Climate Hypocrites and the Media that Love Them
Table of Contents:
- Climate Hypocrites and the Media that Love Them
- Introduction
- Leonardo DiCaprio: Drowning in a Sea of Hypocrisy
- James Cameron: Writer, Director, Producer, Eco-terrorism Supporter
- John Travolta: This is Your Captain Speaking, Asking You to Ignore My Hypocrisy
- Al Gore: Making Hundreds of Millions off of Greenwashing
- Arianna Huffington: A Paycheck Signed by Actual Activists
- Matt Damon: Oil Money for Eco-causes
- Ian Somerhalder: Tweeting About Climate Change from 30,000 feet
- Woody Harrelson: Actor Thinks the Holocaust is Funny, but Making Paper from Trees is 'Barbaric.'
- Julia Roberts: The Voice of 'Mother Nature'
- Gwyneth Paltrow: Out of Touch Obama Fangirl
- Mark Ruffalo: Hulk Smash Anyone Who Criticizes Climate Change Alarmist Hypocrites
- Cameron Diaz: Envying the Third World from the Comforts of Beverly Hills
- Conclusion
- Methodology
- Recommendations for Journalists
Al Gore: Making Hundreds of Millions off of Greenwashing
Net worth: $300 Million
Yachts, planes, cars: private jet
Foundation/Nonprofit: The Climate Reality Project
Eco-awards: Nobel Prize
Famous for: Former-Vice President of the United States, former owner of Current TV, Actor (An Inconvenient Truth)
Notable Quote: “I wish that I had been wrong.”
Al Gore didn’t start his career as a celebrity, but the media have certainly turned him into one.
On January 29, 2013’s edition of NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer praised the former-Vice President for having "never shied away from the very tough issues" and asked, "after years of calling people's attention to this issue, and now we've seen Superstorm Sandy and tornadoes and drought and extreme temperatures, do you feel vindicated?"
Gore replied, "well, I wish that I had been wrong. And I wish that the scientists whose message I was carrying had been wrong. It's not about me. It's about us and what we do to safeguard our future."
During the interview, Gore eagerly used such disasters to promote his cause: "today is the three-month anniversary of Superstorm Sandy … these storms, it's like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation on the news every day now."
The same month that Gore sat for this interview, he sold his Current TV network to Al Jazeera – the international news network partly owned by the Qatari royal family for $500 million. The entire economy of Qatar is based on oil. Apparently to Gore, $500 million was worth more than the future of the planet. Since Gore personally owned a 20 percent stake in Current TV, this could have meant a $100 million payout for him, according to The New York Times.
Early in that interview, Lauer did ask Gore about this sale and his apparent hypocrisy, but then quickly went back to praising Gore for his climate change alarmism. He even let Gore excuse himself by saying that this sale was justified because Al Jazeera had “established itself as a really respected news-gathering network.”
For someone who claims a climate change apocalypse is just around the corner, Gore doesn’t seem to feel the need to change his own extravagant lifestyle. Gore predicted in 2007, as he accepted his Nobel Prize, that the Arctic ice cap could have as few as seven years left. Despite this, Gore has jetted around to speaking tours all over the world.
Gore’s “Live Earth” concerts are perhaps his biggest hypocrisy. While not accomplishing more than “raising awareness” for climate change alarmism, his concert in 2007 managed to produce as much carbon emissions as 3,000 residents of the U.K. would produce in a year, according to The Guardian. The British news outlet even compared the concert to holding “a hog roast to promote vegetarianism.” Performers at the event flew a combined total of at least 222,000 miles, while the number of cars, planes and other forms of transportation used by attendees undoubtedly far surpassed that.
Gore announced in January 2015 that he plans to host a second concert on June 18. In response to criticisms about the carbon-spewing of celebrities at the last event, co-organizer Pharrell Williams has said that the 100-artist event with locations on all seven continents will “do something very different this time.” Whether or not this concert lives up to that promise remains to be seen.
In 2007, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research (now the Beacon Center of Tennessee) found that Gore’s “20-room home and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average,” according to an ABC News online story. Despite also briefly mentioning this in a newscast, ABC joined the other networks in praising Gore. In 2014 alone, there were five non-interview instances where the networks praised Gore for being a “climate activist.”
Despite this report, Gore told The New York Times on March 16, 2015, that he has reduced the environmental impact of his home, adding “I do walk the walk, and don’t just talk the talk.” How much he has reduced that impact, or whether or not this change was before or after the Tennessee Center for Policy Research report was not mentioned. The New York Times did not ask him for more details, and the only criticism mentioned in the story (which was the main story for the Science Times section) was presented to Gore for rebuttal.
Yet, Gore is outspoken in his insistence that the climate change apocalypse is not only coming, it’s right around the corner. And the media have repeatedly ignored Gore’s hypocrisy.
In his December 10, 2007 Nobel Prize speech, Gore said “Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is ‘falling off a cliff.’ One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years.”
Meanwhile, the Antarctic Ice cap has been steadily increasing, although climate alarmists dismissed this increase as actually being caused by warming temperatures.
