Al Gore, Alarmist/Entrepreneur

Matt Vadum, writing at the CRC blog, discusses Gore's new ad campaign to share his environmental concerns, which of course many people feel have veered over into "Chicken Little" territory.

An article in The Politico says Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection is producing a TV commercial featuring Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton

sitting on a couch on the beach. In the ad . . . they say that while they may not agree on many things, they do agree that they have to work to save the planet.

A future couple in the “strange bedfellows” or “unlikely alliances” spots will be recorded soon: Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Does $300 million sound like a lot of money? It does, except when you consider how much more Gore stands to personally profit from the climate of mass hysteria he’s been been helping to create with a no-holds-barred campaign of misinformation aimed at marginalizing and ostracizing all those who dare to question his take on global warming.

As we reported in the August 2007 issue of Foundation Watch (”Al Gore’s Carbon Crusade: The Money and Connections Behind It,” by Deborah Corey Barnes), with help from friends at Goldman Sachs, including Hank Paulson, the investment bank’s former CEO who is now the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Gore has established a network of organizations to promote the so-called climate crisis and keep himself in the spotlight.

Gore himself is chairman and founder of a private equity firm called Generation Investment Management (GIM). According to Gore, the London-based firm invests money from institutions and wealthy investors in companies
that are going green. GIM appears to have considerable influence over the major carbon credit trading firms that currently exist: the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) in the U.S. and the Carbon Neutral Company CNC) in Great Britain. CCX is the only firm in the U.S. that claims to trade carbon credits.

If carbon emissions trading ever comes to the United States, Al Gore will be uniquely positioned to cash in. As a politician, Gore speaks warmly of transparency. But as GIM chairman, Gore has not been forthcoming. Little is known about his shadowy firm’s finances, where it gets funding and what projects it supports.

Richard Campbell, a spokesman for Generation Investment Management, is apparently referring to Matt's charges as a “nonsense story.”

In an e-mail message to The Chronicle, he claims that neither Mr. Gore nor any other members of the investment company’s board will make money from the expansion of carbon trading: "To suggest then that they are somehow benefiting from the growth of this industry betrays a complete lack of knowledge of the carbon offset industry.”

Well, of course: Vadum didn't say they are benefiting now, in real time. He wondered whether they might in the future.

All I know is that Gore has a hammer—of sorts—and it looks like most of the most pressing problems in the country and on the globe are starting to resemble nails.