THE NEW AL GORE BOOK

The Evolution Of An Eco-Prophet; Al Gore's views on climate change are advancing as rapidly as the phenomenon itself.
Sharon Begley, October 31, 2009 (Newsweek)

"…[Al Gore gave Newsweek writer Sharon Begley a tour of his house and talked about] his new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis (printed on 100 percent recycled paper for a savings of 1,513 trees and 126,000 pounds of carbon dioxide; all associated CO2 emissions offset through the CarbonNeutral Co.; all profits to the Alliance for Climate Protection, which he founded in 2006 and to which he donated his 2007 Nobel Peace Prize money). Here in the dining room, he says with a wave, he papered the walls with giant 20- by 23-inch Post-its, covered with his notes. 'Stacked on the floor all around the walls were these thick notebooks from the solutions summits,' he says with a chuckle. The pool table was conscripted to hold material for more chapters. There was method in the chaos, but just barely. Most books take 12 months to produce from the time the author delivers the manuscript to the publisher; Gore, with two research assistants, was still writing in August, imperiling the Nov. 3 release date.

"But Gore, former newspaper reporter that he is, made the deadline. Out on the patio, Gore reminisces about how he wrote. He gathered experts at half a dozen of those solutions summits—unpublicized, invitation-only, and off-the-record—in New York, Nashville, and three other cities beginning in 2007, where he listened to presentations on, among much else, renewable energy, nuclear power, energy efficiency, and the 'smart grid.' He also 'circled back to do in-depth one-on-one interviews' with dozens of scientists and technology experts, picking their brains and getting their latest results. By the end, he says, 'I had a 40-page outline, really encyclopedic. There were really about 10 books in there.'"

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"And one has absolutely no trouble—none, zero, nil—believing him…Our Choice is Al Gore at his best and his worst. It is authoritative, exhaustive, reasoned, erudite, and logical, a textbooklike march through solar and wind power, geothermal energy, biofuels, carbon sequestration, nuclear energy, the potential of forests to soak up carbon dioxide, energy efficiency, and the regulatory tangle that impedes the development of a super-efficient, continent-wide system of transmission lines. It is, thank goodness, no '50 things you can do' primer. To the contrary. Although Gore hopes laypeople will exert political pressure for what he calls 'large solutions,' he told me last week in a call from Cairo, Our Choice reflects the experience of someone who knows that it is lawmakers and business leaders who can implement the 'laws and policies we really need, including getting a global climate treaty.'

"Despite suffering one of history's worst political fates, Gore has by no means given up on politicians. Behind the scenes, he takes calls from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and strategizes with Sens. Barbara Boxer and John Kerry, sponsors of the Senate climate bill. Although he applauds President Obama's speech last week announcing $3.4 billion in stimulus money for work on a smart grid and the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions, he falls short of a full-throated endorsement. 'I'm optimistic they'll get legislation out of the Senate,' he says, 'but the jury is still out on the effectiveness of the approach they're taking' on negotiations for a climate treaty, which begin in Copenhagen next month.

"To anyone with bad memories of how Gore's fact-filled debate performances against George W. Bush in 2000 failed to connect with voters, it may come as no surprise that Our Choice has a graphic on 'how a wind turbine works,' and a long section that begins: 'Conventional hydrothermal plants are built according to one of three different designs. The steam can be taken directly through the turbine and then recondensed … ' But because of one sentence, and one chapter, it does surprise. The chapter is an astute analysis of the psychological barriers that keep most Americans from taking the threat of climate change seriously, his acknowledgment that emotion, not just reason, drives the decisions people make. The sentence is this: 'Simply laying out the facts won't work.'"

From WeCanSolveIt via YouTube

"Asked how he reconciles that realization with the wonkish content of the book, Gore at first seems stymied. But then, when I prompt him, he points to pages on the spiritual dimension of climate change, the idea that God gave man stewardship over the earth, and that preserving it for future generations is a sacred obligation. Then he opens his laptop to show a commercial by his Alliance for Climate Protection, in which the Revs. Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson make an odd-couple plea for 'taking care of the planet.' Gore allows that he's been tailoring the slide-show training he gives to faith-based volunteer groups. 'I've done a Christian [-based] training program; I have a Muslim training program and a Jewish training program coming up, also a Hindu program coming up. I trained 200 Christian ministers and lay leaders here in Nashville in a version of the slide show that is filled with scriptural references. It's probably my favorite version, but I don't use it very often because it can come off as proselytizing.'

"The book's most significant concession to going beyond 'laying out the facts' comes in the final chapter. Here, Gore imagines a future generation asking how we averted catastrophic climate change. He paints a scenario in which the U.S. passed climate legislation this year, a global treaty was negotiated, and the world was 'pleasantly surprised that so many of the changes [in energy supply and use] were not only inexpensive but actually profitable,' he writes. 'We should have known we were capable of coming together in supporting such an urgent cause … With God as our witness, we made mistakes. But then, when hope seemed to fade, we lifted our eyes to the Heavens and saw what we had to do.' …"