Al Gore is on the campaign trail again, and he actually seems to be enjoying it.
Like Brad Pitt, but wonkier.
Photo: Eric Neitzel/WireImage.
For those who remember his ponderous, consultant-driven bid for president, the idea of Gore enjoying anything about campaigning may seem far-fetched. But this time, the campaign's not about him; it's about the issue that has been his consuming intellectual passion for nearly a quarter century: what he calls the "climate crisis." It's a perfect union of dedicated wonk and intractable problem.
In the years since his dramatic "loss" in 2000, he has, largely under the media radar, been practicing a form of retail politics: traveling the globe with a computer slideshow on global warming, educating small crowds, trying to boost the public profile of the problem through sheer force of door-to-door persistence.
At one of those presentations, Hollywood producer Laurie David was in the audience. Galvanized, she recruited a team of producers, filmmakers, and philanthropists, and together they persuaded Gore to star in a documentary based on his climate slideshow. Deadwood producer Davis Guggenheim was brought on to direct, and the movie was done in little over a year.
Now, as anticipation builds for the May 24 wide release of An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore is squarely back in the public eye. Despite denials from Gore's camp, rumors of a 2008 presidential run are rampant. Grist met with Gore during his recent stay in Seattle and found him hale, jovial, and relaxed -- a man invigorated.
You're well known, particularly since 2000, for guarding your privacy. But this movie is quite personal. Was that the producers' idea or yours?
It was definitely not my idea.
Were you reluctant about it?
I was reluctant about it. And I would not have suggested that or wanted that.
But after we were into the production of the movie, the director, Davis Guggenheim, had earned my trust, because I had seen enough to gain a tremendous respect for his skill and sensitivity. And he said that one of the huge differences between a live stage performance and a movie is that when you're in the same room with a live person who's on stage speaking -- even if it's me [laughs] -- there's an element of dramatic tension and human connection that keeps your attention. And in a movie, that element is just not present.
He explained to me that you have to create that element on screen, by supplying a narrative thread that allows the audience to make a connection with one or more characters. He said, "You've got to be that character."
So we talked about it, and as I say, by then he had earned such a high level of trust from me that he convinced me. And he was a very skillful interviewer. What you hear in those biographical segments is literally 1 percent of the interviews he did. I began to suspect that his basic technique involved getting me so exhausted that I didn't care what I said anymore. [Laughs.]
Maybe the DVD extras will come with 10 extra hours of interview.
They will not. I will have enough residual control to prevent that. [Laughs.]
The marketing for the movie -- the trailer and the poster -- are completely over the top. "The scariest movie you'll ever see!" But the movie itself is quiet and methodical, and quite hopeful at the end. Did you deliberately choose those respective strategies?
It's a great trailer, very effective. But the people who make the trailer are completely different from the people who make the movie. I think they've done a terrific job on the movie, and I think a different group did a terrific job on the trailer.
A man, a slide, a mission.
Photo: © 2006 Paramount Classics.
The purpose of a trailer is very different from the purpose of a movie. I talked with Steven Spielberg, who saw the movie and loved it, and saw the trailer and loved it. And I asked him pretty much the same question you're asking me. He said, "Al, you've got to know this: the purpose of a trailer is to grab an audience by the throat and wrestle them into the seat." [Laughs.] They've got two minutes instead of 92 minutes, and they want to get people in to see the movie.
Did you have direct control over the editing of the movie? Or did you leave it in the hands of the creative team?
It was a collaborative process. I want to be careful in answering, because I don't want to step on the creative role that the moviemakers played. It's their vision. It's their movie, particularly Davis Guggenheim's. But at every step he asked me, what about leaving this in or taking this out? We had a mutual agreement on every aspect of that; there was not a single point where we had any serious disagreement at all.
There's a lot of debate right now over the best way to communicate about global warming and get people motivated. Do you scare people or give them hope? What's the right mix?
I think the answer to that depends on where your audience's head is. In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.
