Al Gore: "action" movie star

"An Inconvenient Truth," director Davis Guggenheim's documentary about former Vice President Al Gore's longtime campaign to raise awareness of global warming via a touring slide-show presentation, opens Friday at Pacific Place and the Guild 45th. Earlier this month, Gore came to town to host a special screening of the film, and sat down to chat for a few minutes about his new identities as environmental crusader (his slide show has been seen by more than a thousand audiences) and — yes — movie star. For the record, he's informal and charming in person, with an easy laugh, and he says he "does not intend" to run for public office again.

Q: You've had an interesting progression: congressman, senator, vice president, presidential candidate ... movie star?

A: [Laughs] I think of it ["An Inconvenient Truth"] as the ultimate action movie. Because it gets the audience motivated to take action. Lord knows we need it.

When I was in the Senate, I used to have a framed New Yorker cover on my wall. It was a full-color cartoon, by that artist who draws silly-looking dogs. This dog was riding a tricycle, with a little funny hat on, on the stage of a grand opera house. All the levels are filled with the bedecked and bejeweled, and they're applauding wildly. And the little dog is thinking: 'I don't know why they like this, but I'm gonna keep pedaling.' So, when you say movie star, I think, OK, I'm just going to keep pedaling.

Q: How did your interest in these issues begin?

A: As noted in the movie, I really began my interest in the issue as a college student. I was elected [to Congress] in 1976. The following year, I started trying to stir up interest in Congress in global warming. Not too long after that, I organized the first hearings, and had my professor come. All those years, I continued to have hearings and look into it.

[In the late '80s] I started digging much more deeply into the root causes. It had become clear to me that simply describing the danger and the need for action wasn't accomplishing very much. When I reassessed my personal and professional priorities, I decided to really take this on in a big way in 1989. I started then writing a book, "Earth in the Balance," and then at the same time I started putting together a slide show.

Q: How has the slide show evolved over the years?

A: My wife, Tipper, got me connected with an expert at National Geographic, who helped me put together a Kodak slide projector version [of the show]. And that grew, by 1990 I guess, into a three-projector show. It was pretty elaborate. ... [After the White House years] I started to give the slide show a lot. The first time, I took them all out, held them up to the light, put them all in a different order. I went down to Middle Tennessee State University, gave the slide show, and every slide was backwards. It was really embarrassing.

When I got back home to Nashville, Tipper said, "I know I should have put those in for you." And she said, "By the way, Mr. Information Superhighway, we have computers now." So I put them on computer graphics, and that was the time in early 2001 when it began to really evolve more rapidly. It became a lot easier to add new images and move things around; I could see the patterns a little better. I started changing it every time I gave it.

Q: There's one startling statistic, among many, in "An Inconvenient Truth": Two media surveys indicated that 53 percent of stories in the mass media say that global warming is unproven, while 0 percent of stories in scientific journals make that claim.

A: Of all the slides people mention and talk about [after the presentation], that's the one they mention most. How do you explain it? Well, a lot of reporters have lost their jobs in recent years, the staffs have been reduced, the news hole has been shrunk. The ratio of news to ads has changed, the cookie-cutter conglomerate approach has taken its toll, advertisers and muckety-mucks have more influence over messaging now. I know papers where the advertising department attends the news meetings.

In any case, one of the ways that a lot of people have coped is to just fall back on the balance canard. 'Professor So and So described how the world is round, and we contacted So-and-So, who says that the earth is flat. You make up your mind. ... ' We're virtually the only nation in the world where this is going on. The debate in the scientific community is over.

There are five points that everyone agrees on. Number 1: Global warming is real. Number 2: We are mainly responsible for it. Number 3: The results are catastrophic. Number 4: We have to act quickly. Number 5: It's not too late. Those five points make up a global consensus. Only in the U.S. and Australia is there a continuing charade over this pretense that it may not really be a problem.

Q: What steps can individuals take to help solve the problem?

A: Conservation and efficiency is the most effective short-term response. Little things matter; the new light bulbs, for example. They use one-tenth as much electricity, and you have to change them one-tenth as often. Being smart with the thermostat, and installing a clock thermostat. Paying attention to your transportation choices — buy a hybrid if you can, buy a flex-fuel car if you can. Get a higher mileage car that's comfortable for your needs. Use mass transit where possible, walk where possible.

Get an energy audit of your house. More global-warming pollution comes from houses and buildings than from cars and trucks. An energy audit can show you, in most cases, how a very small expense for extra insulation, weatherproofing and the like, can more than pay for itself in less than a year.

Those are some of the things you can do to get started. But learn as much as you can, on the website [www.climatecrisis.net] and elsewhere, and then you'll find things in your life that will point you in the right direction, to reduce and save. On the Web site, there's a carbon calculator that enables anyone to calculate exactly how many tons of CO{+2} you're responsible for, where it's coming from, how to reduce it and how to offset the remaining CO{+2} that you haven't eliminated.

I'm carbon neutral, and so's my family, so are both of my businesses. Becoming carbon neutral is really not that hard. It's surprising.

Q: I usually end interviews by asking directors and actors what their next movie will be. So ... what's next for you? A romantic comedy?

A: [Laughter] You know, I don't think I'm going to push my luck. I may do an extra feature or two for the DVD version of this. Maybe we'll put a blooper reel together or something.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com