Al Gore Blames Global Warming for Myanmar Cyclone
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:
Hot Air?
Former Vice President Al Gore says global warming is to blame for the Myanmar cyclone. In an interview with National Public Radio, Gore called the storm one of the "consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with global warming."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}But many experts say it is impossible to make such a link. Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics tells FOX News: "It is an alarmist statement and Vice President Gore wants to confuse the crowd" adding "there is no way to blame any single event on CO2 and global warming."
That's a sentiment supported by Dr. Adam Lea at the University College of London who says, "it's impossible to say."
And Jeff Poor of the Business and Media Institute writes that "using tragedy to advance an agenda has been a strategy for many global warming activists."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Campus Conundrum
Meanwhile, a Canadian environmental scientist says that university research should be added to the list of human activities that contribute to global warming. Professor Hervé Philippe from the University of Montreal has discovered that his own research produces 44 tons of carbon dioxide a year. The average American citizen produces 20 tons of CO2 per year.
According to his calculations, Phillippe says his computers produce 19 tons of CO2 a year, the air-conditioning in his lab produces 10 tons of CO2 per year and transportation to and from his many environmental meetings produce another 15 tons of carbon dioxide every year.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Phillippe was shocked at his findings, saying, "I did my PhD in the hope of advancing our knowledge of biodiversity, but I never thought that the research itself could have a negative impact on biodiversity."
The Wright Questions?
In a radio interview Wednesday, PBS anchor Bill Moyers defended his interview with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Moyers brushed off suggestions that he was soft on Barack Obama's former pastor saying, "I'm not a very adversarial fellow. I'm not a gotcha kind of journalist. I leave that to those people whose job it is for the commercial media."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Moyers interviewed Rev. Wright after a number of his controversial sermons were gathering worldwide attention. Moyers was pressed about why he failed to ask Rev. Wright about his statement that the federal government created AIDS to eliminate minorities. Moyers said, "I didn't get to ask him that on the show, we ran out of time."
Moyers' interview with Rev. Wright was an hour long.
20 Million Reasons
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}What will it take for either of the Democratic presidential candidates to win the support of California superdelegate Steven Ybarra? How about $20 million?
Ybarra says that is the amount of money he needs to register 1.3 million Mexican-American voters and get them to the polls in November. In an interview with the Associated Press, Ybarra says he has not decided whether to support Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton because, "nobody showed me any money yet."
But is $20 million to much to ask for? Ybarra says absolutely not, adding that in 2004, Democrats "spent a billion to lose."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}— FOX News Channel's Martin Hill contributed to this report.