Right Wing Doctors Audio Clips To Distort Al Gore’s Comments About Cyclone Nargis»

One week ago, Tropical Cyclone Nargis struck Burma, tracing an unprecedented path of devastation across this poor nation of 55 million, called Myanmar by its military dictatorship. On May 6, Jeff Poor wrote for the Business & Media Institute (BMI) a story entitled, “Al Gore Calls Myanmar Cyclone a ‘Consequence’ of Global Warming,” which was subsequently linked on the Drudge Report. Poor claims:

Using tragedy to advance an agenda has been a strategy for many global warming activists, and it was just a matter of time before someone found a way to tie the recent Myanmar cyclone to global warming.

Poor wrote that Gore said in an interview on National Public Radio, “The year before, the strongest cyclone in more than 50 years hit China – and we’re seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming.” (Listen here.)

In fact, the audio clip has been doctored and the conclusion that “Al Gore Calls Myanmar Cyclone a ‘Consequence’ of Global Warming” is false:

Gore Says Myanmar Cyclone Not A Consequence Of Global Warming. The BMI headline ignores that Gore says in the interview that “any individual storm can’t be linked singularly to global warming – we’ve always had hurricanes.”

Gore Properly Described Relationship Between Storms And Global Warming. In the interview, Gore discussed Nargis and the devastating storms that struck China in 2006 (Typhoon Saomai) and Bangladesh in 2007 (Cyclone Sidr). He goes on to say that “the emerging consensus” among climate scientists is that the “the trend toward stronger and more destructive storms appears to be linked to global warming, and specifically to the impact of global warming on higher ocean temperatures in the top couple of hundred feet of the ocean, which drives convection energy and moisture into these storms and makes them more powerful.”

Story Presents False Clip Of Interview. The audio clip included with the online story includes two segments that have been spliced together, out of order, to mislead the listener as to Gore’s actual meaning. The actual transcript (see below) makes it clear Gore was saying that the “consequences” of global warming we’re seeing was the melting of the polar ice cap, which is unequivocally due to anthropogenic climate change.

Business & Media Institute Is Part Of Right-Wing Message Machine. BMI is a right-wing “free-enterprise” front group that is part of Brent Bozell’s conservative media machine, the Media Research Center. Poor describes himself on his Facebook page as a “professional jerk” with “very conservative” political views.

The actual transcript reveals that Gore was speaking in response to a question about conservative pastor John Hagee’s claim in a 2006 interview with Terry Gross that “Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.”

Poor’s story is being amplified and further distorted by the right-wing media machine. This morning, the Fox News “Fox and Friends” team covered the devastation of Nargis by attacking Gore’s “ill-advised” comments, claiming he is “in hot water again with climatologists.” Steve Doocy hosted Dr. William Gray, who has claimed that manmade global warming is “a big scam.” Here are Doocy’s two questions to Dr. Gray:

Al Gore says that the cyclone that’s killed a lot of people linked to global warming. Is that accurate?

When Al Gore says the big cyclone has killed all those people because of global warming, that’s, according to you, just wrong.

Watch it:

The people truly guilty of “using tragedy to advance an agenda” are Pastor Hagee, Jeff Poor, Matt Drudge, Steve Doocy, and their conservative ilk.

Digg It!

UPDATE: HT Dr. Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground Wunder Blog: Sea surface temperatures were over a full degree Celsius above average in the region where Nargis intensified before landfall, as can be seen from this May 1 National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration satellite map:

UPDATE II: Glenn Beck pushed the false story on his CNN show on May 7, and Media Matters exposes that Brett Baier claimed on the May 8 edition of Fox News Special Report: “Former Vice President Al Gore says global warming is to blame for the cyclone in Myanmar.”

UPDATE III: From ConWebBlog:

Poor’s BMI article now notes a “clarification” that “The original audio for this story included two accurate audio clips but placed in the incorrect order. They are now included on this story as separate clips.” Poor posted a version of his article at NewsBusters, but it doesn’t mention that Gore said that “any individual storm can’t be linked singularly to global warming,” it contains the original misleading out-of-order audio clip, and it contains no “clarification.”

Actual Transcript of Al Gore’s Interview with Terry Gross: Read the rest of this entry »

Gore Launches $300 Million Climate Action Campaign»

Today, former Vice President Al Gore and his organization, the Alliance for Climate Protection, launched a $300 million, three-year campaign with the goal of “educating people in the US and around the world that the climate crisis is both urgent and solvable.” The Washington Post reports that the “We” campaign “aims to enlist 10 million volunteers through a combination of network and cable commercials, display ads…and online social networks.” Gore told 60 Minutes he and his wife Tipper had donated the Nobel Peace Prize money and all the profits from his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” to this new campaign.

The campaign’s website, wecansolveit.org, includes action alerts, blogger outreach, and the message of a “clean energy economy” fueled by energy efficiency and renewable energy.

The campaign will launch TV advertisements later this week that “will team up offbeat celebrity couples who may not have much in common but share a belief that it is important to address climate change,” including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and former Speaker Newt Gingrich, Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson, and the Dixie Chicks and Toby Keith. Sign up for the campaign, and watch its debut ad:

The Alliance’s spending of $100 million per year on a public advocacy campaign may be without precedent. However, the public is being bombarded with propaganda from the industries whose emissions are causing global warming and thus have the most to lose — or gain — from how the United States regulates greenhouse gas pollution. Here’s a look at what Gore’s campaign is up against:

• The energy, transportation, agribusiness, chemical, and energy-intensive manufacturing sectors have spent a combined $80 million in donations to Congress and presidential candidates since 2007;
• The coal industry is sponsoring a $20 million lobbying campaign by the National Mining Association and a $40 million campaign by its front group Americans for Balanced Energy Choices;
• The American Clean Skies Foundation, a natural gas industry front group, is launching a “multi-million dollar media advocacy campaign” with a 24-7 online TV channel on Earth Day;
• The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Council for Capital Formation, and the energy industry front group Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth have launched a 17-state tour painting a doom-and-gloom scenario for the economics of climate change action;
• Chevron, a major exploiter of the Alberta tar sands, is running the “Power of Human Energy” campaign;
• General Motors, whose chairman recently called global warming “a total crock of shit,” is running “GMNext,” Gas-Friendly to Gas Free” and “Live Green Go Yellow” campaigns;
• ConocoPhillips, who spent $506 million to purchase oil and gas leases in polar bear habitat in February, is running ads with the tagline “So we can pass on what matters … to the ones who matter most.”