Over time that mix will change. As the country comes to more accept the reality of the crisis, there's going to be much more receptivity to a full-blown discussion of the solutions.
Let's turn briefly to some proposed solutions. Nuclear power is making a big resurgence now, rebranded as a solution to climate change. What do you think?
I doubt nuclear power will play a much larger role than it does now.
Won't, or shouldn't?
Won't. There are serious problems that have to be solved, and they are not limited to the long-term waste-storage issue and the vulnerability-to-terrorist-attack issue. Let's assume for the sake of argument that both of those problems can be solved.
We still have other issues. For eight years in the White House, every weapons-proliferation problem we dealt with was connected to a civilian reactor program. And if we ever got to the point where we wanted to use nuclear reactors to back out a lot of coal -- which is the real issue: coal -- then we'd have to put them in so many places we'd run that proliferation risk right off the reasonability scale. And we'd run short of uranium, unless they went to a breeder cycle or something like it, which would increase the risk of weapons-grade material being available.
When energy prices go up, the difficulty of projecting demand also goes up -- uncertainty goes up. So utility executives naturally want to place their bets for future generating capacity on smaller increments that are available more quickly, to give themselves flexibility. Nuclear reactors are the biggest increments, that cost the most money, and take the most time to build.
In any case, if they can design a new generation [of reactors] that's manifestly safer, more flexible, etc., it may play some role, but I don't think it will play a big role.
How about the other big, new contender, ethanol?
Cellulosic ethanol. Different from corn-based ethanol. I think it is going to be a huge new source of energy, particularly for the transportation sector. You're going to see it all over the place. You're going to see a lot more flex-fuel vehicles. You're going to see new processes that utilize waste as the source of energy, so there's no petroleum consumed in the process -- that makes the energy balance uniformly positive, so you can regrow it and it does become, in a real sense, renewable. You may also begin to see a new generation of fuel cells that run on cellulosic ethanol, where you can grow your own electricity. I think it's going to play a huge role.
James Hansen says we have 10 years before there are irreversible changes [because of the climate crisis]. Two and a half years of those 10 ...
We can't spot the problem two and a half years. We've got to concentrate on changing the country's mind even during this president's term.
Yes. But whoever is president next has four of the remaining seven years. Whoever it is will have history-changing effects, pro or con. I don't see any candidate in either party who shows signs of having internalized the scope and severity of the problem.
All of which you surely realize is leading to the inevitable question: Do you not feel some obligation to jump into the race?
I'm not planning to be a candidate again. I appreciate the way you asked the question, I really do, but I'm not planning to be a candidate again.
You know I had to make you say it.
Bo Webb to Al Gore: come to Ground Zero in climate battle
Al Gore: Support this historic House energy bill today
Comments View as Flat
caniscandida Posted 7:40 am
09 May 2006
OK, so hope is out, fear is in?
Good interview, David. You brought out the personal, affable side of Al Gore, which was always there really, and makes him IMHO a truly likable guy, but which got oddly paralysed during the 2000 campaign.
But his answer to the hope vs. fear question could have been deeper, no? We need to scare Americans, to get them to understand that the climate crisis is a real problem -- by perhaps "over-presenting" the evidence? (I forget his exact word, but it was something like that.) But doesn't he see that we get called power-hungry extremists and hoax-mongerers when we do that? He may be right, after all; but then surely we need another tactic or two to repel the attacks of the deniers.
Permalink
Weeb Posted 7:46 am
09 May 2006
Gore Evermore
Cannot wait to see the movie, and it is really exciting to see a former mainstream politician give this problem the attention it deserves.
One question though. What does the following sentence mean? Gore said, "I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is."
Does that mean it is OK to over-emphasize how dangerous global warming is? I worry about comments like this affecting the credibility of the message.
Remember when everyone was telling us that all fat was bad? That was because scientists and doctors thought the public would not understand that unsaturated fats can be good while saturated fats are not. Now that message is finally getting out there, but people are leery of the new message because they think nutritionists and doctors keep changing their minds.
