I had the opportunity to watch the last 3/4's of "An Inconvenient Truth" and the follow on update last night. It was on the HD channel and I find it hard to not watch just about anything in High Def. It wasn't at all what I was expecting. I was expecting something along the lines of a Ken Burns documentary. Instead, it was Al Gore giving his Powerpoint (Keynote actually) presentation that he's been jetting all over the world to give. I put on my anti-agenda hat and watched with an interested eye, not just to see what the other side thinks but also to see if I could glean any non-slanted information.
I was surprised by two things. First, Mr. Gore presented a mountain of evidence that the earth is in fact warming. I see no reason to not believe many of the facts about glacial melt, permafrost melt and evaporation in more arid climates. What didn't surprise me is that with all of the concern about rising temps I didn't really see anything linking CO2 levels or other greenhouse gases to this phenomenon. Just two points, that we dump a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere and that the planet is warming. Somewhere in there they make a leap that the CO2 is causing it. Either that or I missed it in the beginning. The dramatic changes in climate which largely began in the 70's might lead to that conclusion. But no credence is given to the possibility of this being a natural phenomenon. Personally I think we are causing it but it doesn't make for a good scientific argument to only look at one "convenient" cause.
The second thing that surprised me was Gore's presence, in two cases. First, during his presentation I found him to be engaging and obviously passionate about his cause. I felt like I was seeing a different Gore than I'd ever seen before. Unfortunately, they showed an extended sequence with follow up material where he was being interviewed with a black background. In this he seemed like the old Al Gore, stiff and political. With funny mannerisms that I can't quite describe but that annoy me just the same.
Here's where I always seem to run into a problem. I want a President that treats the war on terrorism and fundamentalist Islam more like Bush (not quite, but close enough), lowers taxes like Bush, is concerned about global warming like Gore and doesn't give a hoot about how you like it in bed, like Gore. For everything else this person should be as libertarian as they come. I have a feeling there are a lot of people that would agree with me. No, I'm not running for President. Just worn out on the "black and white" nature of politics today. The reason there are red and blue states is because the two parties, along with the help of the mass media, won't let a third party make any real progress. Any time you get a third party making any progress it's usually with a highly publishable nut job. Ralph Nader springs to mind. Sure, Nader has some good ideas but he also strays out to the fringe. Where's the reasonable person standing firmly on both sides?
What's a libertarian to do?