[Vision2020] The Evolution Of An Eco-Prophet: Al Gore's New Book "Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis"

[Ted Moffett]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/220552

 By Sharon Begley <http://www.newsweek.com/id/183003> | NEWSWEEK
 Published Oct 31, 2009
>From the magazine issue dated Nov 9, 2009

Al Gore steps onto the portico of his century-old white colonial, its
stately columns framing him and the black Lab mix, Bojangles, that he and
his son rescued from a shelter as a birthday present for Tipper. Dressed in
blue jeans and a button-down shirt open at the collar, Gore looks younger
than his 61 years: the mountain-man beard he grew in the wake of the Florida
recount debacle of 2000 is long gone, and the extra weight, which hung on
several more years, is nowhere in evidence. Nor are the trappings of office,
unless you count an electronic gate at the bottom of his circular driveway
in the wealthy Nashville neighborhood of Belle Meade. When he travels—as he
does about one quarter of the time, often to train volunteers to give the
slide show that formed the core of *An Inconvenient
Truth<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1594865671/?tag=nwswk-20>
*—it is with no more than one aide, and he pulls his own luggage.

Despite the grueling pace, Gore is pumped on this warm October afternoon. I
am there to talk about his latest literary project, and he's ready,
launching into a house tour that revolves around his new book, *Our Choice:
A Plan to Solve the Climate
Crisis<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1594867348/?tag=nwswk-20>
*(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."

And one has absolutely no trouble—none, zero, nil—believing him.

*Our Choice
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1594867348/?tag=nwswk-20>*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<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1594867348/?tag=nwswk-20>
*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."

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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