Permalink
David Roberts Posted 8:04 am
09 May 2006
Over-representation
Perhaps it was more clear what Gore meant in person. By "an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is" -- an admittedly inelegant phrase -- I think he meant that at this point, people talking to American audiences need to spend more time convincing them that global warming is dangerous, relative to the amount of time they spend talking about solving the problem.
Americans don't yet understand how dangerous it is. Until they do, that's what needs to be emphasized. Once they do understand, then the emphasis can shift to solutions. That's what he was getting at.
I don't think he would ever suggest that anyone twist or misrepresent the evidence. If there's one impression I got, it is of a guy who cares very much what words mean, and cares very much about being precise. (A fellow nerd!)
Permalink
ben Posted 8:08 am
09 May 2006
What if...
I know it really is an impossible question...but what if Al Gore won? The US might have signed into Kyoto, but does anybody really think he would have forced emission cuts? Comparing him with other leaders (mostly Tony Blair who sounds quite progressive on this issue as well), nothing would have changed.
Permalink
kmp Posted 9:22 am
09 May 2006
Right
I got the impression that the "over representation" statement meant, in terms of a slide slow, 100 slides dishing out data that supports your contention of "danger" with 5 slides discussing what we can do about it.
I think he is right when he says that we (well, Americans) are not yet ready for the "hope" message, although I still firmly believe it is a better motivator than fear. I just think that in order to be motivated to change anything you first need to understand that there is a problem.
I've always liked Al, and wondered why he came off as so frumpy and stuffy in his run. However, I still shudder at the thought of Tipper in the White House. Blech.
Permalink
gringo Posted 12:55 pm
09 May 2006
ponderous, consultant-driven bid for president?
That's an over-the-top oversimplification -- if I may put it that way.
His campaign seems to be more and more reasonable in light of what has been done under Bush.
Why do you think that Gore's campaign was more ponderous and consultant-driven than the Bush campaign? Karl Rove used focus-groups and polls as much as anyone and Bush couldn't take a step without Rove telling him what to do.
To name one thing where do you think the phrase "compassionate conservativism" came from? Sure not from Bush's own brain.
Still somehow I don't hear people complaining that Bush ran a consultant-driven campaign.
Or was Clinton's campaign in 1996 less consultant-driven than Gore's? Hardly. If anything Clinton's centrism was far more calculated (and the product of the ultimate political consultant Dick Morris) than Gore's populism.
Still I don't hear people talking about Clinton's consultants.
I sense a double-standard here and it's seems to me the only reason why it exists is that Gore is not in the White House. If he was president noone would talk about his consultants.
But it's hard to make the case -- in light of how that election turned out -- that Gore is not in the White House because of he was the puppet of some paid political hacks.
Permalink
gringo Posted 1:00 pm
09 May 2006
Re: Gore Evermore
"I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is."
Does that mean it is OK to over-emphasize how dangerous global warming is? I worry about comments like this affecting the credibility of the message.
---
I think what he meant was that if you talk about global warming today in the US do it this way:
80%: explain the problem
20%: explain the solution.
Permalink
Gregory Dicum Posted 2:56 pm
09 May 2006
Carbon Lies
I saw Gore and his film here in San Francisco last week, and since we're talking about the 2000 campaign, something he said in response to the question of what happened to the climate as a campaign issue bears repeating...
(now i'm paraphrasing)
He said that early in the campaign, Bush announced that, as President, he would impose a carbon tax to address climate change.
The media consensus, it seems, was that there was no debate: the candidates agreed on the issue so it was moot.
(end of paraphrase)
Never mind that one candidate wrote a book about it called "Earth in the Balance" and the other was presiding over the state with the worst air standards.
It sounds like Gore's consultants were outmaneuvered by Bush's consultants on Gore's strongest point early on. Nice work all around; great job, media.
Of course, now that I'm working in the media, that could never happen again, so this anecdote is just a historical curiosity...
