I remember Steve McIntyre noting that when Al Gore spoke at the AGU, he noted that the style of communication was that of a revivalist preacher - a remark which got him some flak at the time, until other commentators noticed it as well.
Al Gore was welcomed by a standing ovation from about 4,000 scientists from the AGU convention in the Salon 8 Ballroom at the Marriott San Francisco. He spoke for an hour and was a far more accomplished speaker than one remembers from Presidential debates, glancing only occasionally at notes. It was like a Southern Baptist orator had seamlessly changed texts. His speech was a type of sermon: a few well-practised jokes to start, a commentary on selected verses followed by a call to commit. Gore himself has gotten a little stout over the years (not that I can throw stones on this count) and a little jowly, so his presentation and appearance resulted in a type of secular avatar of Jerry Falwell.
And just to show that that observation is entirely valid, Al Gore went to the New Baptist Covenant Celebration in Atlanta on January 31st and produced fire and brimstone:
“This is not a political issue,” Gore told a crowd of approximately 2,500 paying attendees. “It is a moral issue. It is an ethical issue. It is a spiritual issue.”
Gore quoted Scripture several times in his speech and repeated his views that increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere are causing a global climate crisis. Gore produced an Academy Award-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which also dealt with global climate change and is being shown at the New Baptist Covenant meeting.+
In an introduction of Gore, Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, called the former Democratic presidential nominee a “Baptist prophet” and criticized the Southern Baptist Convention for its failure to commend Gore for his achievements. He also presented Gore with a “Baptist of the Year Award.”
Al Gore is “Baptist of the Year”. Whatever.
Back to the fire and brimstone:
Gore, citing Luke 12:54-57 for scriptural support, argued that it is dishonest for anyone to claim that global warming is merely a theory rather than a scientific fact.
“The evidence is there,” he said. “The signal is on the mountain. The trumpet has blown. The scientists are screaming from the rooftops. The ice is melting. The land is parched. The seas are rising. The storms are getting stronger. Why do we not judge what is right?
“I think there is a distinct possibility that one of the messages coming out of this gathering and this new covenant is creation care — that we who are Baptists of like mind, in attempting in the best of our human abilities to glorify God, are not going to countenance the continued heaping on contempt on God’s creation.”
Now I had to look up that passage that Gore quoted. In the New American Standard Version, it reads like this:
54 And He was also saying to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out.
55 “And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out that way.
56 “You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time?
57 “And why do you not even on your own initiative judge what is right?”
Now that passage looks like it was ripped from its context. The context is Jesus telling the crowds about his divine mission:
49 “I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled!
50 “But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!
51 “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division;
52 for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three.
53 “They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
So the signs quoted by Gore are not about the weather, but about the divisiveness of Jesus’ message and the coming Judgment of sinners (that’s the context of the 12th Chapter). Real fire and brimstone stuff.
Gore concludes:
Gore said some Baptist spokesmen deny the reality of global warming because they are locked in a coalition with rich and powerful people who take advantage of the poor for economic profit.
“When did people of faith get so locked in to an ideological coalition that they got to go along with the wealthiest and most powerful who don’t want to see change of the kind that’s aimed at helping the people and protecting God’s green earth?” Gore asked
Now that’s rich coming from Gore, a man whose family fortune came from the oil industry and whose second fortune is being made by selling indulgences carbon credits to rich people to assuage their environmental guilt.
The article ends with something bizarre - who does Gore blame for this catastrophe?
Among the effects Gore cited of increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are floods, tornados, hurricanes and droughts. Global warming affects the poorest people of the world most. He cited three factors responsible for recent increased levels of Greenhouse gases — population growth, the science and technology revolution and errant thinking by humans.
So Gore is in favour of ignorance and superstition after all. Science and technology are the problem, not the solution.
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