IT HAS TO BE GORE-If He's Serious About Climate Change-He Has To Run For President (Guardian) [View All]

[kpete]

It has got to be Al Gore
If he is as serious about climate change as he says he is, he has to run for the US presidency

Peter Preston
Monday June 18, 2007
The Guardian

...Education, education, education? What the hell use is that if your school is under water? National health? Not in hospitals where the air conditioning has collapsed. Climates change, but the challenge doesn't. Which is where we reach the inconvenient truth about Al Gore. And why he needs to be the next man in the Oval Office.

........ Al Gore isn't over, and has not gone away. On the contrary - his profile and organisational structure still in place - he has become America's true prophet of climate change. In the beginning, that seemed like retirement or a move to some showbiz style of career, starting liberal radio stations, making earnest movies. But events, if we're honest, have reshaped all that.

How long have we got to take decisive action? Ten years at most, say the direst American voices (like Jim Hansen, Nasa's top man on climate change). And where does the heart of that action necessarily lie? In Washington DC, because that's where any fight against global pollution necessarily begins. Other politicians and nations can pressure and preach - but top-down decision-making starts in the Oval Office.

Is that possible when climate change is just one "normal" issue among many, to be ceremonially weighed against US jobs or gas prices or Chinese imports? It's not. But that, with inevitable shades of emphasis, is where every extant presidential candidate stands. Too timid, too slow. Global warming is an utterly abnormal issue that needs a leader all of its own. Gore has fashioned himself as that leader. He can't just sit there and pontificate. He has to run. And, when he does, the rest of us have to put inconvenient illusions aside and listen.

much more at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2105343,00.html