Transcript of CNN’s LOU DOBBS TONIGHT – Aired October 12, 2009 – 19:00 ET
Video of Full Segments: Part 1 and Part 2. (For more on this issue also see: 1) Inconvenient Questions: Skeptical documentary maker’s microphone cut off after challenging Gore about climate ‘errors’ 2) Watch Video of Exchange Between Gore and ‘Not Evil Just Wrong’ Producer McAleer 3) Reality Check: Gore Claims British Court Vindicated School Showing of Movie, ‘Forgets’ It ‘Violated Laws’ 4) ‘Gore Still Lying about An Inconvenient Truth’ and UK Court ruling 5) Gore Effect: ‘Gore spoke about global warming here in Madison on Friday. Saturday, it snowed’ 6) ‘Hundreds gathered at State Capitol in Madison, Wi to oppose Gore and his alarmist Climate Change policies’ 7) 2008 U.S. Senate Report Debunks Polar Bear Extinction Fears
Key Excerpts from Lou Dobbs Tonight:
Dobbs: Phelim McAleer. He is the director and the producer of the documentary ‘Not Evil, Just Wrong’ – who you just saw, by the way, questioning Al Gore. Good to have you with us. And Fred Krupp. He is the president of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). Good to have you with us.
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KRUPP of EDF: The good news is we have a common sense plan (cap-and-trade) that’s tried and tested in the United States, a market-based plan that will keep America in the driver’s seat for the economy. Lou, you know, China – China is…
DOBBS: Well, keep us in the driver’s seat? I just have to interrupt you there. This is the driver’s seat we’re in right now?
MCALEER: Lou, it’s a common sense plan by a millionaire head of an environmental organization, with big business to keep smaller competitors out. It’s about regulating and keeping big business in the position it’s in by these millionaire environmental organizations.
KRUPP: Not so. You know, we have a website…
MCALEER: You know, Fred – Fred earns $500,000 a year. Do the people of America want their future and their economy to be decided by a millionaire lawyer who calls himself an environmentalist working with big business, keeping competitors out and bringing in increased regulations?
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FULL CNN TRANSCRIPT: Lou Dobbs: Coming up next – Former Vice President Al Gore confronted on his global warming claim. Some say his movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ turns out not to be a truth at all. One critic taking on Mr. Gore face to face.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We’re not doing a debate here.
PHELIM MCALEER, DIRECTOR, ‘NOT EVIL, JUST WRONG’: No. I just got this question, and he hasn’t answered the question. It’s (INAUDIBLE)…
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have 10 minutes left for these people to ask questions.
MCALEER: Yes, but I would appreciate his answer to the (INAUDIBLE).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: The man who challenged Al Gore is my guest here next. He joins us in our face-off debate on climate change and inconvenient truths.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: Here again, Mr. Independent, Lou Dobbs.
DOBBS: Welcome back. California today is signing a deal with the Obama administration. The point? To speed up renewable energy projects in that state. It is the latest attempt to demonstrate that climate change debate could drive public policy. But some, most notably former Vice President turned filmmaker Al Gore, well he doesn’t want to debate at all, as Casey Wian now reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar signed an agreement Monday that will make the state eligible for $15 billion in federal bailout money to fight global warming and boost so-called green energy jobs.
GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA: Only with the help of Secretary Salazar we will be able to go and get those permits done by that time so we can benefit from those billions and billions of dollars.
WIAN: Yet the debate over climate change is far from settled. Former Vice President Al Gore whose 2006 Oscar-winning documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, considered a turning point in the effort to combat climate change spoke to a group of environmental journalists Friday. He did not directly answer questions from the director of a soon to be released documentary highly critical of Gore’s film.
MCALEER: A judge in the British High Courts, after a (INAUDIBLE) hearing, found there were nine significant errors. This has been shown to children. Now, have you – do you accept those findings and have you done anything to correct those errors?
AL GORE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I’m not going to go through all of those. The – the ruling was in favor of the movie, by the way, and the ruling was in favor of showing the movie in schools. And that – that’s really the – the bottom line on that. There’s been such a long discussion of each one of those specific things, one of them, for example, was that, polar bears – if I remember it correctly. It’s been a long time ago – that polar bears really aren’t endangered. Well, polar bears didn’t get that word. So –
MCALEER: Well, the number of polar bears have increased, actually, and are increasing.
GORE: You don’t think they’re endangered, do you?
MCALEER: The number of polar bears have increased.
GORE: Do you think they’re endangered?
