At last: Al Gore gets it

Al Gores' climate crisis slide show has a new tenor and his appeal has a new focus. And in my not-so-humble opinion, it's a welcome shift that makes up for a serious deficiency in his previous attempts to change the world's thinking.

When I give his slide show (as a trained member of his Climate Project) I always emphasize that changing light bulbs and buying hybrid cars is a nice start, but what we really need is to change our political leadership and the laws governing greenhouse-gas emissions.

I know why Gore was reluctant to include the political dimension -- beyond his clever opening line about how he used to be the next president of the United States. Even today, people remark to me that Gore, because of his unpopularity among a certain sector of the country, is the wrong man to lead such a crusade. Which is silly, of course. Just ask yourself if a lesser-known, apolitical speaker would have won a share of a Nobel Prize and given a documentary on a slide show an Emmy and an Oscar or two. Maybe he hasn't changed enough opinions (yet), but does anyone really believe that if say, even a scientist as illustrious as Jim Hansen was behind the campaign that anywhere near as many people would be paying attention? I don't think so.

So I always thought it a mistake to shy away from politics. Most members of the Climate Project I talked with during my training last year didn't agree. They were all about emphasizing change among the grassroots and fearful of alienating potential converts to the cause -- those who might not like to hear that the status quo in Washington and elsewhere isn't composed of the right people for the job.

This kind of thinking ignores the lessons of history. You don't fight battles on this scale by appealing to the good will of the people and hope that that will be enough. That's why governments often turn to conscription to wage wars and why they take control of the the machinery of industry. They tell people what to do and how to do it. If things are really bad, if you need to mobilize enormous resources in a very short amount of time, if you believe that the climate crisis is, as Nature magazine calls it in its latest editorial "the most daunting challenge humanity has ever sought to meet with a united front," then you need direction from the top. You need leadership.

Now Gore has embraced that message. You can watch him deliver a 25-minute update to his presentation here, and listen to him say:

"It's important to change the light bulbs, but we also have to change the laws... In order to solve the climate crisis, we have to solve the democracy crisis. And we have one."

Finally. Gore is still being coy about the specifics of the current political contests, but at least he's admitting that change must come from the top at least as much, if not more, than from the grassroots.

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It needs to be said: Al Gore is a moron. Always have been, always will.

Is there some kind of blog award given for least substantive comment?

It needs to be said: Chris is a moron. Always have been, always will.

Gore will always be the wrong front-man for anything, unless it's self-promotion or hypocrisy.

Gore can't runaway from his past, such as speaking out against Kyoto when he was Vice President. He can keep pretending this didn't happen, but the news footage lives forever on the internet.

Just about anybody would do better. There are plenty of people with scientific credentials who are willing to sell his snake oil. Any one of them is a better choice.

By jep, Kansas USA (not verified) on 10 Apr 2008 #permalink

to the kinds of people who call environmental issues "snake oil", any proponent is always the worst possible one, for some reason or other.

By Nomen Nescio (not verified) on 10 Apr 2008 #permalink

So what is meant by a "change in political leadership?" Is that simply a Democratic President? Of course, Clinton and Gore didn't submit Kyoto to the Senate for ratification when they had the chance.

"In order to solve the climate crisis, we have to solve the democracy crisis."

In other words, what we need is a climate change tyranny, with a demagogue like Gore in charge?

Gore's rhetoric is digusting, from comparing skeptics to Holocaust deniers and skeptics, to being a part of funding commercials comparing the climate change movement to that of civil rights and D-Day, to now blaming our system of government for the "climate crisis."

Maybe if Gore were a better-than-average student in science classes, we'd respect him a little more on scientific issues. Maybe if he weren't such a hypocrite and "do as I say, not I do" when it comes to environmental issues, we'd listen to him more.

Gore is a politician, nothing more.

By Michael Jankowski (not verified) on 10 Apr 2008 #permalink

Congratulations, Mr. Hrynyshyn. You've drawn out the drones who've bought into the Glenn Beck/Jonah Goldberg meme that global warming is the Big Lie of Liberal Fascist green-shirts.

Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were politicians and nothing more.

They changed history but I guess that doesn't count to some people.

Note up front: I'm not the same Chris as above.

