Talk:Al Gore/Archive 11

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actual dates for Gore work on global warming etc

I've been looking for *primary* sources on Gore's work on global warming. I cannot find anything that predates 1988; that's when there were congressional hearings on the topic, and Gore in 1989 wrote an op-ed piece in the NYT. But the Monitor source of congressional hearings in the "1970s" appears plain wrong, and has confused global warming with toxic waste. And "1980s" is misleading if it's 1988/9. Searching congressional transcripts, I find only 1988 and 1989. If anybody can point to corroborating sources, please do so; failing that, I will edit away claims predating 1988. ("1970s" would be pretty bizarre since the First World Climate Conference was held on 12-23 February 1979.) Specifically, I would suggest writing "During his tenure in Congress, Gore co-sponsored hearings on toxic waste in 1978–79, and in the Senate held hearings on global warming in 1988-1989". --Psm 22:20, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

You should look harder. "Almost as soon as Gore was elected to Congress in 1976, he began conducting hearings on global warming" [1]. Unless 11,000 sources are wrong you need to undo those edits. 4.246.203.119 03:01, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
11,000 unreliable sources are meaningless. first, you have to cull the results that are regrettably sourced from this very article. wikipedia is fast poisoning its own genetic pool. but i digress. Anastrophe 03:11, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Do you consider Gore himself a primary source? "When I was elected to Congress [which was in 1976] ... I helped organize the first hearings on this issue." [2]. Of course it may be that he was not being as ultra precise as to the exact timing as we might want. And of course his detractors will always look for the tiniest inaccuracies. 4.246.207.168 04:18, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

This sounds a bit more accurate "I was elected [to Congress] in 1976. The following year, I started trying to stir up interest in Congress in global warming. Not too long after that, I organized the first hearings, and had my professor come. All those years, I continued to have hearings and look into it" [3]. 4.246.207.168 05:06, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

What was with the Al Gore as Jesus picture on up until a few minutes ago.

Some people here are just WEIRD. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.189.45.173 (talk) 03:05, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Intro section getting sloppy; proposed rewrite

This is sure exciting. But look what's happened to the intro of this article. Introduction sections should give an overview of the subject. Our introduction is now six paragraphs long. We've got parenthetical comments and details like Davis Guggenheim has won an Oscar, Current TV has won an Emmy, and Cameron Diaz may be in a TV show. Paragraph four repeats some facts (both the Oscar and the Nobel) found in paragraph one. Yuck. In particular the opening paragraph should define the subject. I'm guessing there's consensus that VP, Senator, Representative, star of Truth and Nobel winner would all belong in a definition of Al Gore. But why the Davis Guggenheim thing?

Rather than tossing out a hundred edits done today, I here propose a rewrite.

Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., or Al Gore (born March 31, 1948) was the forty-fifth Vice President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Prior to the Vice Presidency, Gore served in the U. S. House of Representatives (1977–85) and in the U. S. Senate (1985–93), representing Tennessee. Gore was the Democratic nominee for President in the 2000 election, one of the most controversial elections in American history.[1] A recount of election results in Florida was ordered stopped by the United States Supreme Court, in its final ruling on Bush v. Gore, giving George W. Bush the electoral college victory, and consequently the presidency.[2] With the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Gore was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change".[3]
Gore lectures widely on the topic of global warming, which he calls "the climate crisis",[4] and in 2006 starred in the Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, discussing global warming and the environment. Under his leadership, the organization Save Our Selves organized the benefit concert Live Earth held all over the world on July 07, 2007.
Today, Gore is president of the American television channel Current TV, chairman of Generation Investment Management, a director on the board of Apple Inc., an unofficial advisor to Google's senior management, and chairman of the Alliance for Climate Protection.
While Gore has frequently stated that "I'm not planning to be a candidate again,"[5] there is continuing speculation that he may run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

