On March 26, ETSU had none other than former Vice President Al Gore speaking to an estimated crowd of 5,000 in the Mini-Dome. First charming the audience with warm stories of a long political career and personal relationships, he then got into the meat of his discussion, global warming.
I do not discount the fact that exhaust, carbon footprints, greenhouse gases and other talking points have, and continue to contribute to the condition of the Earth, but I greatly disagree with the points Gore made in his speech. I would like to share the fallacy of his discussion. Gore mentioned that the average temperature of the Earth is 59 degrees. He later mentioned the effects of global warming, and what would happen with just a half-degree increase, but in doing so, casually mentioned that it is a half degree Celsius. In conversion, that would actually be more than double when converted to the more familiar Fahrenheit scale, but his allusion was to make it seem more dramatic. I find that deception typical of many of his points.
Gore then compared the Earth to the planet Venus, referring to Venus as the Earth’s sister or twin planet, alluding that they are similar in nature. Gore mentioned that as our carbon dioxide levels are increasing ever so slightly, his comparison to Venus having a much higher amount of carbon dioxide in its atmosphere has caused the average temperature of our “twin” planet to be an astounding 880 degrees. He conveniently failed to mention that Venus is 24 million miles closer to the sun than Earth is, and the proximity would obviously have an effect on the temperature.
Even further astounding was his switch in verbiage. He referred to our power infrastructure and manufacturing plants as being the “exhaling” of the Earth. Such exhaling naturally puts out carbon MONOXIDE, which granted, is a poison, but later used dioxide as if the words were interchangeable. He went so far as to mention that we need to plant more trees to remove the industrial pollution from our air supply. The last time I checked, plant life pulls dioxide, not monoxide from the air. It was an extremely deceptive statement to a crowd of eager and blind followers.
Energy was of course a big subject, as we are the leading energy consumer in the world, we need to be a leader in new energy technologies. Gore blatantly mentioned that a “patch in the Arizona desert” could have a solar plant that would create the electrical energy for the entire country. Obviously, Gore is not an electrical engineer, and neither am I for that matter, but I did consult one. In theory, Gore is correct. A single plant in the desert could indeed generate that much power, but the problem lies in the transmission of the power – getting it from Arizona to New York, LA, Miami or East Tennessee for that matter. The amount of line loss or voltage drop, which is the resistance in the power lines themselves, would make such a system completely unfeasible. A better solution would be placing solar panels on newly constructed buildings to provide their own power. Gore’s idea of a single solar plant in the desert is impractical and virtually impossible.
Lastly, I was most taken aback with Gore’s theory on women having an effect on global warming. He stated that empowerment and education of women is necessary for the reversal of global warming. To further that statement, was to increase the fertility clinics and “other women’s reproductive facilities” in order to control the Earth’s population. I find it utterly disgusting that Gore alluded to more abortions as being the answer to global warming.I was not disappointed in his presentation. As I expected it to be full of political rhetoric, delusional statements and invalid scientific claims, I got exactly what I expected. The old adage of getting what you pay for stood true in the Gore lecture. Attendance to the lecture was “free,” thus it had no value at all.

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