Al Gore has his heart in the right place, but he can't seem to get anything quite right...

In an open ended gallup poll this month asking Americans what the most important problem facing our country was, none responded with global warming, and only 2 percent said energy and 1 percent environment/pollution. Where are the "incredible numbers" that Al Gore speaks of?

Any marketing campaign that focuses on the minor solutions to global warming will ultimately fail, especially when many of Gore's solutions are going to cost us. Global warming is inextricably linked to many of the issues that Americans care about (economy, jobs, oil, the war, etc.), but it's not being framed that way. And needless to say, Gore's little demand-side solutions are NOT going to reduce America's carbon emissions significantly, especially if they're using packaging (let me guess - plastic) and commercials. Furthermore, it will not create the positive atmosphere for the massive investment and social and policy shifts we need to build a climate positive America.

For all that Gore has done for the climate movement, it's time for him to take a back seat and give up the hopeless, elitist, survivalist mantra he's been sporting lately. It's time for a different environmentalism - holistic, practical, economic, sustainable, and just.

I actually met Cathy Zoi, the CEO of the Alliance for Climate Protection, a few months ago. Unless they've changed their direction since then, she was very much focused on the realpolitik of climate change. She described their strategy this way:

There exists scads of polling data showing that the vast majority of Americans are concerned about climate change and want the government to do something about it. Kaibosworth is very right that the issue fails to register in open-ended polls, but that doesn't mean that Americans don't care. It just means that there is a greater sense of immediacy for most people about issues like the Iraq War, health care, and the economy. The goal of the ad campaign is literally to get climate change on that open-ended polling map, because until that happens, we're not going to make any major political progress.

The Alliance is having these top-dollar commercials made not just to get people to conserve energy, but to drive home the connection between turning on the lights and emitting greenhouse gases. In other words, they're trying to make climate change more relevant to people's daily lives. If the public is thinking about it, they're more likely to mention it to a pollster.

Here's an example that they've been testing in some areas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op-DyH4gyLU.