In his almost 30 years of crusading against global warming, Al Gore has worn a variety of hats. In roughly chronological order these include: congressman, senator, author, vice president, traveling evangelist, filmmaker, investment adviser, and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Now, with the publication of his new book, Our Choice, Gore has unveiled a fresh and most unexpected talent: the book's opening chapter of concludes with a poem he wrote-21 lines of verse that are equal parts beautiful, evocative, and disturbing.
Here is how the poem begins:
One thin September soon
A floating continent disappears
In midnight sun
Vapors rise as
Fever settles on an acid sea
It's odd that none of the reviews of Our Choice have mentioned this poem. Even my old friend Bill McKibben, the dean of America's climate journalists, didn't see fit to mention it, though Bill himself wrote a column a couple of years ago pleading for poets, musicians, and other artists to bring their talents to bear in the climate fight. Reviews of Our Choice have instead focused on the meat and potatoes of the book-its exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting) survey of the best available solutions, technological and political, to the climate crisis.
Our Choice devotes entire chapters to a range of various solutions, from solar, wind, and energy efficiency to agriculture and forestry policies that actually reverse global warming by sucking carbon dioxide from the air and storing it in soil and plants. In these chapters, we find much the same Al Gore who in 1992 published the best-seller Earth In The Balance: a science wonk who has plainly done lots of research and deep thinking and wants to share every last bit of it with you. It's a valuable service, especially these days, when every week seems to bring developments in green technologies. Still, the level of detail and the sheer complexity and length of many of Gore's sentences will doubtless lead many readers to skim these sections.
Not so the poem. Gore wrote it, I'm told, because his editor nixed his request to include a separate chapter on the impacts of climate change. After all, Our Choice is supposed to be about solutions, not gloom and doom. (The most common criticism of An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary that won Gore an Oscar in 2007, was that it was silent on what to do about global warming.) Undeterred by his editor's ruling, Gore re-imagined his impacts chapter in poetic form.
The result is a surprisingly accomplished, nuanced piece of writing. The images Gore conjures in his (untitled) poem turn a neat trick: they are visually specific and emotionally arresting even as they are scientifically accurate.
Snow glides from the mountain
Ice fathers floods for a season
A hard rain comes quickly
Then dirt is parched
Kindling is placed in the forest
For the lightning's celebration
Another reader-friendly feature of Our Choice is the multitude of stunning photographs it contains. There are actually more pages of photos than of text. The shots range from a thousand solar panels atop the Vatican to a worker standing amid blackened, dead fish after a sewage spill near Rio de Janeiro, to a close-up of George W. Bush receiving a kiss on the cheek from Saudi King Abdullah after Bush was awarded the King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit in 2008. (Who says Gore lacks a sense of irony?)
It's usually a mistake to read too much literal meaning into poetry. But the final lines of Gore's poem certainly apply to the governments that will gather in Copenhagen from December 7 to 18 for what is regarded as humanity's last chance to avert absolutely catastrophic climate change.
The shepherd cries
The hour of choosing has arrived
Here are your tools
Is Gore himself that shepherd? No matter. What counts is that the hour of choosing has indeed arrived and, as documented in Our Choice, we do have the tools to survive-if we choose to employ them.
There once was a poet named Al Gore,
Whose poem was not but a bore,
He went to Copenhagen,
Where his advice was not taken,
Because he's just a political whore
Who is Al Gore Kidding to write such poor work like this, and call it a POEM?? :O THIS IS NOT POETRY....ITS TRASH, You should be ashamed of yourself, and you need to leave poetry writing to the experts, and stop writing crap like this, HOW DARE YOU AL GORE. HOW DARE YOU TO EVEN THINK THIS IS POETRY. NEXT THING YOU WILL BRIBE THE POET LAURIATE COMMITEE TO GIVE YOU THE TITLE OF POET LAURIATE....LIKE HOW YOUR LIES YOU CALL DOCUMENTARY WON YOU THE OSCAR. SHAME ON YOU AL GORE
An Inconvenient Rhyme.
One fine December cold
Al Gore told lies so big and bold
That ice would melt and seas would rise
Until a noble hacker exposed the lies
The Copenhagen summit was moot
Despite Hitler Youth in panda suits
It would spell the end of that rotten sham
And Kenneth Lay's carbon trading scam
Demon CO2 would be set free
To enrich the air and feed a tree
On ice floes polar bears would play
Global warming had gone away
http://progressivesforgore.blogspot.com/2009/12/our-choice-primer-for-su...
