Al Gore Weighs in at AGU

Al Gore was welcomed warmly by the scientists at the AGU meetings in San Francisco yesterday. Mr. Gore urged the scientists to impress upon the public the importance of global warming, and to not allow themselves to be muzzled.

However, the climate change crisis, it seems, is not itself the biggest problem, as it is merely a “symptom” of he “collision between our species and the planet” - a collision marked by population increase, by a scientific and technological revolution under which each person has a bigger footprint on the planet and, worst of all, a new way of thinking in which we are ruled by a short discount rate, overnight polls. Gore quoted someone Daley who said that we were running the planet like a business in liquidation.

Then on to the brain. The neocortex is hard-wired to the amygdula or something like that. This seems to be part of the problem. I looked around the audience to see if I could discern symptoms of neocortex-amygdula hardwiring but couldn’t tell. Was this an episode of Invasion?

Then Gore peered soulfully into the sky. He continued, each paragraph in his speech skilfully punctuated by looking first at one end of the auditorium and then the other.

Much more deconstruction of Al Gore's presentation here.

Having once been a supporter of Al Gore, watching him become a caricature of himself is a needful lesson in looking beneath the surface level of politicians. Most politicians have little else to offer, but it never hurts to look.