Source:
The GuardianPerhaps the best way to understand the extraordinary transformation of Al Gore is to study the changing rhetoric of his enemies. A mere nine years ago, back when George Bush was just a cheeky rogue with an adorable line in malapropisms, presidential candidate Gore was famously derided as wooden and dull. Having failed to win the presidency – though of course that depends, as ever, on your definition of the word "win" – he next became a pitiable loser, then a laughable climate-change wonk, then the Oscar-winning, peace prize-winning, Live Earth-organising darling of liberal Hollywood. And so it says something hugely flattering about his present-day stature, surely, that the new official anti-Gore line is that he is quite simply evil: an anti-American hypocrite, a supporter of world government, and, like Barack Obama, probably a communist or a fascist or both.
... Gore, optimistically, attributes the hardening tone of his critics to "the sunset phenomenon, where there's a spectacle just before the subsiding": as the remaining climate change doubters and vested interests begin to realise that the game is up, he suggests, they're bound to make one last stand. "This self-interest on the part of some of the carbon polluters – who are becoming a bit intense in their efforts – reflects their awareness that public opinion has been shifting very significantly," he says.
... The new book pulls off a considerably more impressive feat. It focuses on solving the crisis, yet manages to be absorbing on a topic that is all too often – can we just come clean about this, please? – crushingly boring. Importantly, it seeks to enlist readers as political advocates for the cause, rather than just urging them to turn down the heating. "It's important to change lightbulbs," he says, in a well-burnished soundbite, "but more important to change policies and laws." Or perhaps to break laws instead: peaceful occupations of the kind witnessed recently in the UK, he predicts, are only going to become more widespread. "Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play. And I expect that it will increase, no question about it."
... Contrary to the general consensus among activists and journalists, Gore remains optimistic about the Copenhagen talks in December – optimistic that the US Senate will pass a bill to clarify Washington's position, arming Obama with much-needed moral authority, and thus optimistic that a worthwhile agreement, which hinges on a US commitment, will emerge from the gathering itself. "I was in China two days ago, and the premier of China asked me, in essence, why I'm optimistic that the Senate will pass legislation when the conventional wisdom says otherwise. And the answer is that I have been a part of conversations between Democrats and Republicans that give me a very different view from what the consensus is in the journalistic community."
Read more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/07/al-gore-interview-climate-change
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
