LOL! See if I can make you do that again. (Hint: Look at the dog!)
Posted on 01/26/2006 4:51:59 PM PST by proud_yank
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) - Al Gore is not all that comfortable being a star of the Sundance Film Festival. He's far more concerned that the celebrity watchers hear what he has to say.
The former U.S. vice-president came to town for the premiere of An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary chronicling what has become his crusade since losing the 2000 presidential election: educating the masses that global warming is about to toast our ecology and our way of life.
Gore has been saying it for decades, since a college class in the 1960s convinced him that greenhouse gases from oil, coal and other carbon emissions were trapping the sun's heat in the atmosphere, resulting in a glacial meltdown that could flood much of the planet.
People have been hearing it for decades, wavering between belief and skepticism that it all may just be a natural part of Earth's cyclical warming and cooling phases.
And politicians and corporations have been ignoring the issue for decades, to the point that unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return, Gore said.
He sees the situation as "a true planetary emergency."
"If you accept the truth of that, then nothing else really matters that much," Gore said in an interview. "We have to organize quickly to come up with a coherent and really strong response, and that's what I'm devoting myself to."
An Inconvenient Truth takes its title from the notion that consumers, politicians and corporations hooked on energy-inefficient vehicles and emission-heavy power sources may not want to hear the facts, Gore said.
The film centres on the elaborate slideshow presentations Gore conducts around the world for live audiences on the perils of global warming. He presents alarming images of ice-cap meltdowns and graphs linking the rise and fall of atmospheric carbon-dioxide to rising and falling temperatures.
If the pace of pollution continues, Gore's projections for carbon-dioxide levels are off the charts within a few decades.
Among the worst-case consequences: a new ice age in Europe, and massive flooding of regions in India, China and elsewhere that could make refugees of tens of millions of people.
Gore makes his case using copious scientific data and a surprising amount of humour for a politician who found it necessary during campaigns to poke fun at his own stiff image.
"I benefit from low expectations," Gore joked.
As part of his act, Gore follows his scientific introduction to the research with a hilarious segment called Global Warming: Or None Like It Hot from the animated TV show Futurama.
An Inconvenient Truth also lays out events in Gore's personal life and how they influenced his global-warming mission: a car accident that nearly killed his young son, his sister's death from lung cancer after 30 years as a smoker, his family's legacy as former tobacco farmers, the photo finish of the 2000 election.
Calling himself a "recovering politician," Gore reiterated to a Sundance audience at the film's premiere that he would not run for office again.
"What really attracted us to this presentation is the tone Al strikes," said An Inconvenient Truth director Davis Guggenheim. "It's not righteous. It doesn't have a political agenda. It lands right in the middle, and Al just lays out what is this inconvenient truth. And I think that's why the audience is willing to receive it. If they felt like, well, this is a tool for some other motive, they would be more suspicious."
Gore said U.S. government and business leaders must follow the lead of other nations that have enacted stricter mileage standards for cars. Utility companies worldwide must adopt cleaner methods of burning fossil fuels and focus on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power, he said.
The filmmakers brought An Inconvenient Truth to Sundance hoping to land a distributor that will put the documentary in theatres.
"I'm thrilled to have a chance to get this message to a broader audience, because doing it retail a few hundred people at a time is pretty exhausting," Gore said. "I'm committed to it and I'm continuing to do it, but if we can get it before a much larger audience more quickly, that serves the larger purpose."
Yeah, I thought that paragraph was pretty funny too. If one college class can sway his opinion, we should all be grateful that he isn't POTUS.
"Hey Al, I have some snake oil and magic beans I'll sell you at a discount!"
This is supposed to be a happy occasion!
Just snorted out Pepsi through my left nostril, thanks a lot. LOL What a classic memory. A guy on the local talk station plays that one every time he brings up Kerry.
That predates global warming theory. That must mean Al Gore invented global warming.
"After all, that terrorist nut, the Unabomber, had a copy of Albore's book."
FUN QUIZ KIDS >>>>
Did Al Gore say it? or the Unabomber?
http://www.crm114.com/algore/quiz.html
This pud, Gore is the same one who bitched and cried for the Excursion in the Secret Service detail.
Can't he find a real job? Maybe picking lettuce? You know, those jobs we "need" illegals for because Americans just won't do them? Maybe he could work on employing blacks since they're unemployment rate is 2-3x's the rate of basically any other ethnic group (it's over 10%). Nope, he's got to waste his time bashing Bush, bashing a newly elected PM of Canada, etc.
To be fair, I took a Physics class in 1977 that still influences my thinking on global warming. My project was to correlate droughts with sunspot activity. It taught me that the weather here on Earth is mostly determined by this large cosmic body called the Sun that's about 93 million miles away, not by my Ford. Too bad Al Gore didn't take that class.
That was scary.
Gosh.....where is a good suicide bomber when you really need one?
ONE THING HE ISN'T IS A RECOVERING IDIOT.
To Mr. Al Gore - Global Warming does not worry me. Terrorists do.
That picture needs a lot of analysis. To me the dog is hightailing it away from Kerry after seeing how he is pointing, and I'm not talking about pointing the gun.
LOL, looks like he's on the downwind side of Effin as well. I love the grip over both barrels too.
You're right. I didn't even look at his grip. It is the old classic, choke the forearm, stock to bicep, aim at left thumbnail grip.
LOL The caption should be "Whoops, better shoot THIS way, maybe the photographers won't see..."
Fade out, and fade in on Bill Clinton, who gets the attention that Gore thought HE was gonna get--young, dynamic, a new JFK figure, blah blah blah...and the best Al Gore can do is play second fiddle to him, a man whose morals he despises. But he goes along with him for political gain.
Then, his moment comes...and he loses in one of the closest elections ever. Damnit, he even won the popular vote, so he REALLY won!
That's where he is now--he could have been The Man, but all he is is a footnote. But all those years in the spotlight, shared with Clinton, gave him a lust for that spotlight, and he just can't let it go.
Or when Russia and Northern Europe warms up from a record cold winter.
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