Al Gore

New Wired green issue goes a little overboard

The latest issue of Wired -- the "green issue," now de rigueur in the magazine world -- has Al Gore on the cover, and the story on his "resurrection" is fantastic. It's one of the best things I've read on his post-2000 activities.

Some of the rest of the issue, however, is irritating -- nothing so much so as this risible chart by Josh Rosenblum, a rating of various environmental groups based on a set of scientific criteria known as How Much They Agree With Josh Rosenblum. The more green groups collaborate with private industries and support (as far as I can tell, any) high-tech responses to environmental problems, the closer they come to Wired true north. Any tension with business, or reservations about nuclear power or coal gasification ... well hell, that's just hippie.

And speaking of hippies: the "Rise of the Neo-Greens" practically bursts a blood vessel admiring the clever young fashionistas "triangulating between the hippies and the hip."

Al Gore and electric car star in films unveiled at Sundance

At 25 years of age, Sundance is the country’s premier festival of independent film. But a lot has changed over that quarter century. Well, actually, one thing has changed: m-o-n-e-y. There’s a ton of Hollywood cash spent at Sundance, and I could see it everywhere I looked last week. The “VIP” corporate parties on Main […]

Gore on the marketplace of ideas

Do you wonder why public dialogue in the U.S. these days takes place in such an atmosphere of surreal trivia, despite the vitally important challenges facing us? Wonder why global warming, a catastrophe of Biblical proportions, can get on TV only if it's cast as the malevolent face behind a hurricane? Wonder why Americans are so bogglingly ignorant of basic current events?

Al Gore knows. Read his extraordinary speech.

Milling for the Grist

Green-leaning former Vice President Al Gore has decided against running for president in 2004 — but never fear, Grist Magazine is keeping its hat in the ring. No, we’re not running Umbra Fisk as a write-in candidate for ’04; we do plan, however, to be around to tell it like it is on the environment […]

Will election 2000 lead to reform or not?

The crowds demonstrating outside Florida courtrooms and counting rooms have been reminding me of the historical opera “Boris Godounov.” It opens with peasants milling about, waiting to find out who will be their next czar. Every now and then a handler comes out and whips them up to yell for Boris, who is not the […]

The Green-ch Who Stole Christmas?

Some enviros and others who voted for Ralph Nader are now regretting their choice, fearing that it gave George W. Bush an advantage over Al Gore. In the chat room on Nader’s official website, John Ruth, who said he voted for Nader, wrote this to the Green Party candidate yesterday: “Mr. Gore (despite what you […]

A look back at Al Gore's 1992 opus on the environment

How many environmentalists have actually read Earth in the Balance? Very few, I'm willing to wager.

The truth is that until recently, I myself felt qualified to pontificate on Al Gore's environmental beliefs and, yes, occasionally question whether he'd lived up to them, even though I hadn't read more than a few excerpts from the book. Well, that age of innocence is over.

I'll Take the Environment for $600, Jim

The environment got the most attention it’s ever received in a presidential debate last night, with much of the focus on global warming. Vice President Al Gore argued that actions must be taken now to combat global warming, and that there would be great economic gains for the U.S. if it were the country to […]

This is not what democracy looks like

I wish everyone would stop calling them “debates.” Even back when the League of Women Voters first televised confrontations between presidential candidates, they weren’t debates. At best they were stiff, unnatural political discussions. Now that the two major political parties run them, they are carefully controlled soundbite gotcha matches. Like most everything about our campaign […]