Bob,

An interesting article, thanks.

Try this one on for size!
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The new "peace movement," is the global warming update crowd led by Algore.

That's our buddy Paul Shanklin as Algore, one of three update themes in the rotation for our global warming update: Ball of Fire, portrayed vocally by Algore. A blogger, ladies and gentlemen, has uncovered that the carbon credits -- these "carbon offsets" that Al Gore buys -- are actually from a company that he owns, and apparently they don't sell these credits or these offsets to anybody other than Gore. You can't buy them off of their website.

So Gore is paying...himself. Literally, Al Gore is paying himself to reduce his carbon footprint. His carbon footprint is not getting smaller. His carbon footprint, if anything, is enlarging -- which is all bogus. I couldn't care less, but he's making a big deal out of it. The blogger is Ecotality.com. As one commenter posting on the few blogs covering the Gore story yesterday put it, “The Gorical is chairman and founding partner of Generation Investment Management, LLP. That's a boutique international investment firm that invests other people's money for a fee in the stocks of green companies. So when Al Gore beats the drum for possible future global warming he's also drumming up business, and he's profiteering from hyping the global warming crisis.

“In a nutshell, Algore consumes large amounts of carbon-based electricity while he trumpets the global warming crisis that drives up the value of green companies like the one in which he invests in their stocks, and carbon offsets are a dodgy way for someone to claim to be carbon neutral even as they consume large amounts of carbon based energy. The notion that selling carbon offsets actually helps the environment is taken as a given by those who sell them and by those who buy them. But at this point it's unproven. While some bloggers and pundits have likened carbon offsets to the indulgences of pre-Reformation Catholic church, sold to the wealthy so they could continue to sin, the writer of the blog The Virginian says that carbon offsets are more like the sumptuary laws of medieval times, laws that regulated and reinforced social hierarchies and morals through restrictions on clothing, food, and luxury expenditures. The bottoms line is that this company that Algore buys his carbon offsets from is owned by Algore. He's investing in himself. He's not losing any money at all in this, and nobody else can buy offsets from this company except Algore.”