Al Gore - capitalist in action

You can't argue that Al Gore, Nobel Peace prize winner and global warming advocate, doesn't know the principles of capitalism. Create a need, fill the need, and rake in the dough.

He's come under criticism before with his excessive use of personal energy while lecturing the rest of us to cut down. He jets to and fro, collecting beau coup bucks for public speeches. The most recent from the Daily Mail out of the UK... collecting what is tantamount to 3300 English pounds per minute for his speech at The Royal Courts of Justice.

However, a spokesman for Mr Gore, who won his Oscar for the polemic documentary An Inconvenient Truth, told The Mail on Sunday: "Mr Gore donates a percentage of all of his speaking fees to the Alliance for Climate Protection.

Ah yes... however what is a "convenient" omission is that the percentage he donates to the Alliance for Climate Protection is also a charity where Gore sits as Chairman of the Board. Non-profits do not mean that those involved work for free. It just means the organization can't show a profit after their expenses... including salaries to board members. I'll wager dollars to euros that Gore walks away with an annual salary that isn't peanuts.

_______________________________

UPDATE 12/10/07

Al Gore was on a CNN interview this AM, on the heels of his formal acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, pushing his causes. He spent some time decrying his own personal use of energy, blaming the media for publishing an global warming skeptical organization claims. After ticking off some independent energy sources at his home, he prounounced himself to be "carbon neutral". Being "neutral" does not imply you are energy conservative. It merely means you've bought off your excess useage to stay status quo... someone else is conserving more so he can use more - ala, "neutral" carbon footprint.

Gore also stated that he and Tipper donated his half mil of Peace Prize money to... ta da.. The Alliance for Climate Protection. To much applause, I might add. No where did the host, or Gore himself, disclose his own personal relationship to the ACP.

_______________________________

Gore is also famous for neutralizing his excessive use of energy with the purchase of carbon offsets. I blogged on this previously, pointing out that Gore buys his offsets from Generation Management LLP - a company which, you guessed it - Al Gore is the Chairman and one of the six founders.

Let's add this up. The man preaches panic for our very survival, advocating energy conservation while simultaneously blowing the doors off on his own carbon footprint in the world. He buys the carbon offsets from himself, and when he's sitting financially fat, donates to a charity that he founded and chairs. Considering the salaries he must get from both, combined with the tax write offs for such noble causes, there is no doubt that Gore has taken capitalism to new and improved heights. All the while presenting himself as the new coming of Mother Earth.

Thomas Lifson at the American Thinker is another who notices the profitable combo of fear mongering, and simultaneously peddling the socially accepted solution to the fear...

More and more people seem to notice that Al Gore is making huge amounts of money while peddling fear of global warming. And he's just getting started. The prospects of serious wealth are unlimited should his recent affiliation with Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins bring about regulatory advantage or public subsidy for schemes to trade carbon emissions, subsidize supposedly-green energy projects, or otherwise capitalize on the world's need for massive quantities of energy.

He's a model entrepreneur for us all... if he weren't so damned hypocritical.