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Comment by dwe3000 | Hacker News Reader

The very last line of the article explains it all; this is to promote his soon to be release movie. As always, it's about the money.

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Most of people's actions have personal gain (be it money, power, recognition, sense of worth, etc...) as their main motive.

But it does not make them necessarily wrong or worthless to others.

True, but I would appreciate a little integrity/honesty. He flies all over the world, multiple times in a short time span, and then makes his money "complaining" that we are using fossil fuels, when he could have just as easily been there via a teleconference. I don't mind people that walk the talk, but Al Gore avoids that.

Sadly it does seem to me that there's an large element of ego behind his efforts.

This is called "tu quoque"[0] or appeal to hypocrisy.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

In this case, the pitch is for sacrifice and discipline. It undermines his argument if he's somehow exempt from the plan.

As in, if even a rich, educated, and passionate Al Gore cannot actually reduce his carbon footprint, is it even doable for India and China?

Al Gore can't personally build a skyscraper, but India and China seem to have no trouble doing that. In fact, you could probably list billions of things that individuals cannot effectively do that large organizations can do.

And even if he reduces his carbon footprint to nothing, all the does is shut him up and temporarily reduce carbon emissions insignificantly. It does nothing to curb industrial processes where the bulk of carbon emissions occur.

And you'll note that hypocrisy is not actually a logic fallacy. A war general has just as much reason to be listened to when he campaigns for peace as a pacifist; because peace stands on its own merit.

EDIT: This isn't even hypocrisy, though. Al Gore isn't asking each individual to fix their own carbon footprint. He's asking institutions to do so. And institutions can do things individuals cannot (due to networking and economic effects), as evidenced by that being the whole reason institutions are formed.

He flies all over the world

There are a lot of "Gulfstream liberals" that fly around the world in private jets while telling the 99% how they should live.

This isn't limited to Al Gore. Jamie Dimon (CEO of JP Morgan) quipped this about Davos: "It is where billionaires tell millionaires what the middle class feels."

Frankly, if Al Gore is looking to cash in, another movie about global warming is probably not his best option.

What would you do instead, in his position?

I'd probably work the lecture circuit in the fashion of Hillary Clinton if my goal were cashing in.

Releasing movies keeps him in the public eye which probably doesn't hurt his speaking fees any.

It seems his other activities have been more beneficial though, he made a lot of money selling Current TV and also lots of money sitting on the board of Apple.

Well, OK, sure, but that just bolsters the point, doesn't it? It doesn't seem like talking about climate change is the most lucrative activity he's involved in.

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