Al Gore, the climate expert?

I felt sorry for Al when he walked away from the 2000 election, having come so close to being the next U.S. president. To have come so close, to have touched the mantle…to live with what could have been. The disappointment must have been numbing.

After a period of isolation, Al decided on a personal mission of promoting awareness of climate change. Why is anybody’s guess.

Perhaps his therapist suggested it as a way of countering the crushing self loathing he felt every time he turned on the TV and saw the man who snatched away his chance at immortality. Perhaps his bruised ego demanded another chance to achieve global recognition. Climate change was a mission that would allow Al to speak on a world stage. Doing so – like a president but not quite - not as the guy who could have been the president of the most powerful nation in the world but as someone that should be held in similar esteem because of the critical importance of his world saving assignment. Al was to be the Jesus of climate change.

Al made a movie, a documentary that was greeted enthusiastically by public and tree huggers alike. He made speeches all over the place. Al even won a Nobel Prize for his efforts. But there was a feeling of something wrong, something missing.

It goes back to the “why?” question. It can’t have been that Al was really worried about the changing world’s climate. He made no effort to live the life he promoted – no bike rides from home to office, no electric powered limo for Al, no solar-powered headquarters.

Al flies to his speeches and venues in a gas-guzzling, carbon pluming, private corporate jet. It is reported that his home uses as much power as a small Mid-Western city. While the therapy may have worked for Mr. Gore’s self preservation, he’s taken us for fools. Having Al promote climate change awareness with the accoutrements of living that he has, is akin to our being lectured on the evils of alcohol abuse by the head of a liquor company.

He would have been better off building houses with JimmyC.