"If you thought the Fineman puff piece on Al Gore was something, wait till you see this piece on the President of Iran."
Well, sucking up to Ahmadinejad makes sense- maybe the reporter or Washington Post Foreign Services will get an interview- and who wouldn't want to interview a modern Hitler.
And Fineman's love of Gore is understandable- it's probably a toss up of who is smarter Finemen or Gore. And that's good start for a loving relationship.
One can look at many ways as to why Gore is great political leader. Gore was in power for 8 years, he wrote book [that I never read, but...] on something to do with treehugging, yet he did nothing that would bring about a favorable vote for Kyoto. Now, one could say that Gore lacked the ability to change the opinion of the American public and more specifically the America Senate. You could say his long experience as a Senator made him understand the impossiblity of the task of persuading these old men fixed in their ways.
But as Gore was to latter admit, Kyoto wasn't intended to do anything but send a message, and considering that Kyoto has cost other countries well over a 100 billion dollars already, that's a lot money to waste on communication.
The Kyoto Treaty will at minimin cost other countries probably in the order of around 1/2 trillion dollars- and it will have no affect upon CO2 or Global Warming. Even if all countries were to sign it and follow it [and thereby costing in order of tens of trillions of dollars] it still would not affect to any significant degree Global CO2 levels or Global warming- because that was not what it was intended to do, rather it's purpose was to send a message that *might* lead to something that would have some effect- more drastic action.
So by the end of this year, Kyoto will have costed signee well over 200 billion dollars even using modest estimates and any country that signed the treaty that actually had to do anything significant in terms of complying with the treaty, will have failed their targets. New Zealand will actually end up losing money where they had hoped gain money by signing Kyoto. Japan is failing miserably to comply. Countries that have signed the treaty are increasing there emission of CO2 instead of making rather mild reductions.
Anyhow, what international treaty has ever cost 200 billion dollar? And on top of that has not even done anything to really comply with the treaty.
So what will be the 1/2 trillion dollar message of Kyoto be? Will it be that more money should be wasted in a futile quest going nowhere. Or will you have questions such as, how many nuclear reactor could you built with 1/2 trillion dollar?
Considering the current nuclear reactors operating are essential removing 2 billion tons of CO2 per year and this is about 10% of current global emission by all human activity AND considering that Kyoto represents somewhere around 7% reduction in CO2 Globally if America had signed on to it and all signatory had actually followed it.
Doubling the amount nuclear reactor within the US within say 10 years would be expensive- we probably don't need this much added power for one thing. Another thing is we don't have the political will that would make this possible. Another thing is though nuclear power is economical, it doesn't mean that in all cases it's the best way of generating power- some areas nuclear power is more economical than others.
Anyhow this could go on and on, BUT the point is that Gore could known fairly easily that signing Kyoto was way too expensive considering it was simply a message. Talk is cheaper, and so he talks.