New Yorker: Ozone Man (Al Gore)

[understandinglife]

OZONE MAN

by David Remnick
Issue of 2006-04-24
Posted 2006-04-17

The imminence of catastrophic global warming may be a subject far from the ever-drifting mind of President Bush — whose eschatological preoccupations privilege Armageddon over the Flood—but it is of growing concern to the rest of humanity. Climate change is even having its mass-entertainment moment. “Ice Age: The Meltdown” — featuring Ellie the computer-animated mammoth and the bottomless voice of Queen Latifah—has taken in more than a hundred million dollars at the box office in two weeks. On the same theme, but with distinctly less animation, “An Inconvenient Truth,” starring Al Gore (playing the role of Al Gore, itinerant lecturer), is coming to a theatre near you around Memorial Day. Log on to Fandango. Reserve some seats. Bring the family. It shouldn’t be missed. No kidding.

“An Inconvenient Truth” is not likely to displace the boffo numbers of “Ice Age” in Variety’s weekly grosses. It is, to be perfectly honest (and there is no way of getting around this), a documentary film about a possibly retired politician giving a slide show about the dangers of melting ice sheets and rising sea levels. It has a few lapses of mise en scène. Sometimes we see Gore gravely talking on his cell phone—or gravely staring out an airplane window, or gravely tapping away on his laptop in a lonely hotel room—for a little longer than is absolutely necessary. And yet, as a means of education, “An Inconvenient Truth” is a brilliantly lucid, often riveting attempt to warn Americans off our hellbent path to global suicide. “An Inconvenient Truth” is not the most entertaining film of the year. But it might be the most important.

The catch, of course, is that the audience-of-one that most urgently needs to see the film and take it to heart—namely, the man who beat Gore in the courts six years ago—does not much believe in science or, for that matter, in any information that disturbs his prejudices, his fantasies, or his sleep. Inconvenient truths are precisely what this White House is structured to avoid and deny.

<clip>



It may be that Gore really has lost his taste for electoral politics, and that, no matter what turn the polls and events take, an Al-versus-Hillary psychodrama in 2008 is not going to happen. There is no substitute for Presidential power, but Gore is now playing a unique role in public life. He is a symbol of what might have been, who insists that we focus on what likely will be an uninhabitable planet if we fail to pay attention to the folly we are committing, and take the steps necessary to end it.

Link:

http://www.newyorker.com/printables/talk/060424ta_talk_remnick

Yes, it'll be inconvenient when a few billion folk are dead and the next ice age is threatening every species on the planet.


Never Forget: George W. Bush willfully violated National Security to cover-up his willful launch of a war of aggression and illegal occupation of Iraq.

[Lorien]

1. A link to the trailer:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount_classics/aninconvenienttruth/

[greenman3610]

10. I have emailed the management of my local cineplex

to ask for this film.
I hope everyone will.

[Neil Lisst]

2. Al Gore is stepping UP.

I've been impressed with him the past year.

But Al, you gotta drop 20 pounds. Do it.

[ms liberty]

3. K&R: Al Gore should be the nominee in 08...

I think he's the only one who has the vision, the experience, the intelligence to turn this country around. That is not a slam on any of our other Dems who may want to run - I just don't see the same qualities in any of them that I see in Al Gore; at least not in the ones who could run and win. Al can run and WIN, and that's the most important of all of the qualities we need.

[saltpoint]

4. Al Gore is an evolved titan. George Bush is a fart in a whirlwind.

I think a strong case can be made for a Gore candidacy in 2008.

If I were a 2006 Congressional Dem candidate, I would definitely like to stand on a podium next to a rightfully-elected president there to campaign in my behalf.

[Memory Container]

6. I want to be in the other universe...

The one where Gore is in his second term, there is a vast budget surplus, corporations have been given incentives not to outsource manufacturing, the middle class is growing as the impoverished find better jobs and medicaid is utilized less, incentives for emmission reductions have created a new industry in clean air technologies where America leads the world once again, the skies are cleaner, the lakes are clearer, the national forests are thriving, we are consuming less petroleum due to more comprehensive CAFE standards and therefore sending less money into the pockets of terrorists, and the WTC is still standing because he would have let the Clinton Administration's efforts to root out terrorist function, not changed standing NORAD protocols, and not ignored an August PDB titled "bin Laden determined to attack US".

