re: #216 Obdicut

Holy crap, you just compared Al Gore to BP.

Take a moment and think this the hell through, dude.

You seriously think that Al Gore, incredibly wealthy dude, is attempting to get people to realize the dangers of climate change so that he can profit off of it? That’s his grand fucking scheme for making more money— convincing everyone of a very, very important scientific truth and making money off of it?

That is really, really fucking close to saying that we can’t trust scientists because they make money off of grants, or saying that we can’t trust anyone promoting cleaner energy because they stand to profit.

God, I’m so sick of that position. It just drives me up the fucking wall. Suddenly if someone is making money off of something they’re bad, bad, bad, even if they’re absolutely right.

Can you explain why?

My position isn’t as extreme as that. I would prefer to see politicians that stand to benefit from something put their assets in a blind trust if they are advocating or legislating something they can profit from. For example here in Georgia our outgoing Governor has the potential to profit from expanding the Port of Savannah. Something that would benefit our state. He’s catching flak for his own potential profit. He would have been better off to put that company in a blind trust before persuing the expansion. His motives could be pure but he left himself wide open for criticism.

Gore could have been more circumspect and in turn kept his advocacy from being politicized - that’s all. (And no he doesn’t deserve the level of grief he receives).