A Few Things Ill Considered

What If Al Gore Were Arrested?

Posted by coby on October 29, 2007
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If Gore Were Arrested is the title of an article at The Nation online. According to this report Al Gore has been invited to participate in civil disobedience with the Rainforest Action Network and he is considering it!

The article finishes its headline sentence this way:

If Gore did end up getting arrested during a protest against a coal-fired power plant, it would make front-page news throughout the world and put a spotlight on what some climate scientists and activists consider the single most important priority in the fight against climate change: halting the use of coal as the world’s top source of electricity production.

Yes it would make headlines, but it seems to me it also runs the risk of sidelining Gore in an issue in which he is arguably the most significant US figure. He could instantly plummet from Nobel laureate to dirty hippie. I don’t know what I would do in his situation. Al Gore has said ‘Why [aren't there] rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them constructing new coal-fired power plants?’ Maybe this is just for young people howling from outside establishment walls and not for suit-wearing, middle aged insiders wispering in the ears of the powers that be.

What do AFTIC’s readers think? Would this be PR gold, or the kiss of media death?

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Comments

  1. #1 Ambitwistor
    October 29, 2007

    I vote for “kiss of death”, for the same reasons you speculate.

  2. #2 Mike the Mad Biologist
    October 29, 2007

    Ditto. Kiss of death.

  3. #3 Dou
    October 29, 2007

    Kiss of death – Gore’s “attraction”, such as it is, to Joe and Jill Average out there is due to his aura of normalcy. Once he stands on the front lines with all the “hippies” , “Earth Firsters” etc he will throw that cachet away forever and be marked as an eco terrorist.

  4. #4 The Ethical Atheist
    October 29, 2007

    I think hew could revive his name were he arrested for civil disobedience. It would certainly draw attention to an important issue.

    Wouldn’t it be nice if we had eight years of Gore rather than Bush?

  5. #5 truth machine
    October 30, 2007

    I think hew could revive his name

    Yeah, cuz no one remembers who Al Gore is.

    Wouldn’t it be nice if we had eight years of Gore rather than Bush?

    You think getting arrested for civil disobedience is the path to the White House?

  6. #6 F Mackenzie
    October 30, 2007

    I don’t think that Al Gore is looking for a path to the White House. I think he has found a higher calling. If he chooses to place himself in a situation that puts him in contravention of the law, that’s his business. I don’t think the the cause will be affected in the long run, because there is too much momentum and scientific backup.

  7. #7 mrpirate
    October 30, 2007

    Go for it Mr. President,I mean Al.

  8. #8 truth machine
    October 30, 2007

    I don’t think that Al Gore is looking for a path to the White House.

    Neither do I, but if he were, getting arrested for civil disobedience wouldn’t be advisable.

  9. #9 Troff
    October 30, 2007

    Truth Machine…

    … two words: Nelson Mandela.

  10. #10 Dagonz
    October 31, 2007

    Mandela had to wait a hell of a long time, and to engineer a massive constitutional and cultural change before he got to be president. And he was helped by a worldwide embargo. If Gore is willing to wait that long, and change the US that much, then sure.

  11. #11 this is ridicolous
    October 31, 2007

    how lame is this? al gore is a hoax, if he gets arrested its guaranteed a trick to fool people into thinking that global warming is man made, and that somebody actually is arresting him for saying it.

    that would be nonsense.

    why are all the other planets heating by exactly as much as the earth? mars, jupiter etc

    why does the UN say that asphalt is the biggest contributor to global warming?

    how come plant in greenhouses thrive, and under the exact same “greenhouse effect” the world get destroyed? do you see how retarded the claim is?

    why didnt the world end of global cooling, so heavily professed in the 70′s?

    why are all the major media outlets reporting on this, and not, lets say the buddhists? or the rain forest?

    why arent they talking about the rainforest?

    since when did the major media players start to worry about the eco system?

    would more plancton help the eco system? because plants need the co2 to create more o2, they love the increase of co2, but there are real concerns

  12. #12 Dustin
    October 31, 2007

    I’m all for this. Civil disobedience works best when it isn’t confined to groups that are easily dismissed as being on the fringe, and all the science and all of the drumming up of social conscience on the issue isn’t working as effectively as it needs to.

    Al Gore shouldn’t just protest, he should go all Sangamon Taylor on that plant.

  13. #13 Graeme
    October 31, 2007

    It’d probably boost his credentials as a climate-change guru, but he’d never hold a serious political office again. It depends on where he wants to go…

  14. #14 Dustin
    October 31, 2007

    ‘how come plant in greenhouses thrive, and under the exact same “greenhouse effect” the world get destroyed? do you see how retarded the claim is?’

    You’re kidding, right? Please tell me you’re kidding. Or retarded. “Kidding” or “retarded”. Please. If you say one of those, I can sleep tonight.

  15. #15 Caledonian
    October 31, 2007

    Those aren’t mutually exclusive states, Dustin.

  16. #16 degustibus
    November 1, 2007

    Would set him apart from the other spineless Democrats.

  17. #17 kozmetik
    December 23, 2007

    Civil disobedience works best when it isn’t confined to groups that are easily dismissed as being on the fringe, and all the science and all of the drumming up of social conscience on the issue isn’t working as effectively as it needs to.

  18. #18 Site Ekle
    January 5, 2008

    Neither do I, but if he were, getting arrested for civil disobedience wouldn’t be advisable.

  19. #19 kanser
    March 30, 2008

    he’d never hold a serious political office again. It depends on where he wants to go…