MCALEER: The number of polar bears have increased. I mean, if – if the number of polar bears increased, surely they’re not endangered.
GORE: But there weren’t polar bear…
MCALLER: A judge did a (INAUDIBLE) hearing…
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. That’s it. We have to move on.
MCALLER: No. But – no. I mean, Vice President Gore – Vice President Gore hasn’t…
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We’re not doing a debate here.
MCALEER: No. I just got this question, and he hasn’t answered the question. It’s (INAUDIBLE)…
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have 10 minutes left for these people to ask questions.
MCALEER: Yes, but I would appreciate his answer to the (INAUDIBLE).
WIAN: Conference organizers then cut off McAleer’s microphone.
The dispute centers on a 2007 British court ruling that Gore’s film had nine significant errors, including its assertion that ice pack melting would cause the sea level to rise 20 feet in the near future and that Hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming. Gore’s Spokeswoman had said in a statement earlier that the former vice president was gratified by the judge’s decision saying that, ‘Of the thousands and thousands of facts presented in the film, the judge apparently took issue with a handful.’
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIAN: Now, we looked into the polar bear question, and it is true that their numbers have increased dramatically since the 1950s, mostly though because of restrictions on hunting. Those who see climate change as a threat point to more recent declines in some polar bear populations as evidence that a warming planet threatens their existence – Lou.
DOBBS: Yes, well the actual point of contention, as I recall – I love the way that Al Gore makes it sound like that was 200 years ago. That was just two years ago, 2007. It involved four drowning polar bears. It turns out they didn’t. That’s sort of straightforward and a simple fact isn’t it?
WIAN: Yes, and it’s one of those claims that the film made that this British High Court ruled that, yes, it could be shown in the schools over there, but with the disclaimer that these nine facts asserted in the film were in error, and Al Gore didn’t mention that, Lou.
DOBBS: Well – well, we did, didn’t you? Appreciate it, Casey. Thanks so much. Casey Wian.
Well, the extent of the threat posed by climate change is the subject of our face-off debate tonight, and, as always, it is an emotional, a controversial issue, and the emotionalism that surround it is in and of itself fascinating – at least to me. Joining me now is Phelim McAleer. He is the director and the producer of the documentary ‘Not Evil, Just Wrong’ – who you just saw, by the way, questioning Al Gore. Good to have you with us. And Fred Krupp. He is the president of the Environmental Defense Fund. Good to have you with us.
FRED KRUPP, PRESIDENT, ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND: Good to be here.
DOBBS: I just – let’s deal with the first issue. Why is something like in climate change so emotional, such a – if you will – contentious issue. It seems there are straightforward facts that would be there for everyone to either agree upon or disagree, stay away from the ambiguous and deal with the salient and the crystal clear. Why don’t we do that?
KRUPP: Well, I think, just like a lot of things in Washington, Lou, climate change has become a bit of a partisan football. But now there is bipartisan pathway forward, and ‘The New York Times’ just on Sunday, both Lindsey Graham, the Conservative Republican senator from South Carolina, and John Kerry agreed on a market-based path forward, the same sort of cap and trade system that was used so successfully in the 1990s to combat acid rain. So hopefully we’re getting across that partisan divide right this week. DOBBS: All right. First of all, you were working hard to get a straightforward answer from the former vice president. What drove your – your inquiry?
MCALEER: Well, as the organizers said, this was the first time in four years he agreed to take questions from reporters. That’s a disgrace. For someone who says the world is ending, the world is in crisis, that – that he wouldn’t put the facts out there and take difficult questions is bizarre. I must – I must believe that he doesn’t really believe the world is about to end.
So I went there to ask him. This documentary has been shown in schools across America and across the world to children who get scared about these scare tactics, and I wanted to say, you have a moral duty either to accept the judge’s rulings and issue corrections or reject the judge’s rulings. But you haven’t the moral – you have no right to not – refuse to answer those questions.
DOBBS: What do you think?
KRUPP: Well, Lou, first of all, the vice president takes questions from reporters routinely. He took questions on September 22nd, he took questions from reporters at the UN September 24th, he took questions at this event. So, actually, after Phelim had his say, it was in a desire to take more questions that – there are other journalists who were waiting in time (ph). So the idea that he hasn’t taken questions in three years is – is just wrong. He takes questions weekly.
DOBBS: All right. Let’s go to a couple of things. The BBC climate reporter this weekend I think probably shook up society there a bit this weekend, talking about the fact that over the course of the – of this new millennia, young though we are, nine years into it, he begins his lead, ‘You may be surprised to learn that the hottest year recorded is not 2008, not 2007, nor one of the previous – the last ten years, but rather you have to go back to 1998.’ And I have to say, I think most people would say – what? Because they’ve been led to believe that the climate is warming almost daily.