Instead we get the shitty universe where a madman is running the most powerful nation not just into the ground, but straight through it into hell... probably to take the world with it.

[saltpoint]

7. Memory Container I really like your universe. Please forward an

application at once.

A President Gore or a President Kerry would not inspire the dread I feel about things under Dubya.

Loved your post. And your vision.

[Memory Container]

15. I can't help but wonder why our current

quantum selves chose to live in this bizarro world nightmare. I can't help but think that if we knew it was going to get this bad, we all would have doe more to stop the boy king from becoming president

[chelaque liberal]

8. Great post. Welcome to DU

I look forward to reading future insights.

[understandinglife]

17. Welcome to DU and thank you for your comments.

Peace.

[Jeanette in FL]

23. I want to be there, too.

Excellent post, if we could just get off this awful merry-go-round, how different things would be.

Welcome to DU.

[DemReadingDU]

5. K&R, for Al!

[ThomWV]

9. Hillary Is A Smokescreen ... Al Gore Will Be President

If I have anything to do with it.

[ourbluenation]

12. from your fingertips to the spaghetti flying thing's ears!

[mod mom]

11. I hope this film gets wide viewing. "End of Suburbia" is another powerful

film, which although focused on oil consumption might change some habits. I went to a public showing and purchased a copy. My husband hosted a showing at his office and I will hold one in my home. If the government won't take action, then it is up to us to push for change!

On a brighter note, I just got my new Prius on Thursday and love it! Ever effort makes a difference!

[paparush]

13. Whadya Mean Bush isn't Focused on the Enviro..check out this film clip..

http://www.transbuddha.com/mediaHolder.php?id=1147

;p

[NYCGirl]

14. Great article — love this paragraph:

In the 1992 campaign against Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush mocked Gore as “ozone man” and claimed, “This guy is so far out in the environmental extreme we’ll be up to our necks in owls and outta work for every American.” In the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush cracked that Gore “likes electric cars. He just doesn’t like making electricity.” The younger Bush, a classic schoolyard bully with a contempt for intellect, demanded that Gore “explain what he meant by some of the things” in his 1992 book, “Earth in the Balance”—and then unashamedly admitted that he had never read it. A book that the President did eventually read and endorse is a pulp science-fiction novel: “State of Fear,” by Michael Crichton. Bush was so excited by the story, which pictures global warming as a hoax perpetrated by power-mad environmentalists, that he invited the author to the Oval Office. In “Rebel-in-Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush,” Fred Barnes, the Fox News commentator, reveals that the President and Crichton “talked for an hour and were in near-total agreement.” The visit, Barnes adds, “was not made public for fear of outraging environmentalists all the more.”

[eppur_se_muova]

16. "...the man who beat Gore in the courts six years ago..." EXACTLY!!

That's exactly how he should be described. Not the man who was elected, not the man who won the election, but THE MAN WHO WON BEFORE A COURT WHICH OWED ITS ALLEGIANCE TO HIS PARTY, TO HIS FAMILY, AND TO HIS CRONIES.

[Maven]

22. In the trailer he introduces himself as

"the former next President of the United States" and the whole audience cheers--it's awesome.

[NYCGirl]

18. KICK.

[Maven]

19. Love the concept. Don't love the title.

"An Inconvenient Truth?" This sounds like the awkward construction that a 7th Grader would invent to title a late-night term paper. And it's not very compelling. Global warming isn't merely "inconvenient"--it's friggin' life-threatening.

Guys, I know we don't use fear like the right to get what we want. But people SHOULD be a little afraid. Maybe it's time to step up the hyperbole...whaddaya think?

I think if the right had made this movie it would've been called CLIMATE DEATH-TRAP or YOU'RE ALL GOING TO EXPERIENCE A PAINFUL, FIERY DEATH IN THE NEAR FUTURE, or something.

I'm not saying we should go that far, but a movie called "An Inconvenient Truth" is not going to get anyone but the already well-informed into the theater.

Love the cover art though. Very clever.

Edit: After watching the trailer, it's very clear they have the right idea--shaking people out of complacency, and giving the topic the proper life-or-death gravity it deserves. Makes the bland choice of title even more baffling. :shrug: Also, recommended.

[NYCGirl]

20. Check out the trailer. I think it'll give you what you want:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount_classics/aninconvenienttruth/

[Maven]

21. Indeed, see edit above. Still bewildered about the title though. nt