Pete Stidman

For a man who isn’t going to run for office, Al Gore sure is acting like a candidate in his new film, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Even conservatives are talking about his potential as a presidential candidate for 2008.

And if he isn’t running, and he has said he isn’t, why all the deeply personal auto-biographical references in the movie? Why the repeated mantra, vote, vote, vote? Why the continual mocking of republicans without a single criticism of a democrat?

If the movie is tied up in the strategy for the 2008 election, it’s a good move. After all, the environment is the perfect trump card to use against a weakened republican party. Climate crisis can be, after many long years of suffering under stereotypes associated with the far left, a non-partisan issue, and even a religious one. Pulling the race-card with Katrina is powerful as all hell...

The danger of course, is that the Republican Party will accept this and run a pro-enviro-campaign of their own, and who’s to say which party would do better if elected?

A conveniently sidelined truth in the movie is the details of why Gore could not get the U.S. to sign the 1997 Kyoto agreement during his service as Vice President. As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, he ignored the wishes of the Senate. A resolution signed by 95 Senators warned Gore not to allow the exemption of the developing countries in the Kyoto negotiations. Gore allowed the exemption anyway, and lost even presidential support. It has also been pointed out that he was pro-tobacco even after his sister died and he and Clinton dropped the ball on fuel-efficiency standards.

The horrific thing about all of this is that a crusader like the one Gore is trying to sell himself as is exactly what the U.S. needs right now. Sadly, the authentic environmentalist candidate may not exist, which isn’t to say that he shouldn’t be supported with a fervor.

It’s all much more complicated than finding a person that will hold true to their beliefs in the political arena (and that’s a pretty neat trick in itself!). It has more to do with public opinion.

The political will to act decisively on the environment may have to be inspired directly by the voters (with a cat-o-nine-tails!), which means you better stop making jokes about how impossible it is to change your filthy habits and get serious about cutting down your carbon emissions. Not only does it do a little good for the earth, it sends a message to the political strategists and that ever-rare specimen of an elected personage—the conscionable legislator.

By the way, after watching the movie, I thought the climatecrisis.net website was rather weak. A simple web search turns up better.

If Gore is living up to his statement in the movie, “the environment isn’t a political issue, it’s a moral one,” his website and his movie should reflect on the failure of both parties, not just one.

My bet is he’s running. He wants to make it appear that “the people” talked him into it.