“Al Gore won a Nobel Prize and an Oscar for his film, An Inconvenient Truth. But in the last three months, as global warming has gone from a scientific near-certitude to the subject of satire, Gore — the public face of global warming — has been silent on the topic,” Koprowski reports. “The former vice president apparently finds it inconvenient even to answer calls to testify before the U.S. Senate. You can call him Al… but he won’t call back.”
“On Tuesday, Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe — a prominent skeptic of global warming theory and the Republican leader of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee — issued a request for Gore to come testify on global warming,” Koprowski reports. “In an interview with FoxNews.com, Inhofe said he wants Gore to appear because ‘it will be interesting to ask him on what science he based his movie,’ a film the senator considers ‘science fiction.'”
“Gore has yet to respond, but that didn’t prevent him from causing a stir at Apple’s shareholder meeting Thursday. According to CNET, Gore was seated in the first row while several stockholders bashed his high-profile views on climate change. One reportedly said Gore ‘has become a laughingstock. The glaciers have not melted,'” Koprowski reports. “Gore did not reply, and he has not commented on his blog or Twitter feed.”
“Since his appearance at the Copenhagen climate summit in December, Gore has been reluctant to talk to the media, making only a handful of public appearances,” Koprowski reports. “On Jan. 16, he spoke at the American Library Association conference at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, and he signed copies of his newest book, Our Choice: How We Can Solve the Climate Crisis. On Feb. 22, at the IBM Pulse Conference in Las Vegas, Gore commented on how the environment was a fantastic business opportunity.”
“The media, meanwhile, have started to ask why the world’s most famous advocate of all things green remains mute on the growing chorus of opposition,” Koprowski reports. “‘The godfather of climate hysteria is in hiding as another of his wild claims unravels — this one about global warming causing seas to swallow us up,’ the editors of Investors Business Daily wrote on Tuesday. ‘We’ve not seen or heard much of the former vice president, Oscar winner and Nobel Prize recipient recently as the case for disastrous man-made climate change collapses.'”
Full article here.
Erica Ogg reports for CNET, ” Apple’s attitude on environmental and sustainability issues was one of the main concerns of the stockholders present Thursday, followed closely by the company’s immense pile of cash. But early harsh comments about former Vice President Al Gore’s record set the tone.”
“Gore was seated in the first row, along with his six fellow board members, in Apple’s Town Hall auditorium as several stockholders took turns either bashing or praising his high-profile views on climate change,” Ogg reports. “At the first opportunity for audience participation just several minutes into the proceeding, a longtime and well-known Apple shareholder–some would say gadfly–who introduced himself as Shelton Ehrlich, stood at the microphone and urged against Gore’s re-election to the board. Gore ‘has become a laughingstock. The glaciers have not melted,’ Ehrlich said, referring to Gore’s views on global warming. ‘If his advice he gives to Apple is as faulty as his views on the environment then he doesn’t need to be re-elected.'”
“Another shareholder immediately got up to defend Gore and endorse his presence as an Apple director. And that wasn’t the end of it. Two different proposals from shareholders were presented in regard to Apple’s environmental impact,” Ogg reports. “Both proposals were ultimately rejected by shareholders.”
“Despite his apparently polarizing nature, Gore was re-elected with the rest of the slate in preliminary results. Proposals regarding changes to an employee stock plan, directors’ stock options, an advisory vote on executive compensation, and selection of Ernst & Young as Apple’s public accounting firm were all passed to complete the official business portion of the event,” Ogg reports. “One shareholder asked if Apple might consider investing in electric-car maker Tesla. To that, Jobs replied he was planning on throwing ‘a toga party’ with the money instead.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The results of a poll regarding Al Gore that we ran January 12-17, 2010 are below. We’ve put it up again fresh (top left column of the “big” (non-mobile) site) to see if there’s any appreciable difference now, six weeks later.
