I'm getting really impressed with this guy Al Gore. His new movie "An Inconvenient Truth" seems to be just what the doctor ordered - i have yet to see it, but Suzuki Foundation friends of mine saw it early & raved about it. I have since been following it as closely as possible - watching the trailer & managed to download an interview with him talking to Johnathan Freeland (email me if you want it) and now I'm reading a section on him in the Guardian.
He's good. Eloquent, Impassioned, Politick, not to mention right on the money (in my opinion, which of course this blog is...) In fact, it feels like the tide might be turning & a significant wake-up is about to happen on global warming. This movie will hopefully (and I think probably) play a huge role in that wake-up. Michael Shermer woke-up this month too. He's the self-proclaimed skeptic (www.skeptic.com) and writes thoughtful critiques in a monthly column in Scientific American. This month (June) he stated that he's is no-longer skeptical on global warming.
Some questions on Al Gore though - he claims to have made environmentalism his thing since the early 90's & apparently was a major green-ifier of Bill Clinton when he was American VP. I believe it, as it's fairly well documented in his interview & the Guardian. How come i didn't know this? It's not the kind of thing I would have missed if I had heard it once. Is it him & he wasn't adequately promotive of it? Did the media not mention it ever? I can think of a few reasons, but I'm surprised. Johnathan Freedland says this about him: "He can claim to be the first mainstream politician anywhere to have woken up to this danger."
Anyway - I'm glad he's on the scene now. The movement - not to mention the planet - needs this. Clean-Energy here we come.
A few significant quotes from Gore in the Guardian article that I want to document here:
"The debate is over!"
"In a democracy, Political will is a renewable resource"
"No! If you have a renegade band of right-wing extremists who get a hold of power [the Bushies], the whole thing goes to the right. But I haven't moved, I'm right where I've always been." (speaking on his position on the political spectrum - the question was if he had moved left since 2000)
"This really is a planetary emergency"