Al Gore’s Doomsday Clock

The Wall Street Journal
Al Gore gave a speech last week “challenging” America to run “on 100% zero-carbon electricity in 10 years” — though that’s just the first step on his road to “ending our reliance on carbon-based fuels.” Serious people understand this is absurd. Maybe other people will start drawing the same conclusion about the man proposing it.
The former vice president has also recently disavowed any intention of returning to politics. This is wise. As America’s leading peddler of both doom and salvation, Mr. Gore has moved beyond the constraints and obligations of reality.
His job is to serve as a Prophet of Truth.

In Mr. Gore’s prophesy, a transition to carbon-free electricity generation in a decade is “achievable, affordable and transformative.” He believes that the goal can be achieved almost entirely through the use of “renewables” alone, meaning solar, geothermal, wind power and biofuels.

And he doesn’t think we really have any other good options: “The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,” he says, with his usual gift for understatement. “And even more — if more should be required — the future of human civilization is at stake.”

What manner the catastrophe might take isn’t yet clear, but the scenarios are grim: The climate crisis is getting worse faster than anticipated; global warming will cause refugee crises and destabilize entire nations; an “energy tsunami” is headed our way. And so on.
Here, however, is an inconvenient fact. In 1995, the U.S. got about 2.2% of its net electricity generation from “renewable” sources, according to the Energy Information Administration. By 2000, the last full year of the Clinton administration, that percentage had dropped to 2.1%.
Mr. Gore’s argument would be helped if he were also willing to propose huge investments in nuclear power, which emits no carbon dioxide and currently supplies about one-fifth of U.S. electricity needs, and about three-quarters of France’s. Britain has just approved eight new nuclear plants, and the German government of Angela Merkel is working to do away with a plan by the previous government to go nuclear-free.
But Mr. Gore makes no mention of nuclear power in his speech, nor of the equally carbon-free hydroelectric power. These are proven technologies — and useful reminders of what happens when environmentalists get what they wished for.
Then there are biofuels, whose recent vogue, the World Bank believes, may have been responsible for up to 75% of the recent rise in world food prices. Save the planet; starve the poor.
None of this seems to trouble Mr. Gore. He thinks that simply by declaring an emergency he can help achieve Stakhanovite results. He might recall what the Stakhanovite myth (about the man who mined 14 times his quota of coal in six hours) actually did to the Soviet economy.
A more interesting question is why Mr. Gore remains believable.

Or maybe he is believed simply because people want something in which to believe. “The readiness for self-sacrifice,” wrote Eric Hoffer in “The True Believer,” “is contingent on an imperviousness to the realities of life. . . . All active mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it. . . . To rely on the evidence of the senses and of reason is heresy and treason. It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.”

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Wild Thing’s comment……..
What the hell is wrong with the Left? For a bunch that is so adamant about “separation of Church and state” they sure are obsessed about Prophets (Gore) and Messiahs (Obama).
“100% zero-carbon electricity”… ……use of “renewables” alone, meaning solar, geothermal, wind power and biofuels.
Hellloooo? Al needs a basic science lesson. Biofuels are made from plants, which contain carbon.
Remember when Gore said “Climate Crisis Worse Than Terrorism”? !!

“Former Vice President Al Gore (D) offered the opinion that global warming, not terrorism, is the biggest threat to America. The former VP said that it is imperative that the nation go “green” before it is too late.
“Terrorists may kill thousands,” Gore said. “Warming will kill billions and destroy civilization. If the government doesn’t take immediate action, the survival of the United States as we know it is at risk.”