THE TENSION: Counterbalance: Al Gore's Moral Equivalence

The high priest of a secular religion?
Open thread:

Today, in e-mail to subscribers, Nathaniel Ward of the Heritage Foundation discussed Al Gore.

Liberalism has a virulent new strain of political correctness, The Heritage Foundation's Helle Dale writes in The Washington Times. “Challenge the belief that the Earth is warming dangerously due to human activity, or criticize any of its high priests, and the wrath of true believers will be visited upon you.”

Recently, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, published a study that examined the energy usage of former Vice President, Oscar winner, and environmental activist Al Gore. “As it turned out,” Dale explains, “the Gore mansion interestingly uses 20 times more electricity than the average American home.”

Liberals, though, could not stand to see the high priest of their secular religion of environmentalism challenged --and they reacted. Dale continues: “Little did the staff anticipate that by posting the facts of the Gore family’s bloated and certainly hypocritical energy consumption on their Web site, they would create an international firestorm, become the subject of death threats, vicious verbal abuse and almost see their Web site shut down because of the onslaught.”

Perhaps it says something about the weak intellectual and moral ground on which liberalism stands that its defenders are forced to resort to such tactics.

Think about it for a minute.

Does pointing out the environmental practices of radical environmentalism’s chief spokesman -- facts that are in the public record, after all -- really warrant death threats?

Little did the [Tennessee Center ] staff anticipate that by posting the facts of the Gore family's bloated and certainly hypocritical energy consumption on their Web site, they would create an international firestorm, become the subject of death threats, vicious verbal abuse and almost see their Web site shut down because of the onslaught. According to the center's spokeswoman, Nicole Williams, a deluge of calls and e-mail have flowed in from all over the world, as far away as Germany, Australia, Turkey and Latin America.

Despite the fact that Mr. Gore in his movie hyperbolically calls climate change "the most important moral, ethical, spiritual and political issue humankind has ever faced," his sentiment has not spurred him or his family to change their lifestyle.

[This] is not the first time that Mr. Gore has displayed an astonishing gap between theory and practice. Who can forget the image of Mr. Gore floating beatifically in a canoe in New Hampshire in the 2000 election? Inquiries by an enterprising reporter for The Times uncovered that the river had to be dammed by the U.S. Park Service to raise the water table, which produced enough draft to float Mr. Gore's boat, so to speak.

Mr. Gore claims that it does not matter how much energy he burns because he buys Carbon Emission Offsets, a concept that used to be popular with the right and now has been taken up by Mr. Gore and friends. It means that wealthy consumers like Mr. Gore pay a fee to splurge, which is then invested in reducing carbon emissions in the developing world, allegedly a zero-sum game. Mr. Gore's money stays in the family, though. The company he deals with is called Generation Investment Management, LLP. Based in London and Washington, its chairman and founding partner is none other than Al Gore.

"I think of carbon offsets as 'indulgences,' " says Ms. Williams of the Tennessee Center for Public Policy Research, referring to the practice of the medieval Catholic Church selling the forgiveness of sins. What we need in environmental affairs, perhaps, is a reformation that will upend the orthodoxy and bring people back to their senses.