An Inconvenient Truth

Far from licking his wounds after narrowly losing to George W. Bush in the 2000 US presidency race (which many still maintain that he didn't lose at all), Bill Clinton’s former running mate Al Gore has been on a globetrotting environmental crusade.

While Bush wages his beloved war on terror, Gore contends that the biggest threat to global security is from ever-escalating carbon emissions (though Dubya's emissions of hot air must come a close second).

The US is the leading contributor to the blanket currently suffocating the planet; to live and learn is clearly not the American way.

Gore has made this presentation over a thousand times, using a fascinating array of charts, cartoons, photos, video footage and cold, hard numbers. He paints an ugly, frightening picture.

The famous snows of Mount Kilimanjaro are all but gone. Glacier National Park is practically devoid of glaciers. Africa's once-mighty Lake Chad is now a dustbowl. Rusting ships litter a desert where the Aral Sea used to be.

So what? So rising temperatures means melting ice-caps, which means chaotic ocean currents, raised sea levels and an endless worldwide hurricane season. And more mosquitoes.

Gore acknowledges that ignoring the problem is only human, which will be small consolation to the citizens of Beijing, Calcutta, Holland, San Francisco and Manhattan when they have to start swimming to work.

This is infotainment at its most important, embellished with the details of Gore’s personal history which prompted his mission – his son's near-fatal accident; his sister's death from lung cancer; that notorious election defeat.

One wonders how the world would be shaping up had the result in Florida gone the other way. (Next time might be easier since a quarter of the Sunshine State will soon be underwater too.)

Gore is an excellent speaker: engaging, charismatic, eloquent, witty, passionate, level-headed and honest. Clearly unfit to lead a superpower.

The environmentally aware may raise a few eyebrows at the number of air miles Gore clocks up, but as any politician would tell you: sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war.

Elliott Noble