You may recall a crazy viral video a few months ago shot by an Australian filmmaker named Chris Tangey that featured something being called a Firenado. It was a tornado that was basically on fire. Naturally, Al Gore wanted to use it as evidence of global warming (which it had nothing to do with). Tangy said no - then Gore got deceptive and tried to trick him into licensing the video. Tangey didn't fall for that either.
WATCH the viral video below:
Transcript of interview below:
GLENN: All right. We want to talk to Chris Tangey. He's a guy who runs Alice Springs Film and TV out of Australia. The only reason why I know this film company is because of the Alice Springs chicken at Outback, and that's all I know. And if that's what they do in Alice Springs, I am all for a film company about it. But that's just for us Australians that know Australia so very, very well. Chris is ‑‑ he runs this film unit in Australia and he's the guy who captured, and I don't know if you've seen it, a fire tornado. And it's an amazing piece of video of a tornado out of fire. I mean, it looks like, you know, it looks like the Ten Commandments.
Well, he received a phone call and we're going to let him tell the rest of the story. Hi, Chris, how are ya?
TANGEY: Good day, Glenn. Good morning. It's five minutes into good morning here, tomorrow.
GLENN: It's midnight there?
TANGEY: Yes. Saturday morning here by five minutes. So...
GLENN: I believe because it's still Friday at the beginning ‑‑
TANGEY: I can still say good morning.
GLENN: I believe since it's Friday here we should all become Australian and take the rest of the day off. So Chris, you captured ‑‑
TANGEY: You must post me some of this chicken, too.
GLENN: Yes. You captured this fire tornado. Tell me about the phone call that you got.
TANGEY: Okay. Yeah, I got ‑‑ well, it's actually an e‑mail. I got an e‑mail from the office of Al Gore wanting to use it in his presentations for the next five years, in his PowerPoint presentations and I knew what he did. I thought, that sounds a little interesting. I've got to have a little look into a little bit more of this and research his activities in the past and what he would be likely to be using it for. So once I got through that process, I really just had come to the conclusion that I had to say no because, you know, this had nothing to do with global warming or climate change or climate disruption ‑‑
PAT: Fantastic.
TANGEY: ‑‑ whatever it's called these days, but it was a very localized event, a highly localized event that really had nothing to do with even rather, let alone climate change.
GLENN: So tell me what caused this. It's a firenado? That's what we call it here. What is it called?
TANGEY: Yeah, they call it a firenado. I mean, the proper name apparently is fire whirl. I knew nothing about it like you until I saw this thing happening in front of me. I thought, what on Earth is that. But yeah, it's apparently called a fire whirl and not many people have actually captured them particularly up this close and for that long. And it was ‑‑ the particular circumstances here were that it was on a cattle station or cattle ranch and at the bottom end of this cattle station, this fire had been burning for about ten days, probably deliberately lit. So it wasn't even a natural fire in that sense. And they had been looking after this particular mesa, this big mesa near, there's rocks down here approximately 20 kilometers away, 50 mile away, and they had been protecting that habitat. They had been living on this cattle ranch for about 55 years and there's a particular grass there called spinifex which burns incredibly hot and they had been protecting that particular patch and when this fire came in from the north and hit that patch, there's probably a big buildup of resin and oil, which is what causes this grass to burn so intensely hot that had probably built up for 50 years. So it was an incredibly localized event caused this, you know, I guess you could say unique event of that sort, some sort of unique circumstances. And that's what it was. It was an unusual fuel load at the base of it.
GLENN: Okay. So it happened, Al Gore writes you, you check him out. You're a guy who's, you don't know ‑‑ you're not paying much attention to global warming. You don't know if it's happening or not happening. What happens next?
TANGEY: Well, I got back to them and explained my circumstances and that they had told me that Mr. Gore himself had seen the video and wanted it personally. So anyway, I thought that was all over. And then a month later I got an e‑mail from somebody saying ‑‑ they were from a nonprofit organization who was doing an Internet show and they would like to use it and wanted to pay me to use it. And they called themselves the Climate Reality Project. When I did a bit of research on this, I found that it was actually the founder and chairman was actually Al Gore. Then I did a little bit of research on the producer and I actually got back to her and said, "Look, you know, I don't know what's wrong with the internal bits of Mr. Gore's organization but, you know, you're asking me again and we actually had, you know, quite a big concern about it before," and the producer actually ‑‑ I thought, well, maybe she must be ‑‑ she must be a scientist. I checked that out; no, she's not a scientist. I thought, well, maybe she's made science films before; no. And I thought, well, maybe she's made natural documentaries, nature documentaries or something; no. It turned out that her last job producing was on Inspector Gadget 2 and she lives in Los Angeles.
