I’m at The Climate Project training session to become a Climate Presenter, enabled and equipped to present the (continuously updated) slide show seen in the Inconvenient Truth. So far, I’ve met some of my 175 compatriots in this last of the planned training sessions. These include architects, event promoters, political aides, a linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles, Paul Tsongas’ daughter Molly (now involved in renewable power promotion), and a self-described housewife.

Our introduction was Al Gore presenting the show. He’s good. He’s sincere. He knows his stuff and has more anecdotes than I’ll ever have. Many new slides that were not in the movies. We have access to all of the approximately 1000 slides that have been created, although they recommend that we use a fairly small subset. As with the movie, the slideshow in person was stirring, distressing, unnerving, and inspiring. Comparing the threat now facing the world due to climate change to the threat the world faced from World War II, Mr. Gore said something to the effect of ‘This is the first issue to affect the entire world and have the possibility of making the Earth lose its ability to support civilization.’

But then he spoke of our historic ability to do what conventional wisdom said could not be done, to rise to challenges. To not only defeat the Axis in WWII, but to then put in place the Marshall Plan that turned Europe from warring nations into peaceful strong economies. To put a man on the moon, with funding from both parties over a period spanning a decade, while we were at war in Vietnam.

At dinner, Mr. Gore introduced Rev. Jim Ball, Executive Director of the Evangelical Environmental Network, and a leading conservative Christian who is steering fundamentalists toward “creation care”. Mr. Ball is not taking the training, but he’s clearly bought into the theories presented (of course with some modification to some of the older dates!) I had an opportunity to shake hands after dinner, and discuss the StepItUp campaign happening this weekend. Mr. Gore said he’d sent out an email alert to his 500,000 email addresses. Once again, Vermont in the forefront!

One of the hot topics in our “free time” is to ask where people will be presenting. Great question. So far, I’m scheduled for the Strafford Lions Club Wednesday April 18 at 6:30 (dinner, talk later), and tentatively for SolarFest July 14 & 15 (time and day still under discussion). I’ll be looking for more venues. I’m going to try to spend less time talking to those who agree with me, and more to those who may not. So anyone with a connection into a group, let me know. Ideally I’d like groups of 35 or more, and at least 30 minutes. Tough to do much justice to the material in less than 45 minutes to an hour though. One of the beauties of the slideshow is how it builds the case, slide by slide.

Until tomorrow.

Jeff

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 10th, 2007 at 9:06 pm and is filed under Climate Change, Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.