Al Gore and Me

I saw him in 1992. He doesn’t know I exist. Yet.

This book is 30 years old. We have still done nothing to reduce carbon emissions.

I met Al Gore in a Borders bookstore. He was promoting his new book, Earth In the Balance. This was 30 years ago.

In a few months, he’d be selected by Bill Clinton to run for Vice President. They would win. But for now, I was upstairs just outside the cafe with a very small group, listening to a United States Senator talk about the climate.

Gore was relaxed and personable. He was not the least robotic, as he would appear campaigning for the election. If anything, he was warm.

Although he hadn’t fully polished his presentation yet, he was clear even to novices about what was happening, how serious the problem was, and what needed to be done. In short, he was convincing.

Ah, What To Do?

It seemed to me that all we needed to do was elect sane, responsible leaders. And who would willingly doom the planet and our species? Even politicians, who can be obtuse and short-sighted, had to be smarter than that. Didn’t they?

So, I voted and hoped for the best. What a mistake that was!

I believed that, however flawed, our system worked. I believed that we could elect leaders who would actually deal with a crisis. Yes, I knew even then that there were lobbyists, but lobbyists have families and…