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Posted on 05/19/2006 7:21:23 AM PDT by libertarianPA
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Gore brushes aside talk of another run for the U.S. presidency and wages a new campaign to protect the Earth that he says must be won.
The former Democratic vice president sounds the alarm as a citizen activist armed with his old slide show turned into a Hollywood movie about the threat of global warming.
"We face a planetary emergency," Gore told Reuters in advance of next week's opening in U.S. theaters of his critically acclaimed documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth." It makes the case for the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions linked to climate change.
"My whole objective here is to try to move the country past a tipping point, beyond which politicians in both parties compete with each other for genuinely meaningful solutions ... and to change the minds of the American people to the point where people in both parties demand action," he said.
"The habitability of the planet should be lifted out of the political context because so much is at stake," Gore said.
At a special showing in Washington on Wednesday night that drew members of the U.S. Congress, Gore said, "This should be a priority of the U.S. House and Senate."
"It's a powerful movie," Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd (news, bio, voting record) of Connecticut said afterward. "If enough people see it, it could move Congress."
Having narrowly lost the 2000 presidential election to Republican George W. Bush, Gore faces new speculation because of the movie he may make another White House bid.
"I have no plans to run for president again," Gore said. "I have found other ways to serve and I'm enjoying them."
Gore has been hailed as an articulate innovator and mocked as a boring exaggerator. His movie blends the story of his life with a downright scary assessment of global warming.
In it, Gore displays pictures, computer simulations and studies on the greenhouse effect that scientists worldwide contend is heating up Earth.
'THIS IS A MORAL ISSUE'
So-called greenhouse gases -- notably carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels -- trap heat around Earth like a blanket, contributing to global warming, scientists say.
Global warming has been blamed for melting ice caps, rising sea levels, the spread of disease, more severe hurricanes and, with shifting weather patterns, increased floods and droughts.
The United States is the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, but efforts to get Congress to put mandatory caps on emissions have failed repeatedly.
As vice president, Gore helped negotiate the Kyoto treaty on climate change that he noted 132 nations ratified.
Bush rejected the pact to reduce emissions after taking office, sayings its caps would harm the U.S. economy and that the plan was unfair for excluding developing nations from a first period of reductions until 2012.
Gore said he was encouraged by some recent developments, including some U.S. companies taking steps to cut emissions and more than 200 U.S. cities backing the Kyoto treaty and meeting the restrictions.
Still some critics persist.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative advocacy group that reflects the Bush administration's free-market approach, unveiled a TV ad campaign this week that denounced efforts to limit carbon dioxide emissions as unwarranted.
Gore rejects such talk. He cites a broad consensus in the scientific community about the existence of global warming, and the widespread contention it needs to be curbed within the next decade before "we pass a point of no return."
He said he had shown his slide show on global warming more than a thousand times in the past 30 years and began showing it again, more frequently, after the 2000 election.
The movie grew out of one such showing in Los Angeles that attracted the attention of Hollywood producers.
"They said they could take the message to many more people in a shorter period of time," Gore said. "This is a moral issue."
Earth to Al....
We've got bigger problems than this. Of course, I would not expect a filthy rich guy who never worked a day in his life like you to understand that.
and placed into the caretaking hands of what type of global authority (where you hope to be granted an office) Mr. Gore?
If gaseous Al wants to 'protect the Earth' then he should volunteer to be put in orbit with his posterior aimed spaceward and equipped with an ignition system inserted in the Glutius Maximus.
Excelsior!
Big Al's got a new tax shelter, as well. An educational center, he's the head, charges everything off as nonprofit, and runs it as a political machine. (He's running for President on our dime. Well, he has to do something. Hill's got a huge headstart in fundraising.)
I can understand why Al wants to save the world. If the world ends due to global warming no one would think he is cereal about manbearpig's existence and be his friend.
If you want to save the price of admission, you can hear this message in its original form from the Brotherhood at a local Theosophy seance meeting.
Yep, lots of nations ratified it, however the thing that seems to get ignored by the press is that few if any of those countries are adhereing to it.
It was a political power grab, not a real effort to protect the environment.
"I'll wait for the DVD." ManBearPig
SUPER GORE to the rescue!!!
Now, out of the locked room, er, locked box!
Why would that be? Any possibility it's because much of what Gore says is false?
I think he is the anti-christ. I've got news for Al it won't be him who saves.
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