GLENN: Yeah.
TANGEY: She's a Hollywood producer who lives in Los Angeles, and I found that a bit astonishing as well. But anyway, the bottom line was I had to say no again because really, to use this in that context is ‑‑ you know, if I used it myself in that context, I'd say ‑‑ you know, I'd feel like I was deceiving people really.
GLENN: Right. Now, Chris, I don't know if you know about me at all here in the United States, but ‑‑
TANGEY: I do, Glenn. I used to watch you on television for many years.
GLENN: God bless you. Well, I ‑‑
TANGEY: We get all that down here.
GLENN: Well, I don't know. I mean, the pictures are upside down when you get them.
PAT: (Laughing.)
GLENN: The ‑‑ we started a network called TheBlaze and we're creating fire effects kind of like this, you know, for different reasons and I don't know what you're charging for this video, but I'd like to ‑‑ I'd like to see if we could lease it from you just for the sole purpose of pissing Al Gore off.
TANGEY: Man, I have read about you guys and I've read about all the stuff you're doing.
GLENN: Yeah.
TANGEY: And I'm with you 100%.
GLENN: Really?
TANGEY: And you guys get it for nothing.
PAT: Wow. Wow.
GLENN: You are the best. Thank you. Thank you. You are the best. So what are you doing to protect it? Because these guys are really shady. Are you ‑‑ have you talked to anybody about protecting this so they don't use it?
TANGEY: Well, it's a little bit different. The copyright law is a little bit different in Australia in that we don't even have to put "copyright 2012" and your name on it. It's automatically copyrighted as soon as you create the work, they call it the work. And so it automatically is mine, and I'm the only copyright holder, and anything you've seen anywhere basically has been licensed by me. So if he was to use it, it would be a breach of copyright.
PAT: Wow, that's great.
TANGEY: What would happen then, how a little guy in the outback could take it up against a billionaire, I don't know. But maybe that could be the little, the swap deal we do for the firenado.
GLENN: That's great.
TANGEY: Your lawyers and (inaudible.)
GLENN: That's great. Chris, thank you so much and thank you for taking a stand and being smart with it. In the world where people will go for a fast buck, for you to be responsible with what you have is inspiring and I appreciate it. Thank you, sir.
TANGEY: Well, I just love you guys and your slogan, I can't recall it right at this moment, but I saw it yesterday to do with truth.
GLENN: Yeah, truth lives here.
TANGEY: Exactly what ‑‑ exactly. And I think that's exactly what we need in this world. And we need to know what we're looking at, what we're listening to, you know. How do we know otherwise.
PAT: Chris, the video is actually part of a larger documentary, right? Isn't it part of a movie?
TANGEY: No, no, no. No, no, no. No, I was actually location scouting a movie.
PAT: Oh, okay, that's where I got that.
TANGEY: I always do location scouting. So I don't know where it's going yet.
PAT: So if people want to see it, where can they go if they want to see the firenado.
TANGEY: If they search "fire tornado Australia," I think there's one on YouTube.
GLENN: Great. Thank you. We'll link to it on TheBlaze. Thank you so much, Chris. God bless.
TANGEY: Fantastic. Thank you, Glenn.
GLENN: You bet. Bye‑bye. I think we should.
PAT: He's great.
GLENN: I think we should license that thing.
PAT: I think so, too.
GLENN: We should put it on a commercial and the commercial would be we really don't have use for this but Al Gore wanted it really bad and we have it and, Al, you can't have it.
PAT: It's interesting to hear that because Gore obviously doesn't care about the science involved. There is no science involved. It's not about global warming but he would have made it about that.
GLENN: Oh, yeah, he's ‑‑
PAT: To think about what he would have said about this, "Look, it's so bad that the atmosphere is creating fire tornadoes."
GLENN: He would have done it.
PAT: He would have done that.
GLENN: He would have done it.
JEFFY: But we know that now because of the call from the future.
GLENN: Our ‑‑ the call from the future?
JEFFY: Chris Tangey. He called from the future this morning.
GLENN: That's right. He did. He called from tomorrow morning.
PAT: That's right.
GLENN: So he knows.
PAT: Wow.