This past Wednesday, my wife and I had the honor of attending the release of Al Gore's book, "
An Inconvenient Truth" which is a companion to
the movie by the same name. It is all part of a media blitz meant to bring awareness of the impending climate disaster to the awareness of all Americans.
Overall, Al Gore 2.0 brought together an amazing presentation of what is happening to our planet, what have the conditions been like historically, and what the expected results should be. Gore is working on spreading the word about what could be the greatest danger our civilization has ever faced.
We were able to not only see a first-hand, updated version of the presentation the movie and book were based on, but also to meet the man himself, plus walk away with two autographed copies of his book. Below, you will be introduced not only to the multimedia presentation of "An Inconvenient Truth" but also my thoughts on things such as Al Gore's future roll in politics and in society. This will be cross posted all over the place.
Progressive Forum Houston
Mr. Gore was invited to Houston to speak to us on behalf of the
Progressive Forum, a Houston based group that describes themselves as:
Houston's new civic speaker organization whose aim is to enrich our democracy and culture by presenting the greatest minds from all the fields of human endeavor-- the sciences and humanities as well as the world of politics and public affairs. Our progressive viewpoint is rooted in the mainstream constitutional, enlightenment, and egalitarian values of America's founding fathers, a bedrock of moderate values that need affirming, now more than ever.
The Progressive Forum has had other speakers in the past and will continue with more speakers over the next few months, particularly on the subject of environmental issues. They are currently working on getting some of the top scientists who are studying man's impact on the environment to speak. They are a good organization, and if you are in the Houston area I encourage you to visit their site and attend their events.
6:30 Private Reception
Prior to the event, there was a private reception where we were able to pick up two autographed copies of the book. The books were first run, first printed, and signed by Mr. Gore himself, so they should be collectors items. They are made with decent quality, reminding me of college textbooks in size and style. The content of the book is easy to read and is essentially a hard copy of the multimedia presentation that the movie is based on. It also goes into further detail on some of the topics and people involved, and gives a brief biography of Mr. Gore. It is good to have as a reference for discussing global climate change with people who have not seen the movie or heard the live presentation.
After picking up our books, we were able to go to a room where they were serving drinks, snacks, etc. (including some bite-sized alfajores, an Argentinian cookie that is great.) There was a line to be able to meet Mr. Gore, so we got in line and I asked the guy behind me if he would take a photo of my wife and I with Mr. Gore.
At the end of the line was first Randall R. Morton, founder of The Progressive Forum, who I have to confess I did not know. I shook his hand politely and was courteous, but I was clueless about who he was. Next in line was Mr. Gore himself. He greeted me warmly, and was a very friendly person. Unfortunately for me, I didn't really know what all to say to him without sounding too much like a freak, so I simply thanked him for everything he has done and is doing to make the world a better place. We had a little bit of small talk, as well as he did with my wife, and then we had our photo taken together.
Unfortunately, we were interrupted by someone who was an ambassador that knew Mr. Gore. I have to say that I have no idea who that guy was, but I don't like him because he had no qualms about walking in front of people and butting in. He's probably a nice guy and probably not bad but he was rude. I'm sure he thinks that he is better than everyone else and above standing in lines or respecting others. (I have a feeling someone is going to contact me about this and yell at me, as has happened when I have complained about politicians in the past.)
After this, we tried to meet "Tipper" Gore but were still interrupted in a similar manner so I just wanted to move by. We were able to shake her hand and tell her that it was nice to meet her and everything but that was about it. I have to confess that I also don't know much about her other than the fact that I disagree with her past attempts to stifle musical artists. However, I'm afraid that I will end up agreeing with her past actions once my child is born.
After them, we were able to meet the wife and children of Mr. Morton who were also friendly, but unknown to me. Then we left the line, thanked the guy who took the photo of us, who turned out to be a professional photographer. He did express some difficulty with taking the photo of us thanks to the interruption, but at least we got it. After that, we went downstairs to our seats.
7:30 Presentation
Prior to Mr. Gore coming out to speak, we took to our seats and saw that we were close to the stage. There was a podium and the familiar Apple-shaped glow of Mr. Gore's Apple Powerbook. On the other side of the stage, a musical duo calling themselves Mood Indigo performed a mix of Brazilian classics of samba, some Beatles, and a few other songs. The presentation was delayed a bit so they kept playing for a while longer, and seemed to do a good job of relaxing most of the audience. There was a man sitting next to my wife that didn't seem too happy. We were talking but when I brought up the hope of Gore running for president again he stopped talking to us. However, a gentleman in front of us (we were in row D, so there were only a few rows in front of us) was as excited as we were and was scheming with his friend to yell "RUN AL RUN" when Gore took the stage, which he successfully did. Overall, I looked back at the audience and thought to myself, "if all of these people would take to the streets or do something to demand change, we wouldn't be in this situation." The people sitting around us were mostly well to do or at least upper middle class, and I thought how if they spared some money to go towards progressive charities, that we would also be a lot better off. I'm sure some do, and everyone does something, but there is more potential that goes unrealized.
After a while, Mr. Morton came out, gave everyone an introduction to the Progressive Forum, then introduced Mr. Gore.
