On his September 20 Ride Home with The James Gang broadcast on Fox News Radio 600 KCOL, Scott James misrepresented details of a speech former Vice President Al Gore delivered in Australia as well as positions Gore has taken on the dangers of global warming. After noting that Gore said during his speech that “the Arctic ice cap will be gone in 23 years,” James -- echoing conservative commentators -- added, “Wait a minute. I thought it was 10 before we all died, Al.”

In addition to suggesting that Gore once said that it would be “10 [years] before we all died” because of global warming, James also mocked Gore's advocacy of the Kyoto Protocol with the misleading suggestion that the Clinton administration had passed up the opportunity to sign the treaty. In fact, Gore has voiced scientists' concerns that the climate may be reaching “a point of no return” within the next 10 years. Furthermore, as vice president, Gore signed the Kyoto Protocol on behalf of the United States in 1998.

The September 19 speech to which James referred was reported September 20 in Australia's The Age newspaper. According to James, “Al Gore's in Australia, charges a PC crowd in Sydney there $25,000 a plate for lunch so they can hear his doom and gloom and now, you know, how many years left do we have left of the 10 years that we had left -- you know that speech.” James added that Gore went on to tell the audience “that the Arctic ice cap will be gone in 23 years,” before saying, “Wait a minute. I thought it was 10 before we all died, Al.”

James' comments about Gore echoed those of Chris Horner, counsel for the energy industry-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), who stated on the April 5 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck that Gore “has been saying, for nigh on five years, that we've got 10 years to live, so, pretty soon ... those chickens are going to come home to roost,” as Media Matters for America has noted.

In fact, Gore has asserted that according to “leading scientists,” such as NASA's James Hansen, the climate may be reaching “a point of no return” within the next 10 years. On the December 5, 2006, edition of The Oprah Winfrey Show, for example, Gore said: “Some of the leading scientists are now saying we may have as little as 10 years before we cross a kind of point of no return, beyond which it's much more difficult to save the habitability of the planet in the future.”

James further claimed that Gore “called Australia and the United States the Bonnie and Clyde of the environmental movement, because we were the two buffoonish nations so moronic not to sign on to the Kyoto treaty.” He then added, “Oh, wait a minute: Wasn't that the Clinton administration that had a chance to sign on to the Kyoto? Nasty details, Al!”

Contrary to James' misrepresentation, Gore criticized the United States and Australia for failing to ratify -- not sign -- the Kyoto Protocol, as The Age reported:

In a passionate attack on the climate policies of Prime Minister John Howard and US President George Bush, the former US vice-president, addressing a very expensive lunch in Sydney yesterday, called Australia and the US “the Bonnie and Clyde” outlaws of the global environment for their failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

Gore in fact signed the Kyoto Protocol on behalf of the United States on November 12, 1998, but the Clinton administration declined to submit it for Senate ratification. As The Washington Post (accessed through the Nexis database) reported on December 11, 1997, just before the agreement was reached, “The difficulty delegates to the global warming conference in Kyoto encountered in reaching agreement on reducing greenhouse gases is likely to pale beside the trouble Republicans have promised the Clinton administration when it seeks ratification of the newly negotiated international treaty.” The article added:

As finalized early this morning, Japanese time, the Kyoto accord calls for industrialized nations to cut their greenhouse emissions by 6 percent to 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. It left aside until at least next year the contentious issue of how much developing countries would be required to cut their own emissions.

Hours before the final agreement was reached, however, key Senate Republicans declared the accord “dead on arrival,” and a leading Democratic supporter urged that the Senate delay a vote in light of its bleak prospects.

From the September 20 broadcast of Fox News Radio 600 KCOL's Ride Home with The James Gang:

JAMES: Al Gore's in Australia, charges a PC crowd in Sydney there $25,000 a plate for lunch so they can hear his doom and gloom and now, you know, how many years left do we have left of the 10 years that we had left -- you know that speech. Twenty-five thousand dollars a plate for lunch. Tells them that the Arctic ice cap will be gone in 23 years. Wait a minute. I thought it was 10 before we all died, Al. But apparently now the clock is ticking on the Arctic ice cap -- 23 years. Yet today, Boulder researchers say Arctic ice seems to be rebuilding. And they scratch their heads and they say, “Well, how can Arctic ice be rebuilding? Now, wait a minute! I thought Al Gore said we had 10 years. Now he's saying 23, and our research shows that the ice is rebuilding!”

The climate works in cycles. Ask any old farmer who's been out there farming for 60 years now. You go down to Johnson's Corner, you sit at the bar next to a guy in a seed cap that's got a little gray, you know, a little gray on the chimney there, and he'll tell you how things work in cycles. And he'll have his dad's memory, and his granddad's memory, and might even have his great-granddaddy's memory. And they've been farming this land forever and a day, and things work in cycles. And somehow I'll put more trust in the guy at Johnson's Corner wearing the seed cap than I do in Al Gore's league of scientists. Call me a cynic. Twenty-five thousand dollars a plate for these guys in Sydney. Of course, he called Sydney -- or he called Australia and the United States the Bonnie and Clyde of the environmental movement, because we were the two buffoonish nations so moronic not to sign on to the Kyoto treaty. Oh, wait a minute: Wasn't that the Clinton administration that had a chance to sign on to the Kyoto? Nasty details, Al! Though you could never get it through the Senate, which, by the way, the Senate must ratify treaties -- which makes me wonder about this whole NAFTA deal, but that's a whole 'nother rant.