Reflections From a Murky Pond

Al Gore’s Greenwash is stripped away as repeated note of his energy hogging, extravagant lifestyle is taken. Here’s an excerpt from an article on Green Hypocrisy:

While the former veep and nouveau-$100 millionaire jets around the world squawking about the “planet having a fever” and demanding that we all lower our standard of living, his own personal electricity use is 20 times the national average, including an indoor pool costing $500/month to heat.

While Gore deflected criticism of his inconvenient electric bill during March congressional testimony by saying he purchased “green” electricity, the truth is, he didn’t start doing so until 2007.

Is it just me, or does Al Gore strike anyone else as someone who may “talk the talk“, but who is completely unwilling to “walk the walk” - all the while stridently demanding that the rest of us, who have fewer resources the he does, do so in his stead?

I’m not going to discuss Global Warming in this post because it’s secondary to the point of Al Gore’s hypocrisy. Let’s suppose though that Global Warming is terribly real. Let us also, for the sake of this particular discussion, suppose that human actions are the primary cause of Global Warming. Is a grandstanding hypocrite really the icon people should want for the issue? Think about it.

The Nature Conservancy has brokered the largest debt-for-nature swap in history — a deal that will secure long-term, science-based conservation for Costa Rica’s tropical forests:

• The United States will forgive $12.6 million in debt owed to it by Costa Rica.
• This move will in turn provide $26 million that will be used to finance forest conservation in Costa Rica over the next 16 years, protecting one of the world’s richest natural treasures for future generations.

This debt swap is unique in that it utilizes scientific analysis to determine the sites towards which the funds will be directed.

– Zdenka Piskulich
Program Director - Conservancy in Costa Rica

For the full story go here.

Indonesia is demanding to be paid $5-$20 USD per hectare not to destroy its remaining forests, for the first time giving an monetary figure that they want extort from the world’s wealthier and more environmental conscious countries. Indonesia wants “big emitters” such as the United States and the European Union to pay the country to preserve its pristine rainforests.

We will ask for a compensation of $5-20 per hectare. It’s not fixed; it is open to negotiation

– Rachmat Witoelar
Indonesian Environment Minister

With a total forested area of 91 million ha (225 million acres), Indonesia could receive as much as $US1.8 billion in blackmail (greenmail?) for preserving its forests under the proposal. Indonesia will also attempt to extort a fixed price for other forms of biodiversity, including coral reefs.

So far we have not received anything for what we have done Now that there is a price tag for preservation, the amount of money we get will increase multifold.

— Rachmat Witoelar

Asking the “big emitters” to agree to the environmental extortion is made even more intolerable by the fact that Indonesia is one of the world’s top three carbon emitters according to a report sponsored by the World Bank and Britain’s development arm.