Al Gore held congressional hearings with regard to carbon emissions in the 1970s, long before this issue was on the radar screen of anyone in Washington. He has been going around since then presenting information to anyone who would listen about the dangers of carbon emissions and also other forms of pollution and environmental degradation. Long before famous celebrities discovered his PowerPoint program and envisioned making a movie about him, he was doing what he could to influence policy to promote mass transportation, improve fuel efficiency in cars, furnaces, and appliances, promote more sustainable forms of energy production, and make the water we drink and the air we breathe cleaner. And through all these decades, when I've been paying close attention to him, I've never once seen him "prance."

That letter SO belongs in The Onion. If you're not sending it elsewhere, I'd love to at least quote it in my blog. If you are, I'd love to link to it from my blog. Let me know what you think-- email me via the blog.

http://lauraerickson.blogspot.com/

I wrote a book about ways we can help birds. It's cutting edge as far as it goes, but I'm neither rich nor famous, and that means only a handful of people have read it. I use public transportation when possible, have never stepped into a private jet, and do my best to use as little energy as possible while promoting my book. But guess what? Because I'm not rich and famous, no one notices my book. So the value of my relatively green living is not of significant value in the overall scheme of things.

Al Gore DOES use more energy than me to get his message out. But he also reaches many orders of magnitude more people than I do, and is much more effective at understanding the mechanisms of government. Why? Because he's well-known--which in America virtually always equates with rich and famous. There are a great many rich and famous people in America. But I suspect that Al Gore uses far fewer resources than his peers in the rich-and-famous category, and overall has inspired a great many people to reduce their energy use--I would even bet that on balance, despite the fact that he's never biked over to China or taken a bus to Kyoto, he's done more to reduce the overall energy consumption and carbon emissions on this planet than anyone here.

I do not worship Al Gore. But few if any politicians and few if any people working at non-profits have done as much as he has to improve air and water quality and reduce carbon. He has used his notoriety for good in a way that few celebrities do, and in my mind does not deserve derision.

My guess is that Al Gore has done more to reduce his footprint than people realize. But regardless, how much did people think about carbon before he made it an issue? Although far right global warming deniers and far left green absolutists join forces to ridicule Al, the vast majority of Americans, those between those two extremes, are thinking way more about the issue and doing more about the issue thanks to Al Gore. Would we really be better off if he were using the same amount of energy but NOT talking about global warming? I think not.

Let's see. The reason people with any awareness of nuclear power don't want nuclear reactors built near them, besides radioactive water leaking from them, might be related to the fact that Congress indemnified the nuclear power industry so that even in cases of gross negligence they can't be sued, which is why auto and homeowners' insurance policies specifically do not cover any nuclear events.

There is obviously not enough happening right now to make a significant difference in what's happening. Virtually nothing significant has happened thanks to you, or me, or other people no one pays any attention to. People ARE paying attention to Al Gore, and because of several states are finally taking action, Congress is at least doing a little to increase fuel efficiency (something they should have done 35 years ago), and even though incremental change isn't good enough, it's still better than nothing.

I expect people on the right to use up time and energy whining about Al Gore. It's ironic to me that people who recognize the problem are using time and energy (including electricity running their computers) to ridicule a person rather than focusing on the things they think Al Gore should be doing.