That's the opposite of what I claimed: I agreed that Al Gore makes money out of supporting Greentech companies. My point is that you can make money by supporting/investing in a good cause (in this case green tech) and that's ok. Making money by polluting or making the poor even more poor: not ok.
But yes: abuse happens on both sides of the spectrum. Unfortunately. But again, that does not negate the fact that climate change is happening right in front of us. And it's clear that if wait until politicians do something about it, it will be too late.
My apologies, as I erred and thought I was replying to Rigby. But, to address your points:
I think we can agree that polluting is not good. But, despite your righteous belief that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, it's not quite as obvious as you want everyone to believe.
I spent a good part of my career doing various kinds of modeling. So, I have a different perspective on what models generate: they don't generate facts, they generate
projections. And, the projections are only as good as the input data and the model algorithms. If the input data is wrong or even incomplete, or the algorithms have methodological problems, the model's projections will be wrong.
So, what did I do? I went through a validation process, in which I compared the projection of the model to the known behavior of the modeled process or system under the same input conditions. I had the ability to exercise the modeled process or system, so I could test a wide range of input conditions. If they didn't match, I was obviously missing something. And even then, I had to be careful to limit the scope of the projections because if you got too far from the original (and validated) input conditions, some unknown factor would likely invalidate the model's projections.
But despite all these efforts, I still had cases where the model was subsequently proven to be wrong. In every case, it was an input condition that I didn't account for. In one notable case, it was something that I explicitly addressed, only to find that I was given incorrect information.
This is where I see that climate modeling has failed. Over the past couple of decades, nearly every one of them has failed to predict the trend. Of course, this discrepancy is being explained away as "random fluctuations in the Earth's climate". But, if I had tried to say that during my career, I would have been looking for a new job. Instead, I would have been compelled to go back and examine the data and model and find out where I failed.
However, I have no doubt that climate change is happening, as it has been doing so for millennia and I don't know why anyone would think it has suddenly stopped, then restarted by mankind. Where I disagree is whether a model can constitute proof that humans are a significant contributor, and whether a model can forecast if any change in human behavior can prevent it from occurring. It's not a testable hypothesis, and the use of "backcasting" to test models incorrectly presumes that all other unmodeled influences on global climate will somehow repeat exactly in the future.
Finally, one of the problems with "green energy" is that it disproportionately impacts the poor, by raising their cost of energy, and further downstream: the costs of their goods and services that require energy to produce. The "wealthy" and "middle class" (however you define those terms) have enough disposable income to be able to absorb those increased costs. So in that regard, "green energy" fails one of your tests.
