Gore to Win International Oscar

Al Gore adds yet another award to his collection:

Al Gore will be able to add another award to a collection that already includes an Oscar, an Emmy and the Nobel Peace Prize when Robert De Niro presents the former vice president with a special honor Monday night at the 35th annual International Emmy Awards…

The International Emmys honor excellence in TV programming produced outside the U.S.Gore will receive the International Emmy Founders Award not only in recognition of his role in raising the alarm about global warming, but also for his efforts in launching the interactive Current TV, said Bruce Paisner, president and CEO of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

“One of the main criteria of that award is someone who does something to promote our common humanity … and in terms of the cause he took up with climate change, he really has done that,” Paisner said in a telephone interview.

The award also honors Gore’s work as co-chairman and co-founder of Current TV. “He looks at Current as being the first major vehicle at the intersection of television and the Internet, and that’s a very important thing in terms of our industry,” Paisner said.

Current, a cable and satellite television network with an integrated Web site, relies on viewer-created “pods,” or short video segments, for about a third of its on-air content. It is now available in more than 50 million households in the U.S., Britain and Ireland.

“It is a way for viewers to make television theirs as opposed to just the broadcasters’,” Paisner said.

IPCC Issues Strongest Report To Date On Risks of Inaction on Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released its final report which is being called the most forceful statement on the dangers of inaction on climate change:

In its final and most powerful report, a United Nations panel of scientists meeting here describes the mounting risks of climate change in language that is both more specific and forceful than its previous assessments, according to scientists here.

Synthesizing reams of data from its three previous reports, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the first time specifically points out important risks if governments fail to respond: melting ice sheets that could lead to a rapid rise in sea levels and the extinction of large numbers of species brought about by even moderate amounts of warming, on the order of 1 to 3 degrees.

The report carries heightened significance because it is the last word from the influential global climate panel before world leaders meet in Bali, Indonesia, next month to begin to discuss a global climate change treaty that will replace the Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012. It is also the first report from the panel since it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October — an honor that many scientists here said emboldened them to stand more forcefully behind their positions…

“This document goes further than any of the previous efforts,” said Hans Verolme, director of the World Wildlife Fund’s Global Climate Change Program. “The pressure has been palpable — people know they are delivering a document that will be cited for years to come and will define policy.”

The previous three sections, released between February and April, focused on one issue at a time: the first on science, the second on how the world could adapt to warming and the third about how countries could “mitigate,” or reduce the greenhouse gases produced.

This fourth and final assessment — the so-called synthesis report — seeks to combine lessons from all three. Its conclusions are culled from data contained in the thousands of pages that were essentially technical supplements to the panel’s previous publications. How that data is summarized and presented to the world is a powerful guide to what the scientists consider of utmost importance at the end of a five-year process, offering concrete guidelines for policy makers…

Even though the synthesis report is more alarming than its predecessors, some researchers believe that it still understates the trajectory of global warming and its impact. The I.P.C.C.’s scientific process, which takes five years of study and writing from start to finish, cannot take into account the very latest data on climate change or economic trends, which show larger than predicted development and energy use in China.

“The world is already at or above the worst case scenarios in terms of emissions,” said Gernot Klepper, of the Kiel Institute for World Economy in Kiel, Germany. “In terms of emissions, we are moving past the most pessimistic estimates of the I.P.C.C., and by some estimates we are above that red line.”

The panel presents several scenarios for the trajectory of emissions and climate change. In 2006, 8.4 gigatons of carbon were put into the atmosphere from fossil fuels, according to a study in the proceedings of the National Academy of Science, which was co-written by Dr. Klepper. That is almost identical to the panel’s worst case prediction for that year.

Likewise, a recent International Energy Agency report looking at the unexpectedly rapid emissions growth in China and India estimated that if current policies were not changed the world would warm six degrees by 2030, a disastrous increase far higher than the panel’s estimates of one to four degrees by the end of the century.

Gods Customer Care Center

God’s Customer Care Center is now available on line here. The link is provided for the assistance of my web-savvy readers who will find this method of interfacing with God to be more convenient than old fashioned methods. No opinion is rendered as to the relative efficacy of various methods of receiving customer care. Liberal Values makes no guarantees as to the value of this service and any complaints are between you and God.

T. Boone Chickens And The Swift Boat Liars

Last week T. Boone Pickens offered to pay one million dollars to anyone who could disprove even a single claim from the Swift Boat Liars. I wish I had heard that as it sounds like easy money. Of course if you believe Pickens would actually make good on his offer there’s some email with business offers from some Nigerians which I’d like to forward on to you.

On Friday I posted John Kerry’s letter accepting this challenge. Pickens quickly reneged and has issued the following statement:

Dear Senator Kerry:

So glad to hear from you regarding the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth political ad campaign, and an offer I made public at an American Spectator dinner in Washington, D.C. last week. I am intrigued by your letter, and am certainly open to your challenge.

My concern at the Spectator Dinner was, and continues to be, that you and other political figures were and are maligning the Swift Boat Veterans, and I want to prevent this important part of American history from being unfairly portrayed.

In order to disprove the accuracy of the Swift Boat ads, I will ultimately need you to provide the following:

1) The journal you maintained during your service in Vietnam.
2) Your military record, specifically your service records for the years
1971-1978, and copies of all movies and tapes made during your
service.

When you have done so, if you can then prove anything in the ads was materially untrue, I will gladly award $1 million. As you know, I have been a long and proud supporter of the American military and veterans’ causes. I now challenge you to make this commitment: If you cannot prove anything in the Swift Boat ads to be untrue, that you will make a $1 million gift to the charity I am choosing — the Medal of Honor Foundation.

There goes the chances of anyone other than Kerry to even attempt to collect as nobody would have access to the material requested even if there is other evidence disproving the claims of the Swift Boat Liars. Kerry’s military record has previously been posted on line (from the years he was actually in the Navy), but it is quite a change in condition to expect someone to give their personal journal to someone who has clearly demonstrated the motivation to twist whatever information is available. Besides, from their history it is clear that no amount of evidence will get them to admit that they are lying as they have no interest in the truth. It is hardly necessary to let them poke around in Kerry’s personal records to disprove a bunch of obvious lies.

Pickens also changes the wager from disproving any claims made to disproving what was in the ads. While this could still be done, it is strange that all the false claims published in their book are suddenly no longer under consideration.

Moving the goal post has been common for the defenders of the Swift Boat Liars. First they claimed Kerry could end the attacks by releasing his military records. The military records were released and posted on line and that didn’t shut them up. Then they demanded that Kerry sign a Form 180 to have his records released. Kerry did so and journalists reviewing the records verified that these were the same as the records posted on line. Naturally conservatives then said this was not enough, and many even outright lie and say Kerry never released his records. We see this tactic once again from Pickens. They are determined to spread their lies and there is absolutely nothing which they will accept as evidence to disprove their false claims. Even before reviewing the facts surrounding Kerry’s medals, the conduct of Kerry’s accusers in this matter is enough to discredit them.