Real Time

Newsweek has an interview with Al Gore on his new movie and book, An Inconvenient Truth. The online only story is entitled "At some point, reality has its day." Most of the story is not new to those who follow the climate debate, but there are some nice quotes. On the deniers and the Exxon Mobil connection:
...I think that it’s an example of the Upton Sinclair quote that “It’s hard to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding.” The behavior of ExxonMobil is disgraceful. They finance in whole or in part 40 organizations that put out disinformation on global warming designed to confuse the American people. There has emerged in the last couple of decades a lobbying strategy that is based on trying to control perceptions. In some sense it’s not new, but it’s new in the sophistication and the amount of resources they devote to it. It’s not new in the sense it’s the same thing the tobacco industry did after the surgeon general’s report of 1964, and that is a major part of the reason why the Bush administration doesn’t do anything. The president put their chief guy in charge of environmental policy in the White House.
On manufactured reality:
But you know the temptation to reject the truth and try to manufacture your own reality is what got us into Iraq—it’s what got us into these deficits. At some point, reality has its day. I hope they’ll change. I think there is a chance they’ll change. You know Winston Churchill once said that the American people generally do the right thing after first exhausting every other alternative. And maybe after exhausting every other alternative, Bush will do the right thing on this. I’m not going to hold my breath, but I do think that there’s a chance...
On depolitizing the environment:
..Now where the global-warming mission is concerned, I am a single-minded advocate to deliver a message that I think is crucial for our future. I don’t think that is a partisan message. I don’t think it should be a partisan message. I try to make it nonpartisan...

Unfortunately, Bush and Rove seem only to care about politics. Policy only interests them if it can advance their political agenda.

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