Inside Al Gore's army

SEED magazine has just published my report on the 2009 Summit of The Climate Project, Al Gore's effort to spread the word on the climate crisis with the help of 2,500 volunteers trained to present his "Inconvenient Truth" slide show. Here's the intro:

Polling data leading up to last week's summit of The Climate Project wasn't exactly inspiring. The widely respected Pew Forum says the share of Americans who believe the Earth is warming is stuck at less than 50 percent, while Rasmussen Reports--often accused of Republican bias--shows that the number has fallen to 34 percent. Both polls have proven track records from the 2008 Presidential election.

You can read the rest here. SEED took a pass on the photos I took, and because I think they give a good idea of what the Summit was all about, I've posted them here. There's plenty more notes worthy of sharing, so I'll try to do that over the coming week.

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TCP presenter Karen Amon shares a few seconds with Al Gore at the Nashville, Tenn., summit of The Climate Project

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Kaki King performs at the first night of the 2009 North American Summit of The Climate Project, in Nashville, Tenn.

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Peter Sinclair, right, and fellow TCP presenters examine a solar cooker betweeen presentations. Singer is responsible for the "Climate Denial Crock of the Week" YouTube series

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Members of the project sign up for political action.

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Jessica Reese, Mitch Brogan, Ruth LaMantia and Dana Laliberte share experiences presenting Al Gore's slide show

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James, in future please don't take those Rasmussen climate polls at face value. Not only was the wording screwy, each of the two years sampled a different population (voters in one and adults in the other). Note also that Rasmussen polls are automated, which is fine for simple stuff like candidate preference but not so fine for anything nuanced.

By Steve Bloom (not verified) on 25 May 2009 #permalink

Steve: I didn't take the Rasmussen poll at face value at all. In fact, I spent almost too much time trying to evaluate it. The fact remains that the two polls that best predicted the outcome of the 2008 presidential election were Pew and Rasmussen. As past performance is the only fair way to judge polling accuracy, I simply couldn't ignore it. Not when Rasmussen's results were closer to Pew's (a poll everyone respects), than the numbers coming from environmental organizations.

No one involved in The Climate Project wants to accept the results of a poll closely associated with Republican groups. As my story makes clear, I didn't like them, either. But wishful thinking doesn't make the data go away.

James,

I read your article in Seed. How does it feel to be a "missionary" for the cause? Do you feel used, duped?

What's next hanging out at airports selling flowers, or going door to door in suits riding bicycles?

The sad thing is you're not even getting paid for deceiving the public. Gore is spending millions on deceptive T.V. advertising; he could at least throw a few bucks to the "foot soldiers".

So when you cornered Big Al in the "buffet line" he told you to pay attention to polls that showed that people believe the green gospel, eh? Not surprising that he would cherry pick the data even when more reputable polls show that people aren't buying into your apocalyptic religion.

So now he is directing his dark armies to petition politicians and law makers, huh? Isn't that interesting?

Was there any mention at the big gathering that not only are the American people not buying it but the actual climate hasn't been warming? Any mention that arctic sea ice returned to close to the average extent of the satellite record and that Antarctic sea ice remains above it? Any mention that study after study has shown no link between warming and cyclonic storm activity?

No?

Well I hope you enjoyed the fellowship anyway.

Carry on with the work of the faithful.

The thing is, the Irish users are, under this ruling, guilty until proven innocent, and the kicker is that they donât even have the chance to prove their innocence. The procedure thatâs been put in place doesnât even allow them to try and defend themselves. As long as the Man *says* their downloading, then they are, thereâs no attempt to substantiate the claims, no examination of evidence, hell they donât even have to provide evidence.
So if the userâs got a Wifi setup at home with no encryption (not a crime, thereâs valid reasons to have such a setup) or if their wifi uses weak encryption (again, not a crime), heck even WPA beenâs cracked now. If someone piggy backs onto their network then they are screwed.
Iâm pretty damned sure that EU law, which overrules Irish law in cases like this, has got something to say about this