Al Gore was in Canada, this past week-end, to give his slideshow, to multiple standing ovations from standing-room-only crowds. Sidebar: We love him up here. This year he's been here a lot, notably twice at the Convention Centre in Montreal, where he spoke once before a sold-out audience at a $600-a-plate "Responsible Investment" luncheon, and once for free before a crush of students from Concordia University, in the company of renowned Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki.); twice in Toronto (once at the U of T, where advance sales of his slide-show crashed the computers, when 20,000 people all logged on at once, hoping to snap up tickets, and once at the Green Living Show, where he took the opportunity to trash the Conservative Government's Green Plan, calling it "a complete and total fraud... designed to mislead the Canadian people"). This past Saturday Gore pulled a twofer in Victoria, and Vancouver, British Columbia.
Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore's first of two appearances in British Columbia on Saturday was a big hit — especially with hundreds of students who had no idea they would get to see the celebrity climate-change activist in person. The author of An Inconvenient Truth began in the B.C. capital, where he was the keynote speaker over the lunch hour at the Victoria Conference Centre.
Tickets were $200 each, but included tea and finger food provided by Victoria's famous Empress Hotel.
The trio of University of Victoria students who pulled off a public relations coup by enticing Mr. Gore to Victoria joked that it was a "green" tea, but also made sure that there would be cheaper seats available for 400 university students in a theatre below the ballroom where Mr. Gore was to speak.
Expecting to see the Oscar-winning American only on a big screen, the students rose to their feet and cheered when he made a surprise appearance 10 minutes before he was to take the stage upstairs.
"We decided to make the other room, upstairs, the overflow room," he told them, to wild applause, then issued a personal plea about climate change.
Gore then spoke to the $200-a-ticket crowd upstairs, stating unequivocally that
The U.S. has the greatest ability to respond to the crisis, he said. (...) By creating laws, policies and global treaties -- such as carbon-emission taxes, caps and targets -- governments will play the most vital role in climate-change solutions, he said.
Hint, hint: the U.S. is the most powerful country on the planet and, for now, despite its precipitous plunge in global esteem during the Bush years, still remains the most influential, though that may permanently change after the 2008 election, depending on whom the American people elect as their President, and especially depending on whether that President is a war-hawk or someone who gets that the number one concern of the "world-wide grassroots" is the manmade climate crisis caused by global warming.
Ergo, as has now been proven ad absurdum by the world-wide disaster that has been the régime of Bush-the-Usurper, not only is the Presidency of the United States the most powerful and influential office in the world, the American people's decision as to who ends up in the White House in January 2009 will ultimately decide the fate of humanity on this planet.
And by the way, if you think that last characterisation of the crossroads at which we stand is over-the-top hyperbole, don't listen to me, listen to Jim Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies and arguably the of scientist on the planet, who, after warning of the coming climate catastrophe with ever-increasing urgency for the past 30 years, has now concluded that Time's Up.
So will Gore announce his candidacy in the coming weeks? Armed with an Oscar, an Emmy, a slew of international environmental awards and now poised to receive the most prestigious international accolade of them all), Gore enjoys surprisingly passionate international support , and having doned the magical shield of an epic narrative, is now the most electable of allcurrent and potential candidates for the office of U.S. President.
The question is less one of "will he run?" than one of "how can he NOT?" Indeed, in their rebuttals, most Gore skeptics conveniently fail to mention the elephant in the room (and no, not the Republican Party) that is the mother of all Issues, i.e. the very cause which Al Gore has dedicated the last thirty years of his life to raising consciousness about, on the Hill and in the population, and which has now become the single driving force of his existence. I would suggest to skeptics that they try to keep up with the information pouring in concerning the unfolding catastrophe we are facing, and which Gore is single-mindedly trying to point to.
Gore is the Paul Revere of this, the late anthropocene, but unlike Paul Revere, he is uniquely qualified, experienced and positioned to do more, much, much more, than simply warn us. For years now, Gore has been calling human-driven global warming a planetary emergency, most recently at the UN, and he knows, probably better than anyone alive, that the kind of massive paradygm-shift that is needed to address it can only be initiated by a US President who enjoys immense credibility and trust in the international community.
Gore has been peripatetically lobbying other countries relentlessly for years now, but he knows he is powerless to summon their leaders to meetings and knock heads together until they sign on to the Global Marshall Plan he has been arguing for since his book Earth in the Balance and is now arguing for with renewed vigour, most notably in the past week at the U.N.
Al Gore will run. Because he has to. Because he must. If he believes every word he is saying about the magnitude of the challenge and what must be done to meet it, then he also knows that no one else, among the current candidates running for President, is as qualified , experienced and uniquely positioned as he is, nor possesses the breadth of vision and scientific knowledge, nor owns the over-arching, aspirational message that he does. America needs him. The world needs him. The times cry out for a leader of his unique calibre and mettle. The nomination is his for the taking.
RUN, AL, RUN!