"Gore's rhetoric is digusting, from comparing skeptics to Holocaust deniers and skeptics, to being a part of funding commercials comparing the climate change movement to that of civil rights and D-Day, to now blaming our system of government for the "climate crisis.""

Read the quote better. He wasn't calling democracy itself a crisis, he was saying there is a crisis within democracy. Reading comp, man.

And denial of climate change IS JUST LIKE holocaust denial. Both are nearsighted attempts to deny something that is demonstrably true. Both fixate on minor details in an attempt to blow out an entire body of evidence. Denying climate change is just like denying evolution, the moon landing, or the Holocaust.

Gore was also, at one time, a strident supporter of CAM woo in the Senate. He is now firmly in the rationalist camp.

Why is it that people find it so hard to believe that a politician can sincerely change his mind, especially after Gore has repeatedly shown no interest in returning to the political world?

Man, when the Republican Hate Machine cranked up a few years back, attacking the Clintons and the "librools," who knew it was going to be so successful that it would create an enduring anti-intellectual, anti-Reason climate in the U.S.?

Fifty years from now, the knee-jerk haters will still be screaming that everything is Clinton's fault, and nothing else can possibly be wrong. The same people would attack Al Gore if their own house was on fire, and he was bringing a truckload of water.

Michael Jankowski said: Maybe if Gore were a better-than-average student in science classes, we'd respect him a little more on scientific issues.

Gore is not giving you his science, he's passing on the findings scientific organizations around the world. And they do deserve your respect on issues within their science.

Maybe if he weren't such a hypocrite and "do as I say, not I do" when it comes to environmental issues, we'd listen to him more.

Right, because objective evidence is negated if its most famous promoter is a hypocrite.

It needs to be said: Al Gore is a moron. Always have been, always will.

Those who have figured out how to turn off their minds, manners and morals, will find it easy to condemn Al Gore as a moron.

Anyone who has worked with him, or against him, will probably attest to Gore's acumen in many areas. If you want to solve a complex issue of public policy, and if that issue involves science and technology, you'd be well on your way to get Al Gore on your side.

Where were you when Al Gore worked out the clean ups for Love Canal and Times Beach? I don't recall your face, on either side. Gore got Congress to create the SuperFund, and for all its faults, it has provided a stable legal system to allow the development of commercial properties without fouling the courts with litigation over who is responsible for every minor spill of trichloroethane or trichloroethylene (and there are hundreds of those, if not thousands).

I know Karl Rove got a lot of mileage out of ridiculing a claim that Al Gore invented the internet -- but he never made the claim, and what he did was certainly important to the internet and should not be dismissed. When the federal government proposed to cut off development of what would become the internet, for sheer budget and let's-make-a-stab-at-academics reasons, Al Gore was, for a long time, the only one who thought that was dumb. He fought on alone, finally was able to convince enough people to go along, and he saved the funding. This blog might not be possible but for Al Gore's action. I don't recall your face from those meetings.

Gore supported the orphan drug act. He got out of the way when that was the thing that would get the law passed, and it was; Orrin Hatch and Henry Waxman got the credit for it. Gore is happy to stand aside and let others get the credit for his good work, if the good stuff gets done.

That's exactly what he did with the organ transplant legislation. Gore figured out how to write the law that promoted the organ transplant pharmaceuticals, which took special legislation; and Gore figure out how to unite fighting agencies and interest groups to get a bill for a national transplant registry. Then, in meetings I participated in, Gore graciously stepped aside, let Orrin Hatch take the language from Gore's bill and much of the credit, to get the bills passed quickly, to save lives. Organ transplantation is normal stuff today, and even insurance companies pay for it. Were you there? I don't recall your face, again.

And now you call Gore a moron?

There's a certain lack of intellectual discernment in someone's barking epithets at a great mensch, and it may reflect the epithet more on the one who barks it. But "moron" also implies a lack of ability to discern the moral component of making such insults, and I am not so charitable as to think the person who made the remark is so brain-dead as to be without the moral capacity to understand that such name calling is both inaccurate, and ethically wrong.

It needs to be said: Al Gore is a moron. Always have been, always will.

Hahahahahahaha. Welcome to the next logical step in the "Al Gore is fat" meme: fat enough to be plural. Or maybe that wasn't intentional, in which case it looks like you're pointing the finger at someone behind you by poking yourself in the eye. Either way, thank you for the laugh!