With this, it would be four paragraphs rather than six. I've tried not to change others' intended meaning. I think I've achieved a NPOV. (Controversy such as Florida is handled elsewhere.) And I think it's all roughly in the right order. Current TV's Emmy award, Mr Guggenheim's handing of the Oscar to Gore, Cameron Diaz, and Gore's recent book would all be moved down into the body. Comments? Hult041956 00:27, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

the sentence " A recount of election results in Florida was ordered stopped by the United States Supreme Court, in its final ruling on Bush v. Gore, giving George W. Bush the electoral college victory, and consequently the presidency.[2] " is appropriately covered by the sentence immediately preceding it (and the wikipedia article on it), so could/should be dropped, in the interest of brevity. Anastrophe 00:34, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for engaging with me in this effort, Anastrophe. The referenced Britannica article supports the "most controversial election" claim. I wonder whether that citation really is sufficient to remove further clarification that Gore isn't POTUS because Bush is. Like you, I'm hoping to shorten this section and especially the opening paragraph. I tried to make this sentence as terse as possible. Can you (or someone else) suggest something halfway between my effort and your proposed deletion? Hult041956 00:54, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
something as simple as "[...] one of the most controversial elections in American history (ref), in which George W. Bush ultimately prevailed." should be reasonable. Anastrophe 00:59, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Excellent work, Hult041956. I agree with your changes, and it really improves the article.--Gloriamarie 03:19, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. This is exactly the sort of productive work we need to get the article to FA status. Chris Cunningham 06:51, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for the support and/or suggestions. I gave my proposal about day to see what other edits would occur, and then I went for it. I hope I have "been bold" without being unilateral. You can see what I've done in the history (and in my edit comments), but here is a summary:

  • Took movie and TV out of the first paragraph; moved the few good bits into the relevant later one.
  • Moved the entire para about his book down into the body of the article. (Hopefully to a sensible place.)
  • Aware of my own slant, accepted User Anastrophe's proposal. ("Gore ran; it was tough; Bush prevailed.") More about how that all happened is probably best not added here. As a compromise, I added Florida related articles to the "See More" section.
  • Moved an existing citation reference (intact) from Academy Award to draft-Gore efforts where it seemed to belong (and also edited that sentence).

