Al Gore starring in environmental movie

It's nice to see Al Gore in the news again. From www.thetowntalk.com:

Al Gore is back. Back from the political abyss. Back from the brink of the cavern into which so many crestfallen people tumble.

Gore, who was the American people's choice for president in 2000 -- he won the popular vote but lost to George W. Bush in the all-important Electoral College balloting -- now calls himself a "recovering politician." But his resurrection has actually lifted Gore to a much loftier height.

He has re-emerged in the public spotlight as a crusading environmentalist who is bent on saving the world's people from self-destruction.

Gore's stage this time is not the nation's capital, where he served 16 years in Congress and eight as vice president. It is Hollywood's big screen -- or at least he hopes it will be.

He's starring in a documentary on this world's looming environmental doom -- a movie that got rave reviews at the Sundance Film Festival. Called "An Inconvenient Truth," the film is a warning shot about the disastrous global climate changes Gore believes will occur if nations, especially the United States, don't do more to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases.

Sure, Gore has been beating that drum for a long time. But what has given him and his message new life is the way his pitch has been turned into a slick documentary that drew a standing ovation from Sundance audiences. Among those who had a hand in bringing Gore's film to the big screen is "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill" producer Lawrence Bender.

Now if that sounds like some left-wing, mutual admiration society consider this: Last year, Fox News Channel Chairman Roger Ailes was so moved by a presentation he heard Gore make on global warming that he quickly aired a documentary on the subject that caused some right-wingers to cry foul.

But Gore isn't looking for partisan victories these days so much as he's pining for a concerted effort at home and abroad to combat climate changes he believes will make the ravages of Hurricane Katrina look like child's play.

The new Al Gore is a cross between Theodore Roosevelt, the environmentalist president, and Mariah Carey, the sultry songstress whose music career recently recovered from a big tumble.

People who have seen him up close say Gore is more relaxed, less stilted and a lot funnier than he was during the many years he spent roaming Washington's political circles. I suspect that's because he is now free to speak from the heart -- rather than have his words shaped by political ambition.

Though Roosevelt was a man of many interests and an environmentalist whose views would make many members of today's crop of right-wing Republicans shudder, he was first and foremost a politician.

Gore is now very much a political backbencher; notwithstanding his recent attack on Bush for ordering the National Security Agency to secretly eavesdrop on Americans suspected of being in contact with foreign terrorists. For the most part, he has focused his attention in recent years on the global environment, not this nation's grueling partisan politics.

His movie is a byproduct of that focus. And so, too, is a book by the same title that is scheduled to be published in April. But as with his presidential campaign, Gore will be judged by whether he can achieve the ultimate victory.

If he's right about the doom that awaits the world if we don't sharply reduce the amounts of greenhouse gases that are pumped into the air, Gore has positioned himself to lead the fight to save us, from ourselves. And if he wins that fight, Al Gore will find a place in history that a term in the White House could never have secured for him.