Cigarettes and Global Warming
Posted on | October 3, 2006 | 4 Comments
There’s a fascinating meme echoing around the Internet in recent days suggesting Al Gore said something idiotic. The source is a NewsMax story about a talk Al Gore apparently gave last week at the United Nations. The NewsMax article suggests Gore claimed that ” Cigarette smoking is a ‘significant’ contributor to global warming”.
It’s obviously an idiotic claim, and it seems extremely unlikely to me that Gore, practiced in the delivery of his global warming schtick and careful in his scientific citations, would have made it. But it’s nevertheless fascinating to watch its trajectory. The echo chamber effect in conservative circles has been deafening. In fact, the echo metaphor breaks down as it gets louder and louder. This suggests an audience eager to believe that Al Gore really is an idiot, and happy to spread any meme that supports that belief.
It’s a great example of the way it’s far easier to dismiss one’s political opponents as venal or stupid than it is to actually engage the substance of their argument.
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4 Responses to “Cigarettes and Global Warming”
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October 3rd, 2006 @ 2:23 pm
I’m going to go ahead and assume he’d never be that dumb while recognizing it as possible. Sometimes when in front of an audience you get yourself into situations where you just have to vamp on some idea to get yourself out of some hole you’ve built for yourself or some questioner has put you in. If you’re a good ad lib’er and you know your shit, you can talk yourself out. Sometimes you do something inadvertantly dumb, like linking cigs and AGW. I’ve been there a few times, thankfully usually in front of undergrads who didn’t know any better anyway.
October 3rd, 2006 @ 3:43 pm
Er, Kevin, you might want to read the rest of the article before leaping to that conclusion. See, e.g., the bit about Greenland “splitting in two” (which could possibly be a reference to the fact that the center of Greeland is below sea level, and so post-melt would appear to be sort of split in two, but phrasing it as the article does rather distorts the meaning). Similarly, as with the movie I’m sure Gore’s UN presentation did have a tobacco component, and given that it’s been in the news lately it’s likely Gore said something about the “sound science” connection between the issues, but slipping up and saying that the one is a cause of the other seems rather doubtful.
October 3rd, 2006 @ 5:05 pm
Steve -
Thanks for the “Greenland splitting” explanation. I’d forgotten that bit.
October 5th, 2006 @ 2:49 pm
It’s a great example of the way it’s far easier to dismiss one’s political opponents as venal or stupid than it is to actually engage the substance of their argument.
It’s also a great example of how NewsMax (the old Conservative News Service) enables FUD.
Best,
D