Wake Up and Smell the Carbon
By Grist staff on May 11, 2006
Al Gore launches new climate campaign
Launched with profits from Al Gore's new movie and book, a new group called Alliance for Climate Protection plans to spend big bucks on advertising and grassroots organizing in an attempt to impart the dangers of climate chaos to the American public. Focusing particularly on conservatives and labor groups — hoping that public demand will induce more eco-friendly legislation — the group aims to "get the facts in front of the public more effectively than we have," says Lee M. Thomas, a member of the alliance's bipartisan board. Thomas, who headed the U.S. EPA during the Reagan administration, says the effort will resemble a political campaign. Paramount Classics, which is releasing Gore's upcoming movie An Inconvenient Truth , will donate $500,000 and a portion of the movie's proceeds; Gore's also contributing the advance from his upcoming book, rumored to be around $250,000. Fred L. Smith, president of a free-market lobbying group, sneers that enviros are "panicking" because "they are convinced that no one is listening." What's that, Fred? We weren't really listening.