Local talk show blowhard Phil Valentine, last seen circling our state capitol while repeatedly honking his car horn, has a hilarious new anti-climate change film that is a 90-minute attack on Al Gore, liberals and environmentalists. It’s in one theater here in Nashville (because he lives here), and probably won’t be coming to a theater near you, but I’m sure it will be hitting the wingnut DVD distribution circuit soon. The Tennessean did a story on it, which you can read here.
This was funny:
In Michael Moore fashion, Valentine in the film goes to a book signing for Gore to try to talk to him and also to Gore’s Belle Meade home, where he says he wants to see him.
“Yes, this is Arlen Specter,” he says at one point, speaking into the intercom at the entrance. “Can Al Gore come out and play?”
He imitates different voices, including pretending to be Jesse Jackson. An employee comes out and says Gore is out of town and gives him information for the contact person he needs to call.
Har dee har har! That’s so funny! What’s really funny is that despite their professed hatred of prominent liberals like Michael Moore, the right has accepted their cultural superiority. They wouldn’t be copying them otherwise. As I’ve said many times before, conservatives are constantly co-opting the messaging and tactics of the left because they’re culturally irrelevant themselves, and are incapable of creating anything new. Instead of coming up with their own ideas they need to come up with a conservative version of whatever the left has already been successful doing. It’s kinda sad, really.
So, Valentine has basically made a documentary with an all-volunteer crew to debunk climate change by saying it’s phony because Al Gore is fat. Really, that’s it in a nutshell. As Michael Vandenbergh, director of Vanderbilt’s Environmental Law Program and the Climate Change Research Network, is quoted as saying in The Tennessean:
“Whatever you think about Al Gore doesn’t affect that there’s scientific consensus about climate change, and it won’t make it go away,” he said.
Al Gore has been a great straw man for the deniers, but they look beyond silly as climate change has become reality, as anyone with a vegetable garden knows.
What’s funny to me is Valentine’s own inconsistencies on issues like energy.
Little is sacred on the green front. Valentine at one point makes fun of people who recycle plastic bottles and own hybrid cars.
Valentine said he doesn’t recycle, but he does drive a restored 1985 Mercedes-Benz, which was highlighted in the film. It runs on biodiesel that he makes from old restaurant oil.
It’s strictly to save money, he said.
He backs solar, wind and nuclear energy along with drilling for traditional fuel sources as ways to ease the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. He said he is not for cutting back on energy use.
Dude, you’re a moron. You’re for saving money but only the way YOU do it? Hybrids’ better gas mileage saves money. Making buildings more energy efficient saves money. How come that’s not okay, but driving on vegetable oil is?
Recycling plastic bottles saves money. It means you don’t have to make new ones. Why is that not okay?
This is why I don’t worry about the troglodytes of conservatism who claim to support free market solutions to everything, but then are critical when the free market decides something they don’t like. I spent $8 fueling my car last month. Who wouldn’t want that deal? It doesn’t matter what your politics may be, the pocket book has already won the argument. You guys lost. Attacking Al Gore isn’t going to change a thing, except put you on the wrong side of yet another issue. We’re used to seeing that from you guys. Thanks for staying consistent on at least that one point.
This is why I’ve decided to stop worrying and love the climate change deniers. I’ve realized the people who need to know about this stuff, the people who matter, are not the people with their head in the sand. And by people who matter, I’m not talking about the champagne-swillers in Davos. I’m talking about engineers and biologists and agricultural scientists and medical doctors. I’m talking about the folks who are building city storm sewers, who know devastating floods are the new normal and are adjusting their plans accordingly. And yes, I’m talking about business leaders.
Climate change isn’t just real, it’s been decided. There’s no going back at this point, it’s too late. All we can do is prepare for its impact. And people are doing that. Phil Valentine can try to propagandize to his faithful, but he’s preaching to the choir. We already know these people are out of touch with reality. So keep it up. Because you’re just backing yourselves into a corner, showing yourselves to be even more irrelevant.
Southern Beale 
Another data point: The Pentagon. The US Defense Science Board issued a report stating climate change is a threat to stability and security.
Extreme weather can cause famine, and rising oceans displace people, causing them to move further inland. Poor countries don’t have the resources to deal with these situations, and they can lead to violence.
Whatever happened to being a good steward of the planet, just because it was the right thing to do?
I know I’m in the part of northeastern suburbia where stuff gets normalized after it’s cool in hip places, but is TN so behind the times that Valentine figured used fry oil would be a free thing from restaurants forever?
Does it save money now that the idea of “used fry oil” is being marketized? Is that why he’s so chaffed? Because any enviro worth their smoked gray fleur-de-sel likes it when the market for something gets created so what used to be a waste product is now a reused product.
I finally got some closure on the climate issue this past year but not through my own efforts. I was chatting with a friend who has spent a lot of time in the academic environment and the topic came up and I began the usual construction of the laundry list of evidence. My friend said “Randy it’s not that difficult. It’s one of the few things scientists have ever agreed on.” (97% consensus or something like that.) Sometimes the simple observations are the best.
Obviously no one’s reading your blog so I’ll take pity and comment on your review of the movie. Let it be noted that you’ve written a review on a movie you’ve never seen.
Point one: We never said Al Gore was fat. That came from you.
Point two: The movie is a huge hit in Nashville and now begins its expansion. I know you’d love to kill this message but it’s too late. The truth is loose and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Phil Valentine is apparently unaware of all internet traditions.
Google “Al Gore is fat” for an education.