Al Gore`s Convenient Lies About Alberta`s Oilsands

[Xiao Jie]

Corbella: Al Gore's convenient untruths about Alberta's oilsands
 Pipelines are most environmentally safe way to ship oil
 By Licia Corbella, Calgary Herald September 3, 2011 

Al Gore is at it again - engaged in numerous convenient untruths.

The Goracle of Environmental Doom is launching a "worldwide" event called "24 Hours of Reality" on Sept. 14, that will focus "the world's attention on the full truth, scope, scale and impact of the climate crisis. To remove the doubt. Reveal the deniers. And catalyze urgency around an issue that affects every one of us."

This event comes on the heels of the former U.S. vice-president and star of the Academy Awardwinning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, calling on President Barack Obama to block the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast.

"The tarsands are the dirtiest source of fuel on the planet," Gore wrote. That may be a comment swallowed whole by such climate-change activists as Splash actress Daryl Hannah, who is presumably a climate change expert because she once played a mermaid (and therefore has first-hand knowledge of the oceans heating up). But it's far from the truth.

Gore, however, has admitted that he doesn't let the facts get in the way of his fearmongering on climate change.

"Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis," said Gore in a May 2006 interview with Grist Magazine.

"Over-representations of factual presentations" is a convenient way of saying "lie."

A U.K. court ruled that there were numerous inaccuracies in Gore's documentary, but said it could still be shown in British classrooms if some caveats were mentioned.

Ever since Climategate broke in November 2009, many climate alarmists have stopped using the term global warming and shifted to climate change, since climate has always changed and always will. It's hard to refute. Now they are also trying to pin all extreme weather events as human caused.

Climategate refers to the more than 1,000 e-mails and 3,000 documents that went viral on the Internet originating from the Climatic Research unit at East Anglia University in England. In essence, the e-mails suggest that the books were cooked to "hide the decline" and make the world look warmer than it is.

The raw data that has fuelled much of the world's climate alarmism was subsequently destroyed.

Indeed, if you go to Gore's site: climatereality.org, extreme weather seems to be his new pet project. Apparently, we humans are the cause of tornadoes, floods, hurricanes and every other extreme weather event that has been plaguing Earth since time immemorial.

Gore says extreme weather is called the "new normal, but there is nothing normal about it."

But Madhav Khandekar, who has a doctorate in meteorology and worked for decades with Environment Canada, says the belief that extreme weather events are increasing at an alarming rate "is much more perception than reality," caused in large part by the 24-hour news cycle and the fact that this more populous planet has more and more people building their homes on the banks of river flood plains and coastal areas prone to weather catastrophes.

"Back in the 1970s, when the mean temperature was in decline and scientists believed we were heading toward an ice age, there were more extreme weather events than today," said Khandekar from his Markham, Ont., home Friday. Yet another inconvenient truth for Gore and his believers.

From well-to-wheel, oilsands oil is not any more carbon intensive than conventional crude shipped across the ocean to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia. Even if you count the transportation emissions, oilsands oil is equivalent to heavy crude produced in California.

Transporting oil to the U.S. via a pipeline would cut back on carbon emissions, since pipelines are the most environmentally sound way to ship oil.

Alberta oil is also much more ethical than most other oil, as it doesn't fund terrorism or gender oppression, like Saudi oil does, and environmental oversight of the oilsands is far superior to those used in other oil-producing countries.

Meanwhile, Gore continues to fly around the world in his own private jet - the most highly polluting way to travel, other than space travel.

The Alberta oilsands produce just 0.1 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions; coal, on the other hand, is responsible for more than 20 per cent of the world's man-made GHGs, according to the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change. In fact, all of Canada only produces two per cent of the world's entire greenhouse gases and Alberta is responsible for just five per cent of that, but makes up more than one-quarter of the wealth on the TSX.

The U.S. coal industry alone produces 60 times more GHGs than the oilsands. In 2006, according to Environment Canada figures, oilsands mining, extraction and upgrading produced 33.2 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. That's pretty big.

But compared to the U.S. coal industry, it's tiny. In that same year, according to the U. S. Department of Energy, coal-fired plants in the U.S. pumped 1.9 billion tonnes of GHGs into the atmosphere.

For someone who hates carbon so much, Gore sure uses a whole lot of the stuff. According to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research in a report in 2007, Gore's home in that state, that he shared with Tipper, his now exwife, used more electricity in one month than the average American household uses in a year.

Gore keeps flying around the world in his private jet to lecture the rest of us to cut back our energy consumption. It's a bit rich, but then again, that very message has indeed made Gore a very rich man.

When Gore quit politics in 2001, his wealth was slated at $2 million. Since then, after he became the high priest of the global warming religion, his wealth has ballooned to more than $100 million. To assuage his guilt for having such an enormous carbon footprint, Gore buys carbon offsets from, get this - his own carbon offset company! Talk about a convenient reality.

That's how he could afford to fly in endangered Chilean Sea Bass to his daughter Sarah Gore's wedding rehearsal dinner in Beverly Hills back in July, 2007. Along with French champagne and the endangered fish, Gore apparently had no trouble swallowing his own hypocrisy.

Sadly, too many others have no problem swallowing his very convenient and enriching untruths.

Licia Corbella is a columnist and editorial page editor. lcorbella@calgaryherald.com

[Cartman]

That's how he could afford to fly in endangered Chilean Sea Bass to his daughter Sarah Gore's wedding rehearsal dinner in Beverly Hills back in July, 2007. Along with French champagne and the endangered fish, Gore apparently had no trouble swallowing his own hypocrisy.

I`ll have an order of your rare Chilean Sea Bass for delivery. Charge it all to my carbon offset company please.