Gore tweaks climate call with '24 Hours of Reality'
Live, 24-hour Webcast that begins September 14 heralds new focus for Gore's nonprofit Alliance for Climate Protection, which is changing name to The Climate Reality Project.
- Ed was a member of the CNET crew that won a National Magazine Award from the American Society of Magazine Editors for general excellence online. He's also edited pieces that've nabbed prizes from the Society of Professional Journalists and others.
Climate change activist, former vice president, and near-president Al Gore will present a 24-hour live Webcast--"24 Hours of Reality"--on September 14-15 that's meant to counteract what a statement about the event calls misinformation on global warming.
The Webcast consists of 24 back-to-back screenings of a new multimedia presentation by Gore, introduced live by presenters in 24 different parts of the world, and in 13 different languages. It heralds a new focus for Gore's nonprofit Alliance for Climate Protection, which is changing its name to The Climate Reality Project. Reads a statement on the Reality Project's Web site:
This campaign comes at a critical time. As the impacts of climate change are growing more prevalent, so is the resistance to finding the truth and implementing solutions. Just like the tobacco companies that spent decades in denial that smoking causes cancer, oil and coal companies are determined to sow denial and confusion about the science of climate change, ignore its impacts, and create apathy among our leaders. This event is the first step in a larger, multi-faceted campaign to tell the truth about the climate crisis and reject the misinformation we hear every day."
Gore's new multimedia presentation focuses on the connection between the changing climate and extreme weather events, and on how shifting weather patterns are affecting countries worldwide. A schedule of the Webcast, along with a list of presenters and their locations, can be found here.
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Concern about climate change has dropped for Americans during the past two years, according to a Gallup poll released in March and cited by a report from news agency AFP. The number of respondents who said they thought "the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated" increased to 48 percent from 2009's 41 percent.
Such attitudes prompted a satirical response from The Onion late last year, which ran a piece with the headline "Report: Global Warming Issue From 2 Or 3 Years Ago May Still Be Problem." In typical Onion style, the piece wryly comments on Americans' attention spans and priorities, and it cites the Oscar-winning film that was based on an earlier climate presentation created by Gore:
According to [a report released by the Center for Global Development], though global warming--and the worldwide homelessness and drought associated with it--was a desperate problem immediately following the release of the Academy Award-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," China's undervalued currency, the midterm elections, and gay marriage have since monopolized lawmakers' time. It concludes that the likelihood of any of these matters flooding the entire Eastern Seaboard and leaving the state of Florida completely submerged is "very slim."
Gore's Climate Reality effort includes a social-media component, as well as an online tool that helps people find or plan a viewing party for the Webcast.
Here's the promo vid for the event, followed by an ad created by agency m ss ng p eces (which, I must add, owes a debt to Swiss artists Fischli and Weiss):