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When I caught up with Al Gore at his home in Nashville last December, the former Vice President-turned-green-guru was in a pensive mood. I was surprised - he was just finishing his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, which he was due to give in Stockholm a few days later. For a man who had lost the Presidency in the most agonizing way possible, winning the Nobel should have offered some consolation. But when I asked Gore if he felt vindicated, he shook his head. "It's hard to celebrate recognition of an effort that has thus far failed...
...Gore was right. For all the hot air expended talking about climate change, global greenhouse gas emissions continue, at a rate of about 70 million tons a day. The gap between the scale of the threat posed by global warming - it is potentially civilization-altering - and the solutions so far proposed - change a light bulb - are obvious and disheartening. Gore realized that back in December. "We have to abandon the conceit that isolated personal actions are going to solve this crisis," he said. "Our policies have to shift...
...McCain lost South Carolina and, eventually, the nomination. He endorsed his opponent - but mocked the ritual, robotically telling reporters, "I endorse George Bush, I endorse George Bush, I endorse George Bush." And months would pass before he would campaign for him against Al Gore. "The tension was palpable," recalls Scott McClellan, the Bush aide who went on to become White House press secretary. "The two were cordial, but McCain would get that forced smile on his face whenever they were together...
...Bill Clinton in the doldrums of July 1992 announce that he was choosing Al Gore for an all-youth ticket. Four years later, Dole infused his campaign with testosterone by drafting Hall of Fame quarterback Jack Kemp for his team. In early August of 2000, Gore distanced himself from the incumbent by pairing with Clinton critic Joseph Lieberman...
...Which brings us back to the environment, the bummer indicator to end all bummer indicators. If nuclear annihilation was the apocalyptic mainstay through the decades of the Cold War, the eco-apocalypse has clearly taken its place. In some ways, the "Al Gore Scare Machine," as Kutner puts it, is more of the same. Like nuclear war - or like the more fantastical possibilities that Kutner imagines, such as a robot uprising or an unleashed super-plague - global warming will be an apocalypse of our own making. End times stories are tales of sin punished, and climate change is no different...