus further reducing our Co2 emissions.

5) Immediately step down and install a temporary NDP government. World history shows that any nation ruled by Socialists fails quickly, with productivity plummetting exponentially. This will allow Canada’s Co2 targets to be met.

6) Pass draconian laws forbidding Canadians from copulation. Births create humans, humans hurt the planet. Childbirth must be STOPPED!

7) Enact legislation requiring all workers to work 40 hours straight with no breaks. That way, we can reduce the trips in our cars to and from work by an immediate 80%.

Place obscene taxes on gasoline, thereby inhibiting its purchase. We already have these, they simply need to be multiplied a few times.

9) Restrict the building of homes. Require all low and middle income earners to live together in communal buildings. This will conserve energy. (The wealthy will be exempt from this. We DON’T want a revolution, you know.)

10) Create huge human-powered turbines which, when thousands of people pedal, create huge energy stores. Require all able-bodied Canadians to give 15 minutes a week to pedal our way to a greener world.

11) Immediately begin to disassemble our transportation infrastructure, leaving only enough roadway for the almighty TTC to use.

12) Immediately ban the use of any outdoor pleasure equipment that runs on fossil fuels. Fun is for earth-killers! No more snowblowers, lawnmowers, or outboard motors either. Paddles are in, as is long grass for hide-and-seek. The ban on snowblowers will cause more heart attacks as older people shovel, thus compounding the Co2 reductions.

13) Ensure that all new housing contains no electrical wiring. No power = no Co2 emissions.

14) Duplicate the blackout of 2003 on an annual basis. Turn everything off for 30 days, effecting a direct 8.3% reduction in Co2 emissions from our energy producers with untold spinoffs throughout the country.

While each of these sounds absurd, I can guarantee you that the end result of each would be lower Co2 emissions. And after all, that is the new god of liberalism. Nothing else matters, does it?

We will submit. All Hail, Mr. Suzuki.

Wire Service Spreads Misleading Bush-Killed-Kyoto History

Posted by Tim Graham on February 20, 2007 – 06:21.

One common media-created misconception in the Bush years is that the Clinton administration fully supported the international Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but the Bush administration arrived and refused to take any action on it. In reality, while Vice President Al Gore signed the Kyoto agreement for the United States, the Clinton administration never submitted it to the Senate for ratification (just like Bush), and the Senate voted 95 to zippy in a nonbinding sense-of-the-Senate resolution against Kyoto in 1997, because the agreement would curb American and European emissions, but place no restrictions whatsoever on China or other polluting “developing” nations.

Agence France Presse was the latest to use bias by omission to relay the Bush-killed-Kyoto theory. It was a story on that global savior Al Gore, declaring he would not run for president in 2008:

Gore was the US negotiator for the international Kyoto Protocol that set global goals on emission of so-called greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, produced by the burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal.

The protocol was agreed in 1997 and took effect in February 2005, but Bush refused to ratify it, citing its high economic cost and the fact that China and India, the world’s largest producers of greenhouse gases after the United States were, as developing nations, not bound by it.

It’s quite astounding that liberals would both (1) vote unanimously to avoid Kyoto and (2) trash Bush as the main stumbling block to Kyoto.