Al Gore could become world's first carbon billionaire

[Frank]

Last year Mr Gore's venture capital firm loaned a small California firm $75m to develop energy-saving technology.

The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient.


The move means that venture capital company Kleiner Perkins and its partners, including Mr Gore, could recoup their investment many times over in coming years.

Few people have been as vocal about the urgency of global warming and the need to reinvent the way the world produces and consumes energy as Mr Gore. And few have put as much money behind their advocacy and are as well positioned to profit from this green transformation, if and when it comes.

Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming sceptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world's first "carbon billionaire," profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in.

Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, has claimed that Mr Gore stood to benefit personally from the energy and climate policies he was urging Congress to adopt.

Mr Gore had said that he is simply putting his money where his mouth is.

"Do you think there is something wrong with being active in business in this country?" Mr. Gore said. "I am proud of it. I am proud of it."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/6491195/Al-Gore-could-becom...

[Islander]

And republicans invest in companies that there policies benefit, diiference is al gore millions will be made by making peoples lives better while those of the republicans is made by hurting the world around them.Funny how making money is wrong when your not involved in it.HA HA dummy republicans have painted themselves intoa croner.Imagine not one of them could invest in the next big thing because they will be accused of being commie millionaires, what a bunch of maroons.

[Frank]

Who says that lives will be better, Al Gore has been wrong on sso many fronts. And Im sure that there are Rebulicans investing as well. The point is he has set up and worked with the congress for the cap and trade so that only his companies will be handling this trading end of it he has set himself up through his lobbying fro laws to make billions. He has pulled the wool over everones eyes Democrat and Republican, Liberal and Conserveitive alike. In this case we are all lemmings and follwed him to the edge of the cliff, but he stepped aside as he watchs the rest of us fall into the abyss.

[Islander]

And the republicans have been supporting do nothingism so theri companies can continue to make big profits.Better leave those right wing dumies alone frank they are leading the innocents like yourself down the garden path.

[Frank]

Well as I go down the that path Islander I will at least smell the roses, which you have never done and never will. Al Gore is no better then any of the rest of the currupt poliations. All this talk about reduceing foriegn oil is BS the dems don't want that at all if they did they would explore and drill fro domestic oil and gas. But if they allowed that then they would have nothing to cry about and their whole agenda would be out the window. What has Canada done in this regard?

[Elaine Friedland]

Those who fund new technologies will benefit. So you are criticizing Al Gore for being a capitalist.. The Chinese are investing heavily in green technology.

If we don't use green technology your great grandchildren will curse your generation.

[Frank]

Elaine it is not the technology it is the manipulation of the situation that Gore set himself up in, he used scare tactics to lobby congress, science has already debunked his golbal warming scheme thats why he changed it to cliamate change, as we all know the cliamte does change it is part of things. The ones my great grand children will curse is those who run up trillions in national debt following Gore, and the rest of the lemmings. No I don't critizie Gore for making money thats what it is all about, I critize him fro being two faced about how eveil business is and he is out makin g billions becsue he made a movie that has been shown to be wrong in at least 11 ares.

[Elaine Friedland]

Frank,

Science has not debunked the concept of global warming.

If the US does not invest in green technologies, then we will be more dependent upon the Chinese who have invested heavily in new green technologies. The Chinese do not consider global warming as a "myth.", but a future reality if there is not change in how we produce our energy.

Also here is another thing for you to think about. Green technologies decrease our and other western countries' dependence upon imports of Middle Eastern and Russian oil. The less oil imported from the Middle East and Russia, the weaker in political influence the oil autocracies become So even if you question global warming, if you want to decrease Russian and Arab influence in world politics, we need to shift to green technologies.

[Frank]

I said Al Gores golbal warming has been debunked that is why he changed his tune from Golbal warming to climate change. He bemoaned the demise of the Polar Bear last year and the last count is that they have increased in numbers not declined as he said. The English have explored the ice cap and found that it is getting thicker not thinner. Yes we are undergoing a climate change the world does this all the time. Al Gore is an oppetunist. Check him Elaine what was he pedling in the late 60's early 70's with this same bunch of sciencetists friends? An Ice Age he was saying if we did not do something sone we would be heading into an another Ice Age. When that did not happen he changed his song and dance routine to he were all going to fry if something wasn't done.

[Elaine Friedland]

Frank,

Those who claim there is no global warming are tied to the petroleum industry and want to forestall green technologies because it would end their economic pursuit.

Climate change means global warming. There is dramatic climate change due to global warming. For example, all over the world glaciers are retreating. There is a possible sea route in the Arctic Ocean around northern Europe and North America because the ice cap in the North Arctic Ocean has been decreasing.


