Questions for the Goracle

John Tierney has three pointed questions for the former vice president:

1) Can anyone explain why Mr. Gore keeps hurting his own cause with junk science? Andy gives him a deserved smackdown for saying there “seem to be more tornadoes than in living memory.” I can understand why Mr. Gore felt he needed this sort of hype in the past. But after “Inconvenient Truth” and the Nobel, he knows he can count on attention. He knows the public is concerned about the problem. He also knows that his exaggerations have generated bad publicity (and a formal ruling by a British judge about his scientific errors). So why, even though there’s no good evidence that global warming has increased tornadoes, would he try to suggest they’re increasing – and this in a year in which there’s been global cooling?

2) Why is Mr. Gore still afraid of discussing nuclear power? He tries to sound Kennedyesque in setting his decade-long quest and inveighs against “the defenders of the status quo.” But he’s still reluctant to use his stature among greens to get them to reconsider the largest carbon-free source of electricity in America today, nuclear power. Is this a profile in courage?
3) Why hasn’t his one-year plan for energy worked at his own home? A year ago, after the embarrassing revelation that his home in Tennessee used 20 times as much electricity as the average home, he renovated his home to make it more energy-efficient. But a year later, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research reports that his home electricity usage has increased by 10 percent — an additional 1,638 kilowatts per month — since the renovations, which included solar panels, a geothermal system and a variety of conservation measures.
Does this inspire confidence in his 10-year plan for the rest of America?