Natural Science Forum / Physics / General Physics / July 2008

It was a critique of his SPEECH, Rand, I didn't say anything about
'scientific credentials' in the followup, and besides, anyone who reads
my posts critically and knows me knows that I am not a credentialist.

Sure it does, Nobel Peace Prize, elected Congressman, Senator, twice
Vice President, Oscar award winner, and now a wealthy businessman.

However, let's look at his educational record a little more clearly :

Gore graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government cum laude on
June 12, 1969

Ok, so far so good.

Gore attended Vanderbilt University Divinity School instead, studying
there from 1971 to 1972. He later said he went there in order to explore
"the spiritual issues that were most important to me at the time."[36]
Tipper would also later refer to it as an act of "purification.

Ok, so he was interested vaguely in 'spiritual things'.

Nothing much there.

Gore attended Vanderbilt Divinity School on a yearlong Rockefeller
Foundation scholarship for people planning secular careers; he had never
intended to become a minister and later said that "he had hoped to make
sense of the social injustices that seemed to challenge his religious
beliefs." Gore left divinity school to work full time at the The
Tennessean. His first child, Karenna, was born on August 6, 1973. A year
later, he took a leave of absence from the The Tennessean and returned
to graduate study, attending Vanderbilt University Law School from 1974
to 1976. His decision to attend law school was a partial result of his
time as a journalist, as he realized that while he could expose
corruption, he could not change it.[3] Eventually, however, Gore "took
away no degrees, deciding abruptly in 1976 to run for a seat in the U.S.
House of Representatives" when he found out that his father's former
seat in the House was about to be vacated.

Well that clears things up a bit.

Gore is on the faculty of Middle Tennessee State University as a
visiting professor and was a visiting professor at Columbia University
Graduate School of Journalism, Fisk University, and the University of
California, Los Angeles in 2001.

Wow, not bad for a guy with a B.A.

See, credentials not required!

Now, since I have established that credentials are not required for
success, which is good for you because you don't have any either, lets
move on to a critique of his science. The theory of global warming is
beyond reproach, so I won't waste my time there, but let's look more
closely at his suggestion that we can replace all electrical generation
with wind and solar in the next 10 years, in the United States alone.

First, there is solar :

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/IRRADIANCE/irrad.html

Clearly solar irradiance is sufficient for our needs.

Let's look at wind :

http://www.awea.org/newsroom/releases/Annual_US_Wind_Power_Rankings_041107.html

Ok, wind is clearly sufficient with the necessary investment, so what is
the problem? I suppose the problem would have to be physics necessary to
create the required solar energy conversion technology of the magnitude
required to solve the problem, and the electrical distribution network
required to get these on again off again energy sources balanced and to
the consumers. That presumably will require some sort of breakthrough in
condensed matter physics, which in turn requires a large repository of
condensed matter physics to peruse for possible breakthroughs on a daily
basis. A quick search of the internet reveals just such a repository :

http://arxiv.org.

Ok, no we need to move onto the funding for breakthrough scientists:

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Oops, looks like we're screwed!

That's what happens with a nation that tries to do foreign, science and
rocketry with a BIG STICK. You know, Al Gore's carrot looks pretty good.

Of course, we're gonna need a better rocket :

http://webpages.charter.net/tsiolkovsky/

 Won in conjunction with the Israeli Prime Minister - who was murdered by a
KKKonservative Israeli for signing a peace treaty with the Palestinians.