The Goracle Claims he is "Carbon Neutral"

At the recent hearings on Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) before the Senate, Al Gore made this proclamation about himself:

“We live a carbon-neutral life.”

The sleazy thing about this statement is that not only does it refer to a charade but one that is built on an emperor’s-new-clothes-type system that his Al-ness helped develop in order to amass further wealth and power.

I can just hear Gore talking to his staff many years ago when he first started hatching this scheme:

“Ok people”, announced the Goracle, “We all know that political power is gained through fear. Reagan gained his by playing on the fears of the Soviets. That creepy guy, and former boss of mine, Bill Clinton, gained his by playing up fear of Republicans. And so on. But the future, my friends, is in hyping the ultimate fear. The fear that we will use up our planet, boil its oceans, and it will end in fire. Hey, the Bible predicts it right?”

“So I say, we start pushing this environmental disaster, not like the old guard did with fears of DDT and fish kills. That’s kid’s stuff. Too easy to actually solve. No, what we need is something that can never really be solved! We need an environmental catastrophe caused by the very existence of an industrialized society itself! And need I mention that this looming catastrophe can only be addressed by bringing the full force of government to bear?”

But the Goracle’s minion’s asked, “What could possibly be so bad that even the full weight of massive, punitive, and even the Stalinist government tactics that we love so well, will hardly help?”

“I’m talking about global climate change here people.” spake the Goracle. “As our evil, white, Christian, bigoted culture spews billions of tons of steam, I mean hydrocarbons into the atmosphere, it is spelling the end of the world as we know it. It must be addressed and only I, (and a few other well-connected liberal venture capitalists) can ever hope to stop it.”

“What ARE we going to do to stop it?”, the slavering suck-ups asked.

Then the Goracle responded, “We must first lay the groundwork for how the atmosphere will overheat if something isn’t done about SUVs. We’ll call it the “Boiling Stratosphere” problem, or some such thing. We bribe (or coerce) the scientific (*snicker*) community to go along with us. These days they are so beholden to the almighty government grant (not to mention that some of them are just plain simpering cowards) that getting most of them onboard will not be difficult. Our apologists in the media can be relied upon to squelch any mention that there are “Boiling Stratosphere” skeptics but they’ll just call them homophobes and holocaust deniers and that should put them in their place.”

“But, but”, stammered a Goracle minion, “Won’t the oppressive government measures you recommend to deal with the “Boiling Stratosphere” problem be a problem for us too? I mean, sure, it will enrich you and your select capital venturists, and sure it might mean you will finally be crowned king, I mean elected President, but we don’t want to curtail our driving of SUVs, our flying of G4s, our living in 30K sq. ft houses, our trips to Cancun.”

“That’s the beauty of this plan people”, spake the Wonderful Wizard. “I, and a few of my friends have developed a system where you simply buy the rights to output carbon emissions that are over the “limit” (*snicker*). Besides, hydrocarbons, as we all know, are not pollutants anyway. They’re harmless, but they are the perfect boogie-man for my plan. We don’t have to feel guilty about producing more of them with our lifestyle but they can, through scientific consensus, media disinformation, and educational “documentaries”, be shown to be the source of the “Boiling Stratosphere” problem.”

“But even better, because everyone will believe that they are producing the “Boiling Stratosphere” problem, they will gladly yield to my “Boiling Stratosphere” carbon offset program. What I intend to so is set up one or more companies that trade in these carbon offsets. Essentially, we buy the rights to as large of a carbon footprint (*snicker*) as we want through the sale of offsets to Hollywood imbeciles and corporations who have onerous regulatory requirements to meet my carbon output criteria. It is a beautiful thing! We make money on the buying and selling of phony offsets and we get to still live our lives of luxury. Not only that, I’ll set myself up as the physician to Gaia Herself and as the savior of the planet while you people get to worship me without hardly any cost.”

At this, Al thought to himself, “and people call ME a moron.”