KRUPP: Well, Lou, actually if you look at the trend line, it’s undoubtedly – definitely rising up. There is year to year variability because of El Ninos. But when you plot the dots on the trend line, we’re going up. Since 2000, all eight years, 2001 to 2008, have been eight of the 14 warmest years on record, and 2009, when the data comes in, that this decade will be the warmest decade since we’ve been keeping records.
MCALEER: No. That’s – that’s just not true. And let’s be honest – the climate models, those quick climate models that say we’re all going to die by 2050, missed this cooling period. In fact, if it cools much longer, it will be cooling longer than it warmed. And the same environmentalists who are now saying it is warming, 20 and 30 years ago were saying we’re going to have an Ice Age. I’m old enough to be at school and I was told that we’re going into a new Ice Age. So – so for them to – for these people to say, for people like Fred to say that – that the facts aren’t there, it has cooled. It hasn’t warmed in 13 years, and it was warmer before. Britain was warmer. We used to grow wine in Yorkshire, in Britain, you know, (INAUDIBLE) grow wine. But if they did grow wine – you know, grapes were growing there, it has been warmer before and – and these are all part of the natural variability of climate.
And, you know – and who’s to say that 10 years ago the climate was perfect then? Why – why are we so obsessed with, you know, the climate is warming or cooling? You know, Helsinki is one of the coldest places on the planet. It’s very rich. Singapore is one of the wealthiest places on the planet. It’s very hot. Man will adapt. But it’s not – this is not – you should not close down the American economy and drive jobs out of America and stop using fossil fuels for fake science.
KRUPP: The good news – the good news, Phelim, is it’s not fake science. If you go to the National Academy of Sciences or look at the reports from NASA – anyone on -in our audience can go to the website – you can see that this decade has been the warmest on record.
But the good news is even if we don’t convince you of that, and I hear both arguments, maybe it’s not warming, and even if it is, so what? The good news is we have a common sense plan that’s tried and tested in the United States, a market-based plan that will keep America in the driver’s seat for the economy.
Lou, you know, China – China is…
DOBBS: Well, (INAUDIBLE) keep us in the driver’s seat. I just have to interrupt you there. This is the driver’s seat we’re in right now?
MCALEER: Lou, it’s a common sense plan by a millionaire head of an environmental organization, with big business to keep smaller competitors out. It’s about regulating and keeping big business in the position it’s in by these millionaire environmental organizations.
KRUPP: Not so. You know, we have a website…
MCALEER: You know, Fred – Fred earns $500,000 a year. Do the people of America want their future and their economy to be decided by a millionaire lawyer who calls himself an environmentalist working with big business, keeping competitors out and bringing in increased regulations?
KRUPP: There is a website called More Carbon – Less Carbon, More Jobs, where a series of small businesses have come out saying pass cap and trade and the cap puts a driver in place that allows…
DOBBS: So you’re supporting cap and trade?
KRUPP: Supporting cap and trade, Lou, because it – it gives the economic incentives to energy efficiency that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil. DOBBS: You call that a private – you call that a market solution? That is – it is extraordinarily based on government intervention in the market place. How could you call that a market solution? I’m not discussing the merits of cap and trade, but, my God, if there’s – if that’s not government intervention what is?
KRUPP: Yes, the government creates a market. That’s true. And for these tragedies (INAUDIBLE)…
MCALEER: It’s what George W. – George H. W. Bush put in place, the best of the Republican intellectual capital. It creates incentives to get new jobs for Americans.
DOBBS: All right. Thank you very much. Phil, thank you. We’re just plain out of time. I hope y’all will come back soon. We need a lot more time, obviously. Thank you so much.
Related Links:
Watch Video of Exchange Between Gore and ‘Not Evil Just Wrong’ Producer McAleer
Society of Environmental Lapdogs protect Gore
‘Gore Still Lying about An Inconvenient Truth’ and UK Court ruling
Gore Effect: ‘Gore spoke about global warming here in Madison on Friday. Saturday, it snowed’
Rep. Sensenbrenner addressed gathering of anti-Gore protestors in Wisconsin
The ‘Gore Effect’ strikes Wisconsin! ‘A blanket of frost and near record low temps’
Rare events: BBC questions global warming and Gore takes questions
2008 U.S. Senate Report Debunks Polar Bear Extinction Fears
