I finally went to see An Inconvenient Truth. I loved it, but I stand by what I said
last week: fluorescent bulbs and tree planting aren't enough. We need a WWII-sized plan.
Gore gave a mixed message when it came to answers. The strongest, clearest message was that we should all change our personal behavior. "We can all reduce our carbon emissions to zero." Great, but almost no one will. Not even everyone who sees the movie will, and where I live the movie is only playing in one of the smaller art houses. He concluded by saying, "This is the only way I know to do this: city by city, person by person, family by family."
However, earlier in the film Gore graphed out a picture of what would have to be done to roll back emissions to 1978 levels and more. Each one of those cuts he suggested would require massively disruptive overhaul of the world economy - change far beyond what sporadic individual decisions can achieve. He said, "We CAN do this - we can do this now!" and went into how this kind of overhaul could be big economic booster: renewal, growth and jobs.
Could it be that Gore is just teasing us with this hippy "each one bring one" stuff? Surely a man who has run for president (and won!!!) knows a bigger, more powerful way to approach this: Get up there in front of the whole nation, spell out the whole freaking plan, and ask people to vote for it. Make '08 a referendum on saving the planet. Say crazy things like, "We're going to convert several industries over to being new kinds of industries: into ones that aren't destroying the planet, and ones that are more efficient and more profitable."
If you lose, then you can justifiably say, "Damn people are dumb!" (Unlike last time, when you gave them such a mushy message that you were left saying, "Hmmm, what if I had given people something to fight for?"
If you win, then you say, "I knew it! The American people kick world historic ass!" And then you're the president. Just like Bush used this office to take America on all kinds of misguided, radical adventures, you will use it to lead the country on wise, radical adventures to save the planet and turn the country around.
What have you got to loose?