I'm with Al on Countering Climate Change Naysayers

COMMENTARY | Al Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless efforts to build knowledge about man-made climate change, is tired of his opponents dissing the effects of global warming and claiming it's all a hoax.

Apparently Gore has had enough, as he passionately told the Networks and Citizenship panel at the Aspen Institute in Colorado. According to the Huffington Post, "(The naysayers are) washing back at you the same crap over and over and over again. There's no longer a shared reality ... It's no longer acceptable in mixed company -- meaning bipartisan company -- to use the g--damn word 'climate'."

Gore is furious, and believes climate skeptics are paying pseudo-scientists to pretend to be scientists and put the word out that the climate thing is nonsense.

Fox News recently published an article about its version of what it calls the "global warming fraud." The articles states that global warming is a fairy tale. The reasoning? One of the scientists who was involved in the scientific research five years ago about polar bears drowning due to causes from climate changes was under investigation for integrity issues.

The problem is, this was one scientist, and the source who provided the information said it had nothing to do with the 2006 journal article about the polar bears.

In addition, the article failed to mention that Geoff York, a polar bear biologist with the World Wildlife Fund, co-authored a more recent study. His research took place from 2004 to 2009.

Reuters quotes York as saying, "Climate change is pulling the sea ice out from under polar bears' feet, forcing some to swim longer to find food and habitat."

York found that polar bear cubs which didn't have to swim long distances experienced an 18 percent mortality rate, whereas cubs that had to swim farther because of the melting ice had a 45 percent mortality rate.

Yet Fox and most conservatives, including an alarming 70 percent of Tea Party members, continue to insist that global warming is a hoax. They would like to believe that driving their monstrous SUVs and allowing industrial wastes into our environment have no negative effects on our Earth whatsoever.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., would like to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency because, in her twisted way of thinking, "it kills jobs," according to SeattlePI. In reality, the EPA produces more employment opportunities.

Bachmann must really live in her own fantasy land; just last week she commented that if she becomes president, she would be able to fix the ailing economy almost immediately, according to The Associated Press.

Why do many of the members of the GOP and conservatives in general want you to believe humans have no harmful effects on the warming of the planet? The answer is fairly simple. Most of them have ties to the energy industry, and they don't want to lose their cushy financial relationships.

Most of our politicians who are global warming skeptics are on the side of big business. They don't care about the world we live in, or they just refuse to see the truth, because doing so would not be pleasant for them.

No wonder Al Gore is mad. I'm mad too, and all of us should be.