Permalink
Weeb Posted 1:19 am
10 May 2006
Re: Over-representation
Thanks for the clarification. I agree that more emphasis on the problem needs to be made, but I also think solutions are being driven by energy security concerns, high gas prices, and increasingly aggressive and autocratic regimes in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela. So while I agree that we need to make sure that Americans get the problem, we also need to be concentrating on the solutions so that the momentum created by these other issues does not lead to "solutions" that do not respect the environment like coal, nuclear, and fossil fuel-based hydrogen.
Permalink
sunflower Posted 2:08 am
10 May 2006
Coal
The solutions will be least cost, not environmental. As we become ever more poor we will consider burning the furniture to stay warm. As Gore mentioned, coal is the problem. Look at coal cost closely and we will see that coal power for heat is not least cost. Power for heat is not least cost. Try waste biomass, like burning corn cobs and wood chips. Oil, 30% of our CO2 emissions, used for transportation and heat is a self extinguishing problem. Coal is our common enemy. My fear is coal.
My hope is in the economics of coal displacement.
Permalink
sunflower Posted 2:22 am
10 May 2006
Green Prius
We bought a Prius Hybrid this week, not an easy thing to do. If you are considering the same then do not delay, the $3100 tax credit is soon to expire. Do not be picky on color and options, get whatever is allocated and still available. Then wait a few weeks for delivery, and good luck!
Permalink
Bob Holt Posted 3:32 am
11 May 2006
Gore's campaign in 2000
None of the commentators who have criticized Gore for a poor job of campaigning when Bush prevailed mentions the fact that that alleged victory was achieved by fraud, stealing, and outright bullying tactics. After the fact, we know that if Gore had played his cards right and had insisted on a total recount in FL, he would have won (assuming that the kind of brassknuckles tactics that
DeLay used wasn't even more widespread). And that doesn't take into account the many successful dirty tricks used to to keep the Democratic vote down.
No, not only did he undeniably win the popular vote despite all the cheating, fraud, and hardball, but if the Republicans had behaved like decent citizens, he would have been president. And despite the fact that there did not SEEM to be a lot of difference between him & W, the whole world would be in an incomparably better place now. Spoken by one who actually voted for Nader!
(Sources: Palast, Best Democracy Money Can Buy; and Miller, Fooled Again.)
Permalink
K7AAY Posted 11:40 am
22 May 2006
A fundamental misunderstanding of nuclear choices
ALGORE> We still have other issues.
ALGORE> For eight years in the White House,
ALGORE> every weapons-proliferation problem we dealt with
ALGORE> was connected to a civilian reactor program.
ALGORE> And if we ever got to the point where we wanted
ALGORE> to use nuclear reactors to back out a lot of coal --
ALGORE> which is the real issue: coal --
ALGORE> then we'd have to put them in so many places
ALGORE> we'd run that proliferation risk right off
ALGORE> the reasonability scale. And we'd run short of uranium,
ALGORE> unless they went to a breeder cycle or something like it,
ALGORE> which would increase the risk of
ALGORE> weapons-grade material being available.
Ahem.
Here lies a fundamental misunderstanding of nuclear power choices.
ALL power stations now in service are breeders.
What have been named as "breeder" reactors are optimized for making Pu-239 from U-238, Pu-239 being the best variety of Pu for reactors (and bombs). Some kinds (isotopes) of Pu are bad for bombs because they fission too fast, and breeders are designed to minimize other Pu isotopes.
But, all PWRs, BWRs and gas-cooled designs make Pu faster than they burn it.
The only design which burns Pu as fast as it makes it is the IFR, aka the "fast-flux".
IFRs burn everything and are very tolerant of isotopes other than the very best.
Using IFRs decreases the risk of weapons-grade material being available.
IFRs can run for years with the same fuel, unlike other designs that constantly require removing fuel for reprocessing. IFR fuel runs very hot (thermally), safely, for they're solid metal, unlike the fragile ceramic fuel elements of BWRs, GCRs and PWRs. They run so 'hot' (radioactively) that stealing the fuel to make a bomb is impractical; the thieves could not survive long enough to make it out the front gate.
