To read anything by Al Gore these days is to be torn by a mix of pity and disgust. Pity for the psychological and intellectual incoherence into which this once (mildly) distinguished figure has sunk, disgust at the destructiveness and dishonesty of the gospel he now preaches.

Here we find him reviewing a new book by Ross Gelbspan on how various sinister groups are thwarting efforts to combat global warming:

Gore notes how Gelbspan “recounts, for example, a conversation with a top television network editor who was reluctant to run stories about global warming because a previous story had ”triggered a barrage of complaints from the Global Climate Coalition” — a fossil fuel industry lobbying group — ”to our top executives at the network.”

It’s a little odd to be retold this anecdote by the same Al Gore who, while vice president, “sent over [to] Nightline reams of disparaging material in an effort to get the program to investigate the motives of prominent climatologists who are skeptical of the global-warming disaster scenario. Nightline did investigate-and concluded that the skeptics were sincere and had reasonable scientific arguments.”

People in glass houses, Al.

As for the rest of Gore’s review, it seems little more than conspiracy theories and attacks on the motivation of those who have the temerity to disagree with him. The notion that there might be some genuine scientific controversy over the existence, extent and causes of global warming is clearly not acceptable to him. Instead Gore seems to sympathize (“I wouldn’t have said it quite that way, but I’m glad he does, and his exposition of the facts certainly seems to support his charge.”) with Gelbspan’s view that the businesses allegedly behind some of the global warming skeptics are guilty of a crime against humanity.

Actually, if anyone is guilty of such a crimes, it is those who push a Kyoto treaty based on junk science, anti-Americanism and bureaucratic empire building, a treaty that will further impoverish some of the poorest people on the planet.

That, Mr. Gore, is a crime against humanity, and you, Mr. Gore, are guilty of it.