Al Gore tried to rein in his adrenaline as his train churned between the two North American venues of his Live Earth concerts on Saturday.
Gore, the former US vice president and environmental activist, rattled off the latest details of companion concerts on six other continents before catching himself.
"I'm just so filled with enthusiasm and energy, I'm not letting you ask questions," Gore said in an interview.
PHOTO: AP
Gore kicked off the US leg of the worldwide concerts earlier on Saturday in Washington and was keeping track of the Giants Stadium venue on his laptop as the Amtrak train headed toward New Jersey.
While clearly one of the main attractions for the worldwide concerts, Gore tried to keep too much attention from being paid to his role.
"That's nice, but it's not about me," he said. "It's about the message. I think everybody understands that."
Gore turned back criticism that the concert series lacked immediate goals beyond generally raising awareness about climate change. The concerts are just the first step in a three-year public relations campaign, he said.
"I've been trying to deliver this message for 30 years, and I know that it doesn't take in just one delivery," he said. "You've got to keep going."
The concerts will be followed by a global advertising campaign, with a particular focus on the US.
"The planet doesn't have a PR agent," he said. "But now it will, because the Alliance for Climate Protection is going to use the modern techniques of messaging to get the scientific evidence in front of people all over the world."
Gore said he plans to return to giving his slideshows and training others to give the presentation about global warming after the concert series is complete.
"And if I can figure out some other way to get this message to more people more persuasively and more quickly, then I'll do that too," he said.
Gore laughed off a question about whether that could include a presidential bid and repeated his mantra: "I have no plans to be a candidate."
"I really don't," he emphasized. But he continues to not completely rule out a bid.
Gore, whose slide show on global warming was the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, said the presidency alone can't necessarily bring about the changes he's calling for.
"I was in the White House for eight years and I saw the limitations of even the power of the executive branch when the people and their elected representatives in the Congress were not ready to contemplate the big changes that are necessary," he said.
"This is the rare challenge that really has to come from the grass roots up," he said.
And yet Gore said he understands that not everyone at the concerts would immediately buy into the climate change cause.
"It's great to just enjoy the music," he said "But I'm hoping, of course, that while listening to the music and enjoying the films, that they will be open to the message."
Asked whether the political campaign-like atmosphere around his travels doesn't get the old juices flowing again, Gore paused for a moment, smiled, and then firmly said: "No."
"I'm involved in a different kind of campaign, to deliver this message to people all over the US and all over the world," he said.
"We have to be prepared to keep going for long enough to get this world across this tipping point."
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS