In the April 5 issue of The Pendulum, Margeaux Corby wrote an article about Al Gore in which she rhetorically asked, “Is Gore thinking?”

Allow me to begin by making a correction. Gore is not in possession of an Oscar, as many others have claimed. He appeared in “An Inconvenient Truth,” already the most important film of this young century, merely as the main participant, not a producer of the film. Therefore, when it won best documentary, it was the producers who recieved the Oscars.

When people trivialize the effects of global warming and Gore’s crusade, it is very vexing and uninformed. Corby cleverly mocked Gore’s public speaking skills by suggesting he go for a Pulitzer to go with his Oscar that he actually doesn’t have. So what if Gore is not the greatest speaker in the world? Does that make him any less right on the subject? In fact, the Oscar and the Pulitzer Prize are less significant, considering Gore was recently been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Corby’s article suggests that solving global warming is not “morally imperative,” but this saddens me because it trivializes the consequences of global warming. As fate would have it, a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was released just two days after the article was published. The report includes some sobering, but scientifically sound, predictions on the effects of global warming within the next 100 years.

For example, low-lying, densely populated areas in developing countries will be flooded every year by the 2080s because of sea level rise. The report also predicts negative net effects for industry, settlement and society on a global scale; intense and more frequent extreme weather events; and negative health effects to millions of people because of drought, heat waves and the spread of disease. And that’s just from one page of the 21-page report. Does it not sound morally imperative that we solve these problems?

But the trump card that the report says Gore’s mansion uses 20 times more electricity than the average American household. However, according to an article in “The Washington Post,” the global warming skeptic’s fantasy of catching Gore in the act of hypocrisy will never reach its climax. Gore’s house, while it may use 20 times more electricity, is powered with green, renewable energy. The Gores do this by participating in Green Power Switch, a program that is run through the public Tennessee Valley Authority. In other words, Gore’s mansion gets its power from renewable sources, which releases virtually no pollution.

One should also be noted that his home is being renovated to make it more energy efficient, which includes the installation of solar panels. In fact, Gore and his family are carbon neutral; he testified to that in front of the Senate and there has been no standing evidence to disprove that assumption.

But that’s probably beside the point anyway. I think Bruce Rider in Time magazine said it best: “Whatever Gore’s electric bill is, he has alerted the public about global warming. Gore doesn’t have to live in a cardboard box to be right on this issue.”

Gore is not infallible, but who is? The point is that he has brought to the attention of the world a very real and dangerous problem that we have created, and is taking steps to solve it. Considering that, he’s doing the right thing.

Columnist: Andrew Prince - 05/03/07