Former US Vice-President Al Gore is planning a grassroots campaign of "mass persuasion" aimed at freezing the carbon emissions that cause global warming.
Mr Gore plans to recruit groups and individuals from all parts of society to form a united front against carbon emissions that will create a public outcry of a magnitude that Congress and the White House will be unable to ignore.
According to Reuters, Mr Gore told a conference of a group calling itself the Greentech Innovation Network:
"I think we need a mass movement in the United States. I think it ought to start at the grassroots…I intend to launch an ongoing campaign of mass persuasion at the beginning of 2007."
However, he has categorically denied the movement is part of a strategy to run for the presidency in 2008.
The US has long been criticised for not taking decisive action against global warming, despite being the world's number one producer of greenhouse gases. Facing such intransigence from policy makers, academics have for decades advocated a people-based approach to combat carbon emissions.
In a discussion on potential solutions Mr Gore maintained: "I don't think it's gonna come from Washington. In fact, I know it won't come from Washington…The legislative jujitsu approach has failed miserably. The idea that we can tweak a law in a minor way here and call that a solution is delusional."
Mr Gore plans to put his money where his mouth is as part of his main role as fundraiser extraordinaire. He has already personally donated the $250,000 he received as an advance from Rodale, who will be publishing his new book, and secured a commitment from Paramount to donate a minimum of $500,000 from the box office receipts of his film documentary An Inconvenient Truth.
It is further expected that contributions in the millions are being lined up from the likes of billionaire philanthropists George Soros and Ted Turner, as well as from the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Vinod Khosla, and the Apple CEO Steve Job.
There is already a debate underway over the best way to spend these funds, with Al Gore himself being a strong supporter of blanket paid advertising aimed at national conversion on a massive scale. The most prominent model for such a strategy would be the anti-smoking Truth Campaign of 1999 that really did spark a cultural and political change in attitudes almost exclusively through media advertising.
Others in the alliance are less convinced that a social movement can be created primarily through advertising. It has been suggested that it would make more sense to give donations to community conservation groups that are already doing great work in their localities, but currently have very limited financial resources.
Whatever strategy is decided upon, it cannot come too soon. Global carbon emissions rose by three per cent in 2005 – up more than a quarter from 1990 – despite the efforts of the 35 countries committed to a five per cent cut in 1990 emission levels by 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol. Three of the four biggest polluters, America, China and India, as well as Australia, are not even signatories to the Kyoto agreement.
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