bootstrapsforall2012:silas216:climateadaptation: Does it...

bootstrapsforall2012:silas216:climateadaptation:

Does it matter that Al Gore makes money from investing in green-tech companies?

Update: Many positive responses. But, the argument the right is making is that Al Gore has an agenda with his talks. That he’s talking up saving the environment as a rouse ruse to get people to invest in companies that he has stakes in. This is the same style of argument the left has used against politicians on the right - manipulating both markets and public-thought for personal gain. Dick Cheney, for the most egregious example, was hounded by the left for funneling contracts to Halliburton and the Carlyle Group, both of which Cheney had stakes in. In fact, some have argued his investments were an impeachable offense. I get that Gore is on the side of “good”. I understand that argument. But, it doesn’t really address the accusation that he’s talking up environmental regulations that would benefit a select group of ‘green’ companies. Thoughts? 

Of course, Gore has an agenda.  He’d like us to stop using the earth as our personal toilet bowl.

I don’t have a problem with someone making a buck from good intentions.  If Gore has to pressure politicians into doing something good, so be it, because, in my experience, politicians tend only to do the right thing when poked and prodded.  And saving what’s left of our little dirtball is a good thing.  After all, how many wars in the Middle East did Al Gore start?  How many river basins in Africa did he pollute?  How many nightmare environmental scenarios did he create in an effort to leverage more profits from projects that should never have gotten off the ground?

That’s the difference between Gore and Cheney:  one is trying to clean up the mess, and the other is profiting from making bigger messes.

And then there’s the fact that Al Gore didn’t fully focus on green energy until after he lost the presidential elections.  Whereas Dick Cheney was funneling contracts to companies he own while he was VP.  There’s a world of difference between a “green” activist using his political connections to help green companies (some of which he owns stock in) and the VP giving contracts to companies he partially owns, especially when it was with wars that he strongly supported even when there wasn’t evidence to support starting the war.