He came out, energized after being wore out by standing in line and greeting so many people, then went into what can only be described as a monologue. Some of the things he said were jokes that he has made in other speeches and supposedly in the film, such as how he describes himself as a recovering politician. He also went into jokingly bashing the media, relating to how he told a story about him going to Africa and discussing a trip to eat at Shoney's restaurants, and the papers then reporting that he owned and worked at Shoney's. The entirety of this section of Gore's presentation was great and really put to bed the whole image of a "robotic" Al Gore. He was very humorous, seemed down to earth in a genuine way (unlike Mr. Bush), and really connected with the audience. It sounds weird to say that he could easily become a standup comedian, but he really had the audience going at some points when he was discussing his life after being VP of the most successful presidency of my lifetime.
While some of what he said could have been considered part of his "stump speech", a lot of it was specific to the audience there. He said something to the effect of Houston being the right place to start the release of his book. Being the energy capitol of the world, Houston has a potential to bring about the largest change in the environment for better or worse. He also discussed a few energy and chemical companies that have already started to change for the better and are improving their impact on the environment.
After this, he was able to go into the beginnings of his presentation, which was simply amazing. This is the famous presentation that the movie is based on, which he has been perfecting since the 70's (long before it was on his computer.) It was refreshing to hear a person involved with politics be able to explain clearly in layman's terms the data that has taken scientists years to accumulate and understand.
Essentially, there were a few points of the presentation that I understood clearly. The first was that he wanted to cut through the right wing lies and the media incompetence surrounding the environment. For example, he explained that of hundreds of scientific papers published in the past ten years, there have been none that have attempted to discredit global warming, because all credible scientists agree that it is happening. However, the media overwhelmingly create a controversy and pretend that climate change is up for debate and present lunatics and oil-industry shills as being just as credible as scientists on this issue.
Another thing that he focused on heavily was showing us the data to make up our own minds. Graphs can be a very powerful tool, and he used them extensively. A common thread in everything he explained was that since the 1970's, our environmental problems have skyrocketed.
The statistics were balanced out well with real world examples of what is happening, including some of the shocking pictures many people have seen elsewhere such as the ice dissapearing all over the place, trees dying, and lakes drying up. Mr. Gore was able to tie all of this together to show real world consequences of what has already happened due to man's influence on the climate. Some of these examples were things like the impending extinction of polar bears, the effect it has on causing the genocide in Darfur, and how it has brought about large-scale problems with diseases that were nearly erased from the planet.
Additionally we saw projections of these issues growing and what some of the devestating results would be, such as a 20 foot rise in sea levels, desertification of the U.S. midwest, more powerful and more frequent storms including hurricanes and tornadoes, and the potential for large scale pandemics.
Not all was gloom and doom though, as Mr. Gore laid out some things that we can do to stop and possibly even reverse the damage that we have done to our planet. He does not sugarcoat it. He explained that it would require something larger than just the United States, much larger than just one political party, to solve these problems. Multiple times he hit on the fact that we need to convince everyone in this nation, no matter what political affiliation, that the time to act is now. This also explains some of why he is trying to stay out of partisan politics at the moment, because he seems to think that if he avoids politics he has a greater chance of bringing the Republicans on board with fixing the climate. Ultimately, he closed his presentation to much applause leaving the audience with a sense of determined optimism and caution.
Q & A Session
After the presentation, Mr. Gore answered a few pre-submitted questions from the audience. None were all that suprising or difficult for him to answer. The first one was about him running for president again. He has repeatedly said that he is not planning to run, but in my mind that does sound like he is leaving the option open. However, I believe that he doesn't want to because he doesn't think it would be the most effective at this point. I can't think of a better way to explain it, but he seems to be wanting to subvert partisan politics and instead be an influence on both parties. He doesn't want his message to be about Al Gore, but instead he wants to be about his message.
Another question was about advice for young people, and personally I feel it was a waste of time so I won't go into it.
He was also asked a question about the Iraq war, and I hate to paraphrase because I'll probably get it wrong, but I believe he said that it was the greatest tactical mistake ever made in the history of the U.S. However, he stops short of calling for an immediate removal of all U.S. troops and in a more eloquent manner says, "we broke, we fix."
The last question that I can remember was about what we, particularly those of us in the petrochemical and energy industry can do. He went into more detail about some local companies that are working to change as well as telling us that we have to work to change our own lives to have a smaller impact on the environment.
Final Thoughts
I don't think Al Gore will voluntarily run for president in 2008. Yes, we'd all like to see him there and enacting change to make this nation a better place, but he seems to believe that his role is elsewhere. He probably doesn't even have a specific role at this point, but is defining it as we go along. If you think back, the most influential people in the past century were not politicians. People like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were not presidents. Even on a negative side, Usama bin Laden is not a politician, nor is James Dobson. The fact is that being a politician is not required to have an influence, and it is possible to have a greater influence by not being directly inside the political arena.
Another point to make is that most people, including us, do not realize how serious this issue is. I highly encourage anyone who is not freaked out about the environment to go watch "An Inconvenient Truth" and then get back with us.
Speaking of the movie, I might write another diary comparing the live presentation to the movie after I see it. I do know that the movie contains more biographical information on Mr. Gore, but the live presentation contained some newer information. The majority should be the same though, but it would be good to compare the two.
One final thing that many Republicans complain about is how he is complaining about global climate change after flying to various cities and speaking. An environmental group worked with the Progressive Forum and calculated how much CO^2 would be released by the event, including the travel of all participants, and donated a large amount of money to cover that to a clean energy project. While I personally don't completely believe in the idea of offsetting this, it at least was a good gesture. The travel was necessary to get the word out, so it could be considered a necessary evil if anything.