Live Gore

I caught Al Gore’s live act last week, courtesy of the Progressive Forum Houston, and I have to say that he was a pretty engaging and convincing speaker. What I couldn’t figure out is whether he is running for office or just damned serious about global warming.

It was a long evening. I rushed to get there by 7:30 only to be assailed by at least a half hour of the musical stylings of Mood Indigo, a couple of Boomers doing acoustic guitar and chick vocal renditions of Beatles songs–gag. The program didn’t end until after 10, and everybody I talked to agreed it was more than they needed on a Wednesday night. This was due, not only to the late start, but also to Gore’s insistence on mentioning every bit of evidence at his disposal, including a separate slide for nearly every one of last season’s hurricanes. But it occurs to me that Gore is forced into this kind of presentation by his skeptics, most of whom have a pecuniary interest in perpetuating the behaviors that result in global warming. In the altered reality of public debate as it exists today, any crank can stifle a well reasoned argument by offering up even the most flimsy one.

Gore’s argument, on the other hand, appears strong, and his evidence a mile and a half deep. But he is still fighting an uphill battle. Note, as he did, the myth that global warming is widely questioned in the scientific community. He referenced polls showing that the vast majority of climate scientists recognize the impact of humans on global warming followed by a slide showing that more than half the stories in the MSM continue to claim the opposite.

The MSM is an easy target because of too many journalists’ willingness to sacrifice the truth in order to appear “fair and balanced,” and Gore was able to discredit the lot with one slide. This is the genius of the medium he’s chosen. By appearing as the visiting professor, backed up by a very well designed powerpoint, he is able to bury his detractors in facts and evidence in a way that can’t be done in print or film. A good example was his riff on American auto-makers’ lawsuits to prevent the phase in of stronger emissions standards in California. First, he took their argument apart point-by-point. For example, he said the automakers tell us they’ll be ruined if they have to make their cars more efficient, then he pointed out that the most efficient cars are also the most profitable Japanese brands. He then pulled up a line graph showing the disparities between Chinese and American emissions standards, deftly illustrating his point about the Neanderthal mentality in Detroit that can’t even produce a car as clean as the ones Chinese companies make. But the punch line came when he noted that Detroit is suing to avoid implementing a standard in 2010 that’s not even as high as the Chinese standard is today.

While Gore relentlessly hammered his point home, he did a lot of it with tongue in cheek, making the medicine go down a lot easier. He joked about life after what he called “the VP gig,” including a humorous anecdote about stopping at an IHOP (or something similar) in western Tennessee with Tipper. When the waitress pointed out to another customer who it was sitting across the room, Gore said he heard the man remark, “he sure has come down in the world.” He later told that story at a public event in Africa, but the story that got picked up by the wire services had him “running” the restaurant. The big laugh came when he explained that Bill Clinton, after reading the item, sent Gore a note, no irony intended, wishing him well in the new venture.

The problem with this book tour is that Gore is preaching to the choir, although there were a number of state and local lawmakers in the audience and I also spotted the former CEO of Pennzoil leaving the hall. Still, I wonder what affect this will ultimately have other than giving Gore the chance to say, “I told you so.” It would be a shame for such fine rhetoric to go to waste.