A truth, maybe; inconvenient, without a doubt

Here’s Jimmy Carter, as quoted in today’s Washington Post, on Al Gore:

My favorite Democrat. . .has been Al Gore. . .His burning issue right now is global warming and preventing it. He can do infinitely more to accomplish that goal as the incumbent in the White House than he can making even movies that get Oscars. . .I’ve put so much pressure on Al to run that he’s almost gotten aggravated with me.

I understand where Gore’s coming from because I too almost get aggravated with Carter at times. But Carter’s claim that a President Gore could do much to prevent global warming is dubious; in fact it’s doubtful that Gore would even seriously attempt this.
If Gore’s global warming thesis is true, then reversing the trend would require major changes in our system of manufacturing and our consumption patterns (Gore’s own conspicuous consumption might be a good place to start). These changes would have a dramatically adverse impact on our economy. That is why, to the extent that Gore has identified a truth, it is indeed an inconvenient one.
Gore would be better positioned than a Republican to try to make the changes that might begin to reverse the problem he claims (plausibly enough in my inexpert opinion) to have identified. If the economy has one bad quarter under a Republican president, indeed if the economy doesn’t net an increase in jobs in a single month, the MSM trots out its stories about a downturn or a jobless recovery (but let jobs increase month-after-month for two or three years under a Republican, as has just happened, and try to find that story). Democrats get considerably more slack. But a real recession cannot be concealed even with MSM complicity, and no president is going to risk leading the country into one in the name of environmentalism. Gore himself apparently showed little zeal for such a politically suicidal course when he was vice president.
Right now, it doesn’t look like Gore is running. That could change, of course. But if it does, it won’t be because he’s concluded that, as president, he could do much about global warming.
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