[Marxism] Alexander Cockburn versus Al Gore

[Louis Proyect]

Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize has prompted a new spasm of global warming 
denial from Alexander Cockburn. Articles in the Nation Magazine and 
Counterpunch with overlapping material appeared soon after Gore and the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC–a United Nations network 
of scientists that Cockburn regards as practically genocidal) received 
the award.

While his articles contain many useful points about Gore’s duplicity, 
they are outweighed by unsubstantiated claims about global warming that 
can only deepen his reputation as a crank.

The Counterpunch article sets the tone:

	The specific reason why this man of blood shares the 2007 Nobel Peace 
Prize with the IPCC is for their joint agitprop on the supposed threat 
of anthropogenic global warming. Bogus science topped off with toxic 
alarmism. It’s as ridiculous as as [sic] if Goebbels got the Nobel Peace 
Prize in 1938, sharing it with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for his work 
in publicizing the threat to race purity posed by Jews, Slavs and gypsies.

I guess a little hyperbole never hurt anybody but I would be a bit 
reluctant to make analogies with fascism after hyping Zbigniew 
Jaworowski, a regular contributor to Larouche publications, as Alexander 
did. I should mention that the Larouche Political Action Committee saw 
the nod to Jaworowski as a friendly gesture and returned the favor in a 
June 2007 article titled “A British Flagellant Attacks LaRouche on 
Global Warming.” Mostly, the article concurs with Alexander’s dismissal 
of peer review as a consensus-forming mechanism, not much different than 
mind-control cults like Larouche’s frankly. Of course, they would never 
make such a connection. Here’s some relevant paragraphs from the article:

     Counterpunch’s Alexander Cockburn makes a useful point in his 
rebuttal to Guardian science scribbler George Monbiot’s continued 
hysterical rants against 21st Century Science & Technology (the magazine 
associated with U.S. economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche), by noting 
that “peer review” is hardly the definition of science…

     The control of science itself by “peer review,” a method of mind 
control borrowed from the Venetian [could they possibly mean Venutian?] 
repertoire, and the unleashing of an anti-science cult among youth were 
the means selected. This appeared first in the form of Bertrand 
Russell’s Ban the Bomb movement. It was soon followed by the mass 
environmental hysteria, which surfaced at the April 22, 1970 Earth Day 
celebrations from ground that had been amply seeded by Aldous Huxley and 
Gregory Bateson’s mass drugging project.

The Larouchites and Cockburn fave Zbigniew Jaworowski are huge fans of 
nuclear energy. Despite Cockburn’s best efforts to portray Al Gore’s 
global warming crusade as a subterfuge to push nuclear power, the energy 
industry itself has no problems denying global warming and pushing for 
nuclear power at the same time. Indeed, the politician most associated 
with global warming denial and expanded nuclear power usage resides in 
the White House.

full: 
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/10/25/alexander-cockburn-versus-al-gore/