Rock Star Goracle Plays Capitol Hill

Environmental extremist and gaseous windbag Al Gore takes to Capitol Hill today to lecture us all once again on the myths of global warming. Or climate change. Or whatever he and his cronies will decide to call it next. This is sure to turn into a circus and we'll be told that debate is over and we're all doomed.

Leading up to this, there are an assortment of stories this morning. Check out this absurd piece from the Contra Costa Times.

Boxer criticized for Gore e-mail

Attackers say call for campaign contributions in thank-you letter to former vice president is ethically questionable

Al Gore, global warming rock star, will grab the media spotlight today before Sen. Barbara Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee -- and Boxer is using Gore's appearance to help raise money for her 2010 re-election campaign.

In an e-mail sent earlier this month, Boxer asked her supporters to sign an online thank-you card to Gore "for his many years of leadership and hard work," which she plans to give to him today. So far, more than 63,000 people have signed the card, according to a campaign consultant.

Next to the link for signing the card is a link to "contribute today" to the Friends of Barbara Boxer, which takes the user to instructions on how to donate online.

One campaign finance watchdog, Melanie Sloan, called the e-mail "inappropriate, coming close to an ethical line," because it suggests a link between a congressional hearing, legislative activity and campaign contributions.

Critics are referred to as "attackers" and Gore is called a rock star in the first sentence. No editorializing there.

Be it unethical or of questionable legality, it doesn't matter. Barbara Boxer is a Democrat. She can do as she pleases.

Not to be outdone, the Washington Post slavishly fawns over The Goracle:

Gore Returns to Capitol Hill a Hero and a Target

Al Gore wowed moviegoers and Hollywood elites with his Oscar-winning documentary on global warming. Today he faces a far tougher audience in Congress.

The 2000 Democratic presidential nominee will testify about the urgency of addressing climate change in two appearances on Capitol Hill before panels that include skeptics of the sort that Gore probably hasn't met on the red carpet.

For instance, Sen. James M. Inhofe (Okla.), senior Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, once called global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people." The other witness scheduled to appear at the House Energy and Commerce Committee is Bjorn Lomborg of Copenhagen Business School, who asserts that global warming is real but argues that "the trouble is that the climate models show we can do very little" about it.

Look for Inhofe and Lomborg to be called deniers at some point. The audience will likely be stacked with environmental wackos and other assorted leftist nutcases preaching apocalyptic doom.

"He's the leader on global warming," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the environmental committee and who invited Gore to testify. "He's world-famous," said Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), another fan, who attended the premiere of "An Inconvenient Truth" and requested a personal photo op with Gore this afternoon.

Sounds like they want his autograph. Goodness, can they gush a little more?

Meanwhile, as noted over at Hot Air, actual scientists from NASA, not divinity school dropouts like Gore, note the sun could actually play a role in the earth's temperature rising all of one degree the past century. This is truly shocking news. Perhaps climatologists like Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer will put down their pom-poms and subpoena the sun to come down and explain itself.

Long-term climate records are a key to understanding how Earth's climate changed in the past and how it may change in the future. Direct measurements of light energy emitted by the sun, taken by satellites and other modern scientific techniques, suggest variations in the sun's activity influence Earth's long-term climate. However, there were no measured climate records of this type until the relatively recent scientific past.

Scientists have traditionally relied upon indirect data gathering methods to study climate in the Earth's past, such as drilling ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica. Such samples of accumulated snow and ice drilled from deep within ice sheets or glaciers contain trapped air bubbles whose composition can provide a picture of past climate conditions. Now, however, a group of NASA and university scientists has found a convincing link between long-term solar and climate variability in a unique and unexpected source: directly measured ancient water level records of the Nile, Earth's longest river.

In the end, expect a circus-like atmosphere on Capitol Hill and nothing of substance to arise out of this sham other than excessively fawning coverage from the networks.

Sister Toldjah exposes more Goracle hypocrisy.

UPDATE: After showing up late and avoiding the GOP, in his typical understated fashion, The Goracle warned of a planetary emergency. How original.

Former Vice President Al Gore, who organized the first congressional hearings on climate change three decades ago, returned to Capitol Hill today to urge lawmakers to address a ``planetary emergency'' by passing legislation to cut emissions that cause global warming.

``The consequences of inaction would be devastating to both the environment and the economy,'' Gore said in remarks to a joint hearing of the energy and science committees in the House of Representatives. He previously served on both panels.

Gore called for a freeze on the level of carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S., followed by mandatory reductions. He also backed revising the tax code to discourage such pollution; raising fuel-economy standards for cars; having the U.S. spearhead a new international climate change treaty; requiring companies to disclose their carbon emissions; and banning the construction of new coal-fired power plants that can't capture and contain carbon pollution.

In other words, wreck the economy.

UPDATE II: Hot Air has had continuous coverage today. Turns out Gore delivered a copy of his testimony almost 24 hours late. What a fraud.