[SpiritWarrior]

I didn't claim Bush was a champion of global warming and the environment. Then again, neither has he. What is important about the Kyoto Protocol in relation to Al Gore (who does promote himself as a champion of global warming) is that this is the ONLY measure he and/or Clinton even attempted during their 8 years in office with respect to cleaning up the environment - and they tried to get more exemptions put into the Protocol so it wouldn't have as much of an impact on American corporations. The point being that - while Gore was in the position do really DO something great and effective about global warming - he did practically nothing. And he tried to lessen the impact of the one measure he and President Clinton did sign off on.

I know you didn't claim Bush as a champion for global warming, I was simply comparing. I amn't sure what Al Gore did while in office (like I said I paid little attention to him until I saw this movie), and unless we have actual proof that he did "practically nothing", then we cannot come a real conclusion. Opinion is one thing. I'm sure there are logs of everything he was involved in pertaining to the environment (bills, protocols, speeches) but this would require quite a bit of digging and time, alongside a fair and unbiased eye so as to avoid cherry-picking results. Kyoto itself is monumental. It is sad to say it, but the miniscule amounts of emissions it aims for are something rather than nothing. In this day and age, and as far as the environmental awareness goes, that is a giant step. It's just a pity GW didn't get on board...

All the proceeds from Inconvenient Truth went to environmental causes? Whoop-De-freekin-Do. How much money did the film actually make? Several thousand dollars, maybe? Only a portion of that would have gone to Gore in any case. For a multi-millionaire like Gore, this income is hardly missed. So, again, it's a win-win for Gore. He gains the appearance of donating to a worthy cause in support of his own global warming efforts while "sacrificing" an income that would amount to little more than a pittance to him.

It was a little more than a few thousand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_inconvenient_truth
"Earning $49 million at the box office worldwide, An Inconvenient Truth is the fourth-highest-grossing documentary film to date in the United States (in nominal dollars, from 1982 to the present)"

If all the smears are true, then the message is tainted. And in Al Gore's case, it has been shown that his motives are hardly "noble" and "selfless". He owns a major share of the company he wants everyone to buy carbon offsets from. Since this business focuses on investments in "green technology", it is very self-serving for Gore to fly around the globe raising the alarm of global warming as loudly and as often as possible. Even if consumers don't buy the carbon offsets, there will be a push for the "green technology" the company invests in. Either way, Al Gore's stock in the company goes way up. So, no, that doesn't sound "selfless" to me.

Well, you didn't see the movie and don't intend to. In effect, all you have is second-hand info. to argue with. We don't know where the info. and opinions you are going with came from and how this information could have possibly been "tainted" also. The movie is hardly about marketing and preaching the virtues of buying carbon offsets, it is mentioned I think once, maybe? In my view like I said, I felt it wasn't self-promoting and was quite selfless. There are easier ways for the former VP to make cash, come on.

Honostly? No, I don't. All of the alarmist exaggerations over the last 30 years have left me more than a little skeptical of any current claims. Al Gore claims CO2 levels are higher than ever and this is the fault of man-made industries. Data has been provided which proves CO2 levels have been this high in centuries past and occurred long before mankind ever came close to the Industrial Revolution. If man IS responsible for the CO2 levels, then these levels should NEVER have occurred before. Since they DID occur when there was literally NO INDUSTRY at all, the claim that man is causing the current crises simply cannot be believed. In the 1970's, temperatures were cooler than normal. Back then, the environmental alarm was that we were headed for another Ice Age. Then temperatures warmed up. Rather than be embarassed by their reverse occurance of their alarmist predictions, environmentalists just flipped the record over and now started claiming the ozone depletion was going to lead to the sun burning Earth to a crisp. When evidence was presented to counter that alarmist claim, environmentalist switched to a more generalized alarm call of global warming. The Amazon forest has been "burning down" for at least 25 years that I can recall, and probably longer than that. Thunderous bells of alarm were rang in the 80's that global disasters were inevitable in the next 20 years if the burning of the forest was stopped immediately. Twenty five years later, environmentalist STILL make the same claims, ignoring the fact that their initial timeline for disaster expired. They simply keep regurgitating the message figuring the new generation won't remember that the same alarms were being raised before they were born. So, do I think global warming is an issue on the scale Al Gore and others would have us believe? No, I don't.

But here we get to the root issue. If the movie was flawless you still could not get behind it, and would always disagree with the overall message because you don't believe in it to begin with.

I do understand to some degree, per the points you made, as to why you don't believe, but look at it this way; we don't have another planet to run the experiment on. Therefore, can we afford to take the risk of it not being true? Let's think awhile on our answers here and understand that they will have to be written down and passed on to our children for their kids to read, explaining the reasoning as to why we didn't bother to do anything because we thought it was all one big hoax.