Al Gore's Fire Myths

 by Ben-Peter Terpstra  

| View comments |  Print This Post

If our planet is burning, then chardonnay socialist judges backed by green politicians owe us an apology.

You’ve no doubt heard all the environmental scare stories you can stomach. If, for example, one takes Al Gore’s prophecies as gospel, Australia is heading for a collision course with Mother Nature. There will be, we are told, many bushfires.

Will we all burn? Al Gore seems to think so. Curiously, he has visited Australia twice this year to share his hysterical fears. Indeed, we are already burning, he informed us, because the West is mean to Earth Mother. 

The new green orthodoxy was explicit in the warnings Al Gore shared on ABC’s pro-global warming 7:30 Report, to promote his new documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

You have great fires, increasing every decade . . . All of these things are predicted to get worse still until we turn the earth’s thermostat down, which means reducing the pollution that’s causing it to go up.¹

Suffer the little children. 

Ah fun. Some people don’t have a clue what Gore is fuming about but I gather he is trying to scare us. Australia did not sign Kyoto. Al Gore’s hysterical concerns, however, were also being echoed on Australia’s Channel 9 too as seen below:

You’re already suffering impacts from global warming here [in Australia] by fires, water shortages, more powerful cyclones . . .²

Amen sister. Oh, yes, the thermostat. It must be scientific. I know, I know. Gore went on and on about deadly fires during his energy-rich “save the world” tour.

(By the way, when did we start suffering from the fruits of “global warming?” 1975? 1985? 1995? 2005? Easter Monday, 2006? Mum’s birthday, 2006? And where are the scientific charts to support this evidence, Mr. Gore? Sure, facts are great things.)

But is “global warming” the real terrorist? Almost two-thirds of bushfires, for instance, are lit by humans, according to conservative estimates. Moreover, historian Paul Collins points to the inconvenient truth that “police are lucky to catch one in 200 arsonists, and then only the stupid ones” in Australia.³

He has a point. Collins is, perhaps unwittingly, advancing my position that criminals are responsible for more fires than we have been led to believe. So is Al Gore mistaken?

For centuries, humans, and pyromaniacs specifically, have delighted in burning bush lands. In other words, the “great fires” Gore lectures about are real, no doubt, but he is dressing up law and order issues as “global warming” signs and wonders.

Turning to police records, streetwise Australians know that serious crimes have increased by a factor of 7 since the 1960s. Funnily enough, pyromaniac activities and therefore suspicious fires have increased steadily over this period too. 

Why is this so? Show me some revolving door prisons, adults-only libertarian judges and freed anarchists, and I will show you some “great bushfires,” Mr. Gore. If our planet is burning, then chardonnay socialist judges backed by green politicians owe us an apology.

Inarguably, fires are dangerous.  However, our criminal classes as opposed to the industrial revolutionists are responsible for the “great fires.” Indeed, a good body of research – and poignant testimony from statisticians – is lifting the lid on this contentious issue. History, I like to say, is not on Gore’s side.

Disappointingly, political movements can sometimes capitalize upon confusion among a group of vulnerable minds. To the devoted environmentalist, all hope lies in selling the myth or even passing yourself off as a village hero. “I’ll save you from the great fires.”

On October 3, 2000, for example, Al Gore famously claimed, in his First presidential debate, that he of all people bravely “accompanied James Lee Witt down to Texas when those fires broke out [in Parker County].” Yes, that’s me you hear laughing in Australia.⁴

The above claim, however, turned out to be a falsehood. Al Gore was never at the place in question with Witt. Still, he wants you to know that he is a manly firefighting hero.

In any case, Gore’s intense language (“great fires,” “water shortages,” “flat earthists”) serves the purpose of constricting the listeners’ thinking and closing down debate. The “I’ll save you from the great fire” lunatics are not dummies. Fear works for suckers.

Indeed, derogatory names are given to skeptical environmentalists by green politicians to reinforce “groupthink.”  Tellingly, Gore has the “solutions” – from signing international agreements with pretend signatories to driving effeminate electric cars around Malibu before you fly to Sydney. Just keep your thorny history questions to yourself.

In point of fact, selectively applying terms like “climate crisis” and “climate change” should be rejected on historical grounds alone. So-called weather patterns are as unpredictable as Hollywood starlets. Indeed, I for one, thank God that I was born after 1850, when the earth was finally emerging from the 400-year long Little Ice Age period.

Pyromania (“Impulse-Control Disorder”), of course, is no laughing matter. The loss of properties from farms to cities, the painfully slow deaths of koala bear populations (not to mention firefighters), the economic implications, or even wasting truckloads of water – a concern allegedly close to Gore’s heart –  are all important issues.

Today, Australia, like America, is a haven for firebugs. These feral creatures of the night, after all, are fuelled by a love of wide open spaces, enabled by despondent mental health professionals, and coddled by talk-therapy only judges. Why wouldn’t a firebug burn us to high heaven in order to reach his or her heightened state of arousal?

Based on the above consequences of pyromania and their root causes (sparked by talk-therapy only libertarian judges), Al Gore is poised for defeat on this vexing issue. Honestly, how many times can one blame the car-loving earthlings?

In closing, consider this: If firebugs, God forbid, destroyed Al Gore’s 10,000-sqaure-foot, 20-room, Mc Mansion in Tennessee and threatened to burn his 4,000-square-foot home in Virginia, would the green preacher rush to blame “global warming” and move to his third house, or would he take the pyromaniacs to court? Now there’s an inconvenient question.

Endnotes

1. “Gore in Fight for truth on Global Warming,” The 7:30 Report (Reporter: Kerry O’Brien), Broadcast: 11/09/06.

2. “Gore Says Kyoto is Moral Issue,” Channel Nine (Reporter: Daniel Street), 12/09/06

3. Paul Collins quoted “In Tongues of Fire,” TIME Australia (Reviewer: Elizabeth Keenan), 09/10/06, p.62. 

4. “False Advertising,” John J. Miller, National Review Online, 30/05/00. 

Environment, Animal Rights, Health Issues, & Drugs

Read more articles by Ben-Peter Terpstra