I believe the Intro now reads more fluidly, is NPOV, and better summarizes the essense of this subject. Hult041956 22:16, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Great job Hult041956! I do have one comment to add.
This was the original sentence:
"After a series of voting discrepancies and court challenges in the state of Florida the United States Supreme Court, with its final ruling on Bush v. Gore, stopped ongoing ballot recounts, giving George W. Bush the electoral college victory, and consequently the presidency."
It was changed to:
"George W. Bush ultimately prevailed."
While I agree that the first version was far too long and wordy, the second version does not quite reflect the first because it eliminates all mention of the Supreme Court case. I think a few more words, mentioning the Supreme Court ruling would not overly complicate the sentence - and would fairly represent the series of events as they happened. -Classicfilms 23:15, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Thank you, Classic. I had originally proposed the following: "A recount of election results in Florida was ordered stopped by the United States Supreme Court, in its final ruling on Bush v. Gore, giving George W. Bush the electoral college victory, and consequently the presidency." User Anastrophe provided the current version (that is, "Bush prevailed"). I deferred, but added information about the Florida issues to the See More section. Someone may be able to find a better middle ground. Hult041956 23:30, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Sure, happy to help out. Brevity is always a good goal for the Wikipedia. At the same time, it is the job of an encyclopedia to include all of the relevant points, which means that the Supreme Court case should be referred to in one way or another. Here is one possible combination of both ideas: "George W. Bush ultimately prevailed after a recount of election results in Florida was ordered stopped by the United States Supreme Court in its final ruling on Bush v. Gore." This way, the wikilinks are also listed in context, which cannot happen in a "See also" section. -Classicfilms 23:55, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I just made a change to the election description. I think it should be fine no matter what the reader's opinion on it is. I wrote " A legal controversy over the vote counting which was ultimately settled in favor of George W. Bush by the Supreme Court made the election one of the most controversial in American history. " Nobody could disagree with the factual accuracy of this, and it doesn't insinuate anything one way or another, I believe. It also highlights why we are mentioning this. --Horoball 00:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Note the intro is a lot cleaner than it was when this talk was started. So I think we should move on to the rest of the article. --Horoball 00:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks great! Thanks for adding it - I would also like to restore some of the wikilinks mentioned above, since they specify points without extending the sentence. How about adjusting it the following way: "A legal controversy over the recount of election results in Florida was ultimately settled in favor of George W. Bush by the United States Supreme Court, making the election one of the most controversial in American history." -Classicfilms 00:15, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I think that version improves on mine. --Horoball 01:11, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
isn't that info available in detail further into the article? the lead is supposed to be a 10,000ft elevation overview of the subject. we should be endeavoring to trim the lead to the bone, not keep adding back to it. Anastrophe 00:23, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Please refer to WP:LEDE, e.g. "the lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article". This standalone feature of the lede is particularly important as it is what will be included in Wikipedia 1.0. This means in particular that somebody that has no idea why that election was so controversial should have at least an idea of what the controversy was about. My sentence explained that it had to do with the legal intervention by the Supreme Court without going into needless details. Your version that you reverted to explains nothing in the least, so I don't think is so good. --Horoball 01:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
another editor kindly WL'd 'controversial' to the article on the election controversy. problem solved. Anastrophe 06:03, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Uh, problem solved? A wiki link is a poor substitute for good writing. I am going to revert your change as you do not seem interested in improving the writing per WP:LEDE. Obviously I am not the only one that thinks your edit was a bad one, so I hope you will give some explanation as to why you feel otherwise if you insist on reverting again. --Horoball 07:45, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
how pleasant of you to delve into the realm of ad hominem. a wikilink is in fact the sine qua non of good wikipedia writing, particularly for the lead of the article. i'm trying to WP:AGF, but this insistence by you and other editors to go into details about the election that pointedly avoid acknowledging that "george w. bush won the election" strikes me as POV. i hope i'm wrong; perhaps you can assuage my concerns. Anastrophe 18:25, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
(<----unindent) Ad hominem? I simply pointed out that you are not improving the article based on WP:LEDE and neither do you seem to be making arguments from it. Your opinion on "good wikipedia writing", which seems to consist of using wikilinks with undescriptive wording, is simply not held by a number of people on Wikipedia and others on this talk page. On the other hand, now you are accusing me and a couple other editors as having some kind of POV. By doing so, you have shown your own. I was wondering why a lone editor would insist so much on stripping away a brief description of an important Gore-related controversy when that is pretty much the standard way of writing these things on Wikipedia. Now it's clear that you want to emphasize that Bush won the election without mentioning the historically important fact that the Supreme Court intervened. I myself have no dog in this fight. I don't wish to "avoid acknowledging" that Bush won, as you unbelievably think despite it being mentioned in my edit. I do wish to mention what is the controversy, albeit briefly, so readers can understand the context. --Horoball 23:19, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
i said that it struck me as POV, and asked you to clear the air. regrettably, you took that as an accusation of POV, which was not what i said or intended. now, you are boldy stating that i have a POV. inappropriate. as well, you are promoting as policy a brief commentary within WP:LEDE. if you can show me policy that supports this supposed requirement that the lead must conform to the suggested, proposed, not yet real or even in production 'wp 1.0', by all means. otherwise, using wikilinks to other wikipedia articles is, i will repeat, the sine qua non of building wikipedia gracefully, elegantly, thoughfully, and - most importantly for the lead of an article, concisely. Anastrophe 06:23, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
I knew very well that you were going to say you only suggested it may be POV, no accusation involved. But such a defense doesn't fool experienced Wikipedians. If you need clarification on the reasoning of other editors, you can always ask it directly. No need to say "oh dear, I hope I'm wrong when I think you are being POV here", which is basically a way of accusing people of POV while giving yourself an out. You've been on Wikipedia long enough to know that never works, so don't bother with that. Using wikilinks is all and good, obviously I use them too. That doesn't mean we throw away standards of good writing because the wikilink supposedly does the job for us. --Horoball 10:06, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
your overt speculations regarding my state of mind, intent, POV, are all demonstrably bad faith, and bordering on incivility. please refrain. the suggestion that the sentence -back in the state it was in when i pointed out that another editor had wikilinked 'controversy' to the article - was less than 'good writing', is absurd. it was a concise, accurate sentence, that served the purpose just as well as the existing sentence. stylistically it was appropriate for the lead. we disagree on that matter of style. well and good. at least hopefully we can drop the pretense of there being a policy dispute here, yes? Anastrophe 23:11, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Who speculated first and thus demonstrated bad fath and bordered on incivility, etc.? As I already remarked, there were no need for that kind of remark from you. Starting this kind of accusation and using a rather lame defense of "how dare you" is transparent to any experienced Wikipedian. Continue on this way if you wish. Policy? I never said it was policy, but there are definitely style guidelines. --Horoball 07:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
you are correct, of course. i extend my apologies for speculating regarding your POV; it was lame, there's no doubt about it, even I see it now that the scales have fallen from my eyes. that said, i still believe that brevity is trump in the lede. it is the anchor of that entire style guideline. the previous iteration, wikilinked, summarizes accurately while neither obscuring nor highlighting the details. again, it was:
"Gore was the Democratic nominee for President in the 2000 election, one of the most controversial elections in American history. George W. Bush ultimately prevailed."
I maintain that this is a better structure, as it does not indulge the controversy in any direction (i.e. he neither stole the election nor won the election unremarkably, as has been hinted at with some revisions). but i suspect at this point i'm flogging a dead horse. Anastrophe 07:52, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I apologize also for letting things get out of hand. As for the dead horse, yes I think so. Not much agreement for your view. On the other hand, it seems like there are lots of live ones on this page. It's kind of incredible, even stupid, I would say, except I contributed to such a discussion so what can I say? --Horoball 06:08, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Ok, now I see that it may not be clear to some that Bush won the entire election just because he won the recount decision. If you really wish, we can reword the entire thing, but obviously others feel the Supreme Court should be mentioned. So as my last effort here, I suggest something like "A legal controversy of the Florida election recount made the election one of the most controversial in American history. The Supreme Court's decision in favor of George W. Bush won him the election." --Horoball 23:44, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
The version of the sentence that's there right now (Gore was the Democratic nominee for President in the 2000 election. A legal controversy over the Florida election recount, ultimately settled in favor of George W. Bush by the Supreme Court, made the election one of the most controversial in American history) seems excellent. Has the key ingredients of the controversy without ignoring it, short enough, no POV. Looks settled. Hult041956 23:04, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

