This week conservatives across American celebrate the 20th anniversary of Rush Limbaugh's nationally-syndicated talk show. Today, Rush played a clip from his appearance against Algore on Ted Koppel's Nightline. If anyone wonders why Algore doesn't debate his theories in public anymore, one need only remember this smackdown delivered by El Rushbo.
Remember, this is 16 years ago. The issue then was the ozone hole, and like now with global warming, we only had 10 years to act to save the planet.
ALGORE: We now face a global ecological crisis that is more serious than anything human civilization has ever faced, and there's a problem of scale here.... Now we've got a whole new category of global or strategic problems, which include the hole in the ozone layer -- which now could appear above the United States.
RUSH 1992: There is no ozone hole above the United States and if we want to get into a detailed discussion of ozone depletion we can, but I think, Ted, that there is not a crisis. See, this is the problem I have. I don't think the earth is fragile. I don't think the ecology is fragilely balanced and I think that the doomsday industry that is typified by members of the Hollywood acting community who say, "We've only got ten years left to save our planet, we've gotta act now," there's no way, if what these people say is true, that we could solve these problems in ten years anyway. It's budget time in Washington; NASA is being cut, and I think that this fright and doom scenario is designed to frighten people. Everything in this country today seems to be crisis. I can't do anything without having to face it as a crisis. We don't have any time to think about it. There are as many scientists, maybe even more on the opposite side of all of these doomsday predictions, and I think that --
Just like there are many scientists today who don't buy into man-made global warming.
RUSH: Next, Koppel said, "Rush Limbaugh, we've both run into politicians during our careers who know how to fake it on an issue. I don't know anybody on Capitol Hill who is more knowledgeable on the subject of environment than Algore. You have to take seriously what he says."
RUSH 1992: The environmental movement as fueled by the militants who lead it, I think, is the new home of socialism. I think it is. They've adopted a constituency here which can't speak -- that is trees and rocks and so forth -- and can't reject the so-called help and concern that the advocates are giving it, and gives them a stage from which to constantly launch attacks at capitalism. If you listen to what Senator Gore said, it is manmade products which are causing the ozone completion. Yet Mt. Pinatubo has put 570 times the amount of chlorine into the atmospheric in one eruption than all of manmade chlorofluorocarbons in one year; and the ultraviolet radiation measured on this country's surface since 1974 has shown no increase whatsoever. And if there's ozone depletion going on, you're going to have UV radiation levels going way up, and they simply aren't. The sun makes ozone, and there's an ozone hole in the Antarctic Circle and the Arctic Circle simply because the sun is below the horizon for a portion of the year.
And who proved to be correct on this one? Rush, of course.
ALGORE: Well, there's a classic experiment in science, Ted, about a frog that's dropped in a pot of boiling water and jumps right out. When the same frog is put in a pot of lukewarm water that's slowly brought to a boil it just sits there until it's rescued. A frog's nervous system needs a sudden jolt to get the connection. We're like that frog! We're getting the signals of ecological devastation around the world, but we're still dead in the water. The ozone hole is threatening to open up above North America --
RUSH: Never did.
ALGORE: -- above Kennebunkport --
RUSH: It never did!
ALGORE: -- and still we're not reacting.
RUSH: Kennebunkport!
ALGORE: The American people want to see us take this problem seriously and do something about it.
KOPPEL: All right, Senator Gore. I thank you very much, Rush, you'll have three hours --
RUSH 1992: There's no ozone depletion, there's no crisis. Thanks, Ted.
Does anyone else see a pattern here in Gore's shtick? How many times are Americans going to fall victim to the "Algore who Cried Global Catastrophe?"
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