Gore begins huge public campaign to go green

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Al Gore will launch a three-year, $300 million campaign Wednesday aimed at mobilizing Americans to push for aggressive reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, a move that ranks as one of the most ambitious and costly public-advocacy campaigns in U.S. history.

The Alliance for Climate Protection's "we" campaign will employ online organizing and television ads on shows ranging from "American Idol" to "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

It highlights the extent to which Americans' growing awareness of global warming has yet to translate into policy changes, Gore said last week.

He said the campaign, which he's helping fund, was started in large part because he fears lawmakers aren't willing to curb human-generated emissions linked to climate change.

"This climate crisis is so interwoven with habits and patterns that are so entrenched, the elected officials in both parties are going to be timid about enacting the bold changes that are needed until there is a change in the public's sense of urgency in addressing this crisis," Gore said.

"I've tried everything else I know to try. The way to solve this crisis is to change the way the public thinks about it."

Private contributors already have donated or committed half the money needed for the entire campaign, he said.

While Gore declined to quantify his contribution, he has devoted all his proceeds from the Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," the best-selling companion book, his salary from the venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers and several international prizes, such as the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, which add up to more than a $2.7 million.

Paramount Classics, the documentary's distributor, has pledged 5 percent of the film's profits to the group, and some of the money raised through the 2007 Live Earth concerts will help, along with Gore's proceeds from an upcoming book on climate change.

Legislative focus

While "An Inconvenient Truth" urged viewers to fully inflate their car tires and to install compact fluorescent light bulbs, Gore said he is focused on ensuring the United States enacts a national carbon-emission cap and ratifies a new global pact on climate change in the next three years.

"The simple algorithm is this: It's important to change the light bulbs, but it's much more important to change the laws," he said. "The options available to civilization worldwide to avert this terribly destructive pattern are beginning to slip away from us. The path for recovery runs right through Washington, D.C."

The new effort comes at a time when the three remaining major-party presidential candidates — Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz.; Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.; and Barack Obama, D-Ill. — have all endorsed federal limits on greenhouse gases, virtually ensuring the next president will offer a sharp break from President Bush's climate policy.

All three have discussed global warming with Gore over the past few months.

While McCain backs a more modest plan than that favored by the Democrats — he supports a 60 percent reduction in greenhouse gases from 1990 levels by 2050, compared with Obama and Clinton's vow of an 80 percent cut — the Republican has emphasized he pushed for a federal cap-and-trade system before either of his opponents came to the Senate.

"Neither have proposed legislation or played any public role during their time in the Senate," McCain said, sidestepping Clinton and Obama's backing of climate legislation, up for a Senate vote in June, that he has yet to endorse.

Gore, who backs a 90 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by mid-century, said that while he's "encouraged" that the remaining candidates back mandatory limits on greenhouse gases, they still need to be pushed: "What happens after the election will depend on whether or not we win enough hearts and minds in the country as a whole."

Former U.S. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., said the candidates' commitment to a cap-and-trade system does not negate the fact the majority of Americans fail to see climate change as a compelling political issue.

"Most Republicans, along with most Democrats, are focused almost exclusively on Iraq, the war against terrorism and the economy," Boehlert said.

10 million volunteers

In an effort to penetrate Americans' consciousness and change lawmakers' political calculus, the group aims to enlist 10 million volunteers through a combination of network and cable commercials, display ads in magazines ranging from People to Real Simple, and online social networks.

By comparison, the civil-rights and antiwar movements in the 1960s each boasted about 5 million activists.

Cathy Zoi, the Alliance for Climate Protection's chief executive, said the group will focus on individuals known in the advertising world as "influencers" who talk to a disproportionate number of people in their communities.

In an effort to broaden the campaign's appeal, the alliance has forged working partnerships with groups including the Girl Scouts and the United Steelworkers of America.

One of its early ads will feature the unlikely alliance of clergymen Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton sitting on a couch, talking about their commitment to address climate change.

Its first ad, narrated by actor William Macy, highlights American's collective responses to historical challenges.

"We didn't wait for someone else to storm the beaches of Normandy," Macy intones.

"We didn't wait for someone else to guarantee civil rights."

The commercial will run several times Wednesday on shows such as "Good Morning America," "Today," "American Idol," "Larry King Live" and "Anderson Cooper 360."

Without question, the campaign represents one of the most far-reaching public advocacy initiatives in recent years.

Not everyone agrees

The climate alliance's initiative, however, will not go unchallenged by climate-change skeptics.

Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, a nonprofit funded by the coal industry and its allies, is spending about $35 million this election to bolster support for coal-generated electricity.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that receives part of its funding from oil and gas companies, recently spent close to $35,000 to run a television ad in cities throughout the country attacking Gore, and plans a follow-up campaign.

The ad argues that Gore and his allies in Hollywood use plenty of energy but that "Al Gore wants to cut our energy use, putting our jobs and our future in jeopardy."

Myron Ebell, who directs energy and global-warming policy for CEI, said that Gore feels compelled to run such an elaborate ad campaign highlights the extent to which his conservation message has failed to resonate with the public.

"He's spending a hundred million dollars to convince the American people to make sacrifices that he and his elite friends are not willing to make," Ebell said.

He added that while many Americans may now blame humans for causing climate change, "the American people are not there with other alarmists" when it comes to supporting deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.