IFRs 'poison' the fuel rods very quickly with the Pu-240 and other isotopes you can't make a bomb with. And, they will run for years without removing those fuel elements because the sodium moderator lets fast neutrons create fission.. so the fuel keeps going long after they'd stop in other types of reactors from the aforementioned "poisoning" by daughter products.
We can even use thorium (yes, the same thorium you take camping in Coleman lantern mantles) as fuel in an IFR, extending further our natural resources.
Much more heat (200x conventional designs) is extracted over time from the same amount of atomic fuel, and much less waste is left over after the fuel rods are eventually removed.
That greater efficiency means the fuel isn't dangerous for many millenia, too.
Reprocessing is on site, BTW, since reprocessing is chemically much simpler and reuses so much more of the fuel. It results in what little waste there is, being no more 'hot' than the ore it came from, after only 200-300 years of cooldown, instead of millenia.
The IFRs are also passively safe; if everyone walked away, the plant would shut itself down (Doppler broadening). That's been tested and proven at the EFR-II site in Idaho.
Hmm...
- Can't use the spent fuel for bombs (solves Mr. Gore's objection) AND
- Burns up our excess plutonium from decommissioned bombs AND
- Burns up high-level 'waste' from other reactors which would otherwise need to be stored for millenia AND
- Much more efficient at providing power for the fuel we have (we have 500 years' U-238 fuel on hand, untold amounds of Pu convertible to fuel, and 100,000 years using proven reserves and high-level waste) AND
- Much less nuclear waste AND
- A much safer plant that shuts itself down by its very design AND
- What little waste there is is less dangerous and 'hot' for much less time.
Looks like a solution to me. After all, there are no hydrogen wells, and we have to get power to make that H2 from somewhere.http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA378.html
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/designs/ifr/anlw.html
http://yarchive.net/nuke/ifr.html
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99xx7.htm
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/newton/askasci/1993/environ/ENV056.HTM
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor
http://www.iaea.org/inis/ws/fnss/fr.html
Permalink
Jstack6 Posted 12:06 pm
24 May 2006
hybrid, now beat EPA mpg
Hybrids are great. Now can you drive careful and beat the EPA mpg ? I have an 03 Honda civic hybrid rated at 49/48 and get 60+ most of the time. I drive smart, watch for lights ahead slow down and start up gradual. It all adds up.
Permalink
WWAGD?! Posted 8:27 am
28 Sep 2006
How Does Al Gore Make Money?
He's head of a "Green" Investment firm.
What better way to make money then going on a media scare campaign to con people into funding his IPOs for "Positive Ion Emitters" or whatever quackery he's going to try an use to skim people's 401k funds.
How come the Lib press doesn't get down on the hypocrascy of a guy who spent 8 years as the ultimate insider, and did nothing except wait around to be annointed President, and now claims that we should all be "doing something" about Global Warming.
Geeze Louise!!!
Permalink
WWAGD?! Posted 2:22 am
13 Oct 2007
Base Load
Why are nukes always off the table when it comes to fixing air pollution?
They are the only current technology that can
- Run base load electric generation
- Change the greenhouse gas per person from a volumes the size of freight trains to that the size of a Jones Cane Cola can.
Great discussion here:http://fora.tv/2007/09/13/More_Nuclear_Energy_Why_America ...
Permalink
micky Posted 8:45 pm
01 Jul 2008
Thanks for the clarification.
Thanks for the clarification. I agree that more emphasis on the problem needs to be made, but I also think solutions are being driven by energy security concerns, high gas prices, and increasingly aggressive and autocratic regimes in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela.
"À °°°®OeöŽi- °°°^--AOeöŽi-|<Õ"À °°°^-"À °°°®-"À °°°®-"À °°°^OeöŽi-"À °/°°^|<Õ
Permalink