To answer your other question, I think the UK may have been considering several taxes for people with “unhealthy lifestyles”.

The costs of health care will never go down so long as the acute care model of health care is in place – equipment, pharmaceuticals, physician fees, expensive procedures – which only addresses problems once they present themselves will always be far more expensive than spending money to prevent them in the first place. And charging people extra for their “lifestyle” illnesses is not the answer. It only serves to further marginalize, and exacerbate negative determinants of health for, those getting sick in the first place.

Take a look at the Ottawa, Jakarta and Bangkok Charters to get a feel for what I mean.

And I agree that is unacceptable to reward Gore’s unacceptable behavior, which actually extends for further than even hinted at by your comment, Ian.

But if you look at the whole Nobel issue, Alfred Nobel was a socialist, despite his great wealth. He was the inventor of dynamite, blasting caps, and gel explosives, but endowed a peace prize. So Gore, who borders on being a socialist and lives a life at least as oddly incongruent as Nobel, seems a suitable winner of the prize. Unfortunately, most people see it differently — they think it makes Gore look like a good guy.

Of course, many scientists (including one I met at Newfoundland’s fabulous Johnson Geo Center) willingly acknowledge that there is really no way to know if the warming trend is being effected in any way by our activities, as we are in fact still in the warming period after the last mini-Ice Age. So instead of whining, why aren’t we talking about ways to cope with the fact that the earth changes, whether we like it or not.

Oh — and I absolutely agree that it’s the guy with the press agent who gets noticed, not the folks working at ground level in really bad places to stop the problems.

So thanks for the post.

It is interesting though that you essentially ignored the reason behind my complaint about Gore winning and focused on something someone else wrote (clearly marked as such, I might add). If you think it’s okay that Gore flies around in a private jet, lives in a huge house and buys indulgences instead of making real sacrifices that is your business but to me it is unacceptable to reward such behaviour.