Which is what Al Gore is doing with some critics of his film An Inconvenient Truth: "Seven hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money to spend to try to get someone to talk to you and not get an answer. That's how much the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based libertarian think tank, has forked over in six months for advertisements in national newspapers trying to persuade Al Gore to debate one of its experts on global warming issues. "We have tried, repeatedly, to contact Gore directly, with registered letters and calls to his office, and have never received a reply," says Joseph Bast, Heartland president. A spokeswoman for Gore told me by e-mail that Heartland is an oil-company-funded group that denies that global warming is real and caused by human activities. "The debate has shifted to how to solve the climate crisis, not if there is one," said Kalee Kreider. "It does not make sense for him to engage in a dialogue with them at this time."
Shutting off debate is a part of trying to control the debate.
Conservatives and those who believe the entire environmental issue needs more debate, not less, must not let this kind of thing stand.