al gore and tommy lee jones

uncited. trivia. can someone explain the relevance? seriously. did they even know each other? how is physical proximity of residence of encyclopedic interest? Anastrophe 03:45, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The friendship between Tommy Lee Jones and Gore was frequently discussed in numerous news articles during the 2000 election (and often appears on biography pages about Jones) since, with Karenna Gore Schiff, Jones was one of the individuals who nominated Gore in 2000. This CNN article discusses this point.
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/08/16/convention.wrap.02/index.html
Gore and Jones first met and were friends while undergrads at Harvard. Jones discusses this in another CNN article in which he is interviewed (scroll about halfway down the interchange: Greenfield: His college roommate and star of "The Fugitive." Tommy Lee Jones: Al Gore has been one of my closest friends since the day we met on the first day of college 35 years ago.)
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0008/16/se.03.html
Perhaps the best solution is to move the information to the 2000 Presidential election section, and perhaps also mention the role of Kareena during it since that was also frequently covered in the press:
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/2000/08/14/daughter.html
-Classicfilms 17:37, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
now we're getting somewhere, thanks. the friendship is notable, far more so than the seemingly random bit of information that they lived in the same residence at harvard. i agree it that it should be moved and expanded (a little - it is still a minor bit of information). Anastrophe 18:06, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

2000 Election and "Winning Your Home State"

BreadbakerWA 10:41, 13 October 2007 (UTC)I deleted a line about Al Gore being among the few to lose his home state, the most recent before that being George H.W. Bush. Pulling out my handy World Almanac, this is totally inaccurate. First of all, George H.W. Bush's home state, for presidential elections purposes, was Texas. He carried Texas in both 1988 and 1992 quite handily. Yes, he was born in Massachusetts, which he didn't carry in either election, but his son was born in Connecticut, and didn't carry Connecticut in either election, either. Plus, Gore was born in Washington, D.C., not Tennessee, and carried Washington, D.C. quite handily in 2000. So the whole thing was like the statue of John Harvard in Harvard Yard, the statue of "three lies."