As to the Antarctic ice cap:

-------------
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A team of scientists studying rock samples in Africa has shown a strong link between falling carbon dioxide levels and the formation of Antarctic ice sheets 34 million years ago.

The results are the first to make the link, underpinning computer climate models that predict both the creation of ice sheets when CO2 levels fall and the melting of ice caps when CO2 levels rise.

The team, from Cardiff, Bristol and Texas A&M Universities, spent weeks in the African bush in Tanzania with an armed guard to protect them from lions to extract samples of tiny fossils that could reveal CO2 levels in the atmosphere 34 million years ago.

Levels of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, mysteriously fell during this time in an event called the Eocene-Oligocene climate transition.

"This was the biggest climate switch since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago," said co-author Bridget Wade from Texas A&M University.

The study reconstructed CO2 levels around this period, showing a dip around the time ice sheets in Antarctica started to form. CO2 levels were around 750 parts per million, about double current levels.

"There are no samples of air from that age that we can measure, so you need to find something you can measure that would have responded to the atmospheric CO2," Paul Pearson of Cardiff University told Reuters.

Pearson, Wade and Gavin Foster from the University of Bristol gathered sediment samples in the Tanzanian village of Stakishari where there are deposits of a particular type of well-preserved microfossils that can reveal past CO2 levels.

"Our study is the first that uses some sort of proxy reconstruction of CO2 to point to the declining CO2 that most of us expected we ought to be able to find," Pearson said on Monday from Cardiff.

He said that CO2, being an acidic gas, causes changes in acidity in the ocean, which absorbs large amounts of the gas.

"We can pick that up through chemistry of microscopic plankton shells that were living in the surface ocean at the time," he explained.

Evidence from around Antarctica was much harder to find.

"The ice caps covered everything in Antarctica. The erosion of sediments around Antarctica since the formation of the ice caps has obliterated a lot of the pre-existing evidence that might have been there."

"Our results are really in line with the most sophisticated climate models that have been applied to this interval," Pearson added. The results were published online in the journal Nature.

"Those models could be used to predict the melting of the ice. The suggested melting starts around 900 ppm (parts per million)," he said, a level he believes could be reached by the end of this century, unless serious emissions cuts were made.

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE58D20U20090914

The studies, published Thursday in the London-based science journal Nature, said global sea levels could rise up to seven meters if the ice sheet in western Antarctica collapses centuries from now, as some researchers predict.

Scientists from New Zealand, Europe and United States conducted the studies, which involved extensive drilling into the sea floor under the Ross iceshelf - a glacier several hundred meters thick and the size of France.

Research links much of the current meltdown to warming under-sea currents.

Last month, scientists contributing to the UN Polar Year survey said ice caps on both poles are melting at a much faster pace than expected. A Polar Year statement said researchers found Arctic ice levels at their lowest point since satellites began measuring the northern ice mass three decades ago.

The report also said Antarctic researchers have found large pools of carbon, stored as methane gas, in the melting polar permafrost. Scientists have identified the large-scale release of methane into the atmosphere as one of the chief causes of global warming.

http://en.mercopress.com/2009/03/19/antarctic-ice-cap-melting-much-...

[Frank]

Elaine you are a slave to the ultrleft and fall for everthing that they tell you. Ice sheets retreat and go forward all the time and have been for eons. The world temps also rise and fall. Your article takls about 100's of years from now. or maybe could be some trouble in 90 years or so. Your hero Albwert was talking in his movie about the next ten. He is a grifter and nothing else. What do you want to kill all the animals on the earth to stop the releas of methane gas, How do you stop vegetable matter from decomposeing? Not using oil to run factories, cars ect is not the answer,

[Elaine Friedland]

Frank,

Your viewpoint is not to care what happens in the future.

The problem with melting glaciers is happening now in all continents, We have to act now or things will be much worse in the future.

If we can develop alternative technologies to run factories do you reject it? Factories use electricity, Oil is only one way to generate electricity. There are already hybrid cars which reduce the need for gasoline.

The Saudis and their allied petroleum companies actually want to delay the investment in that alternative technologies because it would reduce their income. If you want to reduce the world influence of the Saudi government, the Russian government, the Chavez regime etc, via hitting their pocketbook, we need alternative technologies.

[Frank]

Elaine why wont the left allow exploration here in this country? Why wont they allow more nuke power plants? To produce elect power. as soon as the dems cram thier cap and trade through they will find another so called crisis to push on to people. The U.S. is a very smal part of ths so called problem, China and Indai are causing more damage then two United States, and don't forget South American countries burning off the rain forset, that also is cauesing great harm. You do undetstand the function of palnts and why the cutting of the rain forest is causeing more damage then a few cras.