5-16-06, 9:03 am
The in-person exchange with the former Vice President took place following a special screening of “An Inconvenient Truth,” here at Atlantic Station in Midtown Atlanta.
Following the screening of the absolutely breathtaking and monumental film about the grave and present threat of global warming to this planet, Atlanta Progressive News’s Editor asked the former Vice President, “Will you please, please run for President?”
We thought it might help if we asked politely.
After the crowd cheered Gore in encouragement, he told the audience, “I’m a recovering politician, on Step Nine. Thank you for your sentiment.” Things seemed a bit gloomy for a while.
But then later, after the larger crowd left the theater, APN Staff Writer Susan Keith brought the issue up again in a more private, yet informal gathering in the theater after the show. “It’s not a sentiment!” she said, while others in attendance offered their campaign support and said, stop listening to those consultants.
Then, Gore said: “Like I said, I’m a recovering politician. But you always have to worry about a relapse.”
A relapse indeed. Such language appears to have been chosen very carefully.
But the more important thing about tonight’s event is how meticulously and powerfully Mr. Gore and his production team have documented the causes, effects, and dangers of global warming for the mass American public.
The American people need to go out and see this movie in a major way.
Gore said it’s not too late to reverse the trends of global warming, but that some scientists say we might be about ten years away from that point.
It’s an inconvenient truth, but one we must, must as a global community take action upon if we are to avoid massive catastrophe, flooding, displacement, more hurricanes and storms, extinction of species, destruction of the coral reefs, and potentially unbearable warming on this planet.
“Young people can lead this change,” Gore said in his remarks. During the Civil Rights Movement, “It was young people who went to the lunch counters,” Gore said.
Global warming needs to be discussed as a moral issue, Gore said. “This is a moral issue. It should be lifted above partisan politics. Young people can have a much bigger impact than you can imagine you made up your mind to do it.”
Gore also praised independent media, especially Internet media.
“The Internet is a source of real hope,” Gore said.
“Kind of like Star Wars, there is a rebellion,” he said, “and it’s alive on the Internet.”
One of the biggest take-home points of the film is Gore’s debunking of the Republican claims that the recent increases in temperature are simply parts of cycles in nature, like the Ice Age.
The recent increases in carbon dioxide, that is, are “off the charts,” beyond anything we’ve ever seen before, and that includes 650,000 years of the Earth’s history, Gore said.
Increases in carbon dioxide have historically been correlated with increases in temperatures. Therefore, we must worry that the planet will become hotter, 5 degrees at conservative estimates, Gore said.
“It’s real; we’re causing it; the results are catastrophic; we have to start fixing it; and it’s not too late,” Gore said. Those are his main five points, he said.
The mainstream media has posed the most serious impediment to Americans and politicians understanding the scientific consensus and knowledge of global warming, Gore said.
A striking slide in the film showed that 0% of a large sample of peer-reviewed scientific studies disputed global warming or its man-made, or anthropogenic, causes. Meanwhile, 53% of media accounts portrayed global warming as a debated issue, according to one study cited in the film.
Hurricane Katrina may have also been exacerbated by the warmer ocean waters in the Gulf of Mexico which are a result of global warming, the movie also showed.
“There are two symbols in the Chinese word for crisis: danger and opportunity,” Gore said.
“We probably have ten years, maybe a little less, in which to make a significant start before we cross a point of no return,” Gore said.
“Nothing else matters so much,” Gore said.
“If we face down the danger, we have the opportunity to make a lot of changes,” Gore said.
“The biggest opportunity not faced by other generations is a shared moral purpose, to transcend limitations... pettiness, and bickering,” Gore said.
From Atlanta Progressive News
--About the author: Matthew Cardinale is the News Editor and a National Correspondent for Atlanta Progressive News and may be reached at