If you were to look at what major party presidential candidate did not carry his "home state" before Gore, it would be George McGovern in 1972 (South Dakota). If you were looking for presidential candidates who didn't carry the state of their birth, it would be both Bush and Kerry in 2004 (Connecticut and Colorado, respectively).


Nobel prize icon at top of box

Until a few days ago I'd never seen the icon placed in a infobox like that. First of all it's distracting as it, along with his picture, is the first thing you see when the page opens. Next it's useless. Not everybody will know what the icon signifies, and even if they do, it doesn't link to Nobel Peace Prize, so it's not informing anyone of anything. It also overemphasises the award. It says to me that Al Gore (and the others I saw it on) is notable because he won a Nobel prize but in truth he won the prize because he did something notable. Why not add icons for his other awards as well, what about his Emmy Award.? Finally adding things like that will get out of hand. Look at Jimmy Carter, he has a Nobel Prize as well but why not add the seal of Georgia and the Presidential seal aren't they important? If it's in the box then it should be further down with a list so that the award can be linked to CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 13:32, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually a lot of articles of Nobel Prize winners seem to have the icon on the infobox. Some on the top right next to the name or some on the bottom, but it does seem to use the icon. mirageinred 13:42, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
I've been removing them from the top, as I see them, but if they were further down then I left them in. Such as Albert Einstein, who, as I suggested above, has his other awards listed. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 13:47, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Agree that it looks neater within the info list (see Marie Curie, Linus Pauling, Albert Einstein) than atop the box (see George Bernard Shaw). I think the person's name alone, serving as identification, is best. The practice of putting an image alongside the name doesn't seem to be in use for other sorts of prize winners (see Olympic gold medalist Michael Johnson (athlete), for example). Hult041956 18:55, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Hunting around further, I've found that many, but not all, Peace Prize winners have the medal in their infoboxes. Fewer science prize winners do. Cambridge, I see you're going from article to article, but advocates are working as quickly as you.  ;-) Hult041956 23:09, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
See User:CambridgeBayWeather/Sandbox for an idea of how the boxes will look if it continues. I did 2 one with just the images and another with the article links. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 06:46, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Cute. Wanna add his high school varsity pins up there?  ;-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hult041956 (talk • contribs) 23:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Al Gore's Own Inconvenient Truth

Al Gore's monthly energy usage is more than a year's energy usage of an average American household [4] - This should be mentioned under his Global Warming section to balance out the article. TwakTwik 14:56, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

This is not a new claim. It first came up back in February of this year. Note that the source you give fails to mention the word "carbon." How can this subject be realistically discussed without mentioning carbon footprints or carbon offsets? Here's an article that presents both sides of the matter.[5] Sunray 15:25, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you. Your referenced source presents a balanced view, and I think it should be added to Al Gore's page to present a balanced view of the issue. This is a criticism against Al Gore and whether it is justified or not, the Wikipedia page should capture the criticism and offer the link to balanced view. I am happy to use your source. If there are no other objections, I would like to add this to Al Gore page. TwakTwik 16:35, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me important to recognize that the criticism is not really justified, but rather a partisan and ad hominem attack. We all struggle with the problem of carbon footprints, after all. However, if we stick to sources in the mainstream media, we should be able to produce a NPOV statement that illuminates the subject of carbon offsets and thus adds something interesting to the article. Sunray 17:16, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

This is a criticism on Al Gore - whether it is justified or not is for readers to decide. The page should at least mention the criticism. TwakTwik 18:20, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Uh, yes. I was agreeing with you about adding to the article. Go ahead. Sunray 19:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Oh well, the page is semi-protected, which means only senior members can add additional text. If there is a senior enough member reading this, please add the criticism of Al Gore, but provide both sides of the argument. This is important for an impartial portrayal of Al Gore. TwakTwik 21:00, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Have a look here; you may find you can improve that article. Hult041956 23:16, 13 October 2007 (UTC)