I noted it in my review. Too bad so many who respond on these sites are too ignorant or cynical towards him to udnerstand wha it means.
Al Gore is an old joke whose punchline has grown most wearisome.
A poem? My 2 year old niece can string nouns and verbs together that make more sense.
Sorry, I missed this post until today.
Here's a poem I wrote for AlGore a while back.
I hope he likes it.
If you like it, you can read more at my blog.
Brother Al's Traveling Ecopalypse ShowEstablishment Clause?... Anyone?... Anyone?...
Once upon a long, long time,
before the age of Man,
The Earth was green
and quite pristine,
an Eden wonderland.
Far wiser creatures roamed The Earth
pre-Man's ascendancy,
tooth and claw
and tarpits all
just lived in harmony.
Fireball and earthquake,
glacier ice, volcano flame,
would rip and tear
The Ecosphere,
yet Eden stayed the same.
Then Man, the evil wretch, appeared
with greed and carbon sin,
arrogant stride
and market pride,
Man did poor Eden in.
But from patrician pampered privilege
a Prophet answered the plea
a Promised One,
Senator's son,
failed doc divinity.
He collated contextless graphs
and false cause photo clips
and made a go
of a roadshow
preaching Apocalypse.
He soon was Senator, like Dad,
and even became Veep,
Two Thousand went,
lost President,
and went off the end deep.
Then took the roadshow to the screen
to mass evangelize,
and pushed the vid
upon the kids
and won The Nobel Prize.
Though infidels and heretics
denied The Truth they heard
and dared profess
no consensus,
The Prophet preached The Word.
'Til in the halls of Congress,
His Gospel at last obeyed,
by their will
came Holy Bill
for Carbon Cap and Trade.
So rejoice, all ye brethren,
for His Glory is at hand,
His Sacraments
for low footprints
will justly rule the land.
Lightbulbs, trees, toilet paper,
hybrid cars and compost piles,
windmill spins,
recycle bins,
and eco-Marxist smiles,
Soy milk, organic honey,
Green Delights now all in store,
Liberty stilled
with no Free Will,
The Holy Church of Gore.
Brother Al's Traveling Ecopalypse Show, Copyright © 2009 Papa Possum
Mr. Hetzgaard's ridiculous review is the topic of my latest blog enty, found here:
http://politicalpalaverblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/poet-doesnt-know-it.html
An answer to your poem_ Gore Blimey!
We hear you talking and saying naught,
With such urgency your voice is fraught.
But we know better than to accept your talk,
Backed with bogus info that makes us baulk.
In your mind you see for sure, God's creation as quite frail,
But you have little sense it seems, cos God's supreme, and rejects your tale.
So close your mouth, and hope indeed,
That you will be forgiven for this, your creed!
He also said he invented the internet.
a 21st Century Psalm
December 7th is coming fast
We must act, before Copenhagen is passed
If that Treaty is law I guarantee
Another occurrence of infamy
As they strip away democracy
We wish to debate the natural state
It was warm for awhile, but cold as of late
The scientist tried to hide the decline
Deny debate through deceit and design
The science was settled and the data deleted
All opposition was effectively defeated
From checking the facts, and results repeated
Who could prove the science was cheated
Man Made Global Warming is a lie
The CRU e-mails and codes do testify
The purpose, a Carbon Debt to apply
Kiss your money, technology and freedom goodbye
The silence is deafening across the land
As the revelations the public now understands
The weathers a carrot meant to disguise
A corrupt agenda before our eyes
And now we see light shining in Truth
Politicians, media, and search engines declare moot
You can glimpse the extent of the hypocrisy
In how they declare there is nothing to see
So much for transparency
Climategate Googlegate Copenhagengate
Who gave you permission to decide our fate?
Censoring discussion denying debate
The Spirit of Truth you desecrate
In all debate Truth intervenes
Asks does the end justify the means?
Demands that honesty remains supreme
That commitments aren’t made on fraudulent schemes.
It’s time for the passive acceptance to end
It’s time to stand for freedom as free men
It’s time to expose the lies and deceit
It’s time to take it to the streets
Do not commit sedition do not get jailed
Non-Violent revolutions do not fail
The voice of the Prophets, Gandhi and King
Are calling for you to get marching
Or just sit back and take the vaccine
At least your poem makes sense. . What a sick freak Gore is. The sight of him makes my skin crawl.
This man is a complete fool - and he ran for president, we should take due warning!
eg. Bush
Palin
MCcAIN
NEED WE SAY MORE?