Guest Blog: Al Gore in Albuquerque

This is a guest blog by Linda in Santa Fe NM, who an organizer in the grassroots effort to draft Gore for president. As I'm sure you know, Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, in tandem with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It kicked the movement to urge him to run for president into overdrive.

October 3rd was the day of Rio Rancho's Al Gore Live Presentation with his slide show, "An Inconvenient Truth." Of couse this was a chance to learn important information about the climate crisis, but it also allowed us to express our support for Mr. Gore running to be our next President.

We arrived at the Santa Ana Star Center over an hour before the event was scheduled to start. Unfortunately the police said they were given orders that no signs be on the property. Given so many expected this to be "the place" to be, we had people working for many other candidates, Presidential and Senate, that were pushed to the sidelines as well. We stood on the sidewalk facing the entrance armed with buttons, fliers and displaying our banner. I don't know if Mr. Gore had a chance to see us, but the people sure did.

It was great to hear pretty much everyone saying they want a Gore presidency. Almost everyone we asked was thrilled to put on a Gore button. Of course we weren't getting many walking by us, since we weren't in front of the door, so I sent someone over with a bag of them to pass out in front of the entrance. He walked back to get more three times within minutes because they were gone instantly.

The people were very excited about Gore for President. The one person who displayed skepticism that he would run, and didn't want a button, came up to me after the presentation to say, "I changed my mind, can I still have a button?" Even people who were not part of the "official Draft Gore" movement were all on the same page and were doing their own individual parts. It was so exciting. I met a couple with their daughter coming up with signs and petitions to join the Kyoto Treaty. Another couple inside painted R U N down their shirts. Yet another couple in front of us were from Santa Fe too, and excited to hear there was a movement. Because the buttons we made have the website's address, www.algore.org on them, it will be easy for them to officially get involved.

After arriving at our seats and realizing there was an opportunity to hit up the folks sitting in the front of the stage where Mr. Gore would be speaking, I walked over to ask if anyone wanted buttons. If they weren't already wearing them (we saw them on the chests of people everywhere we looked), they asked for them. Then the folks sitting on the side realized I had buttons and they all started yelling out that they wanted some, and I started getting "we need five over here." I had to excuse myself to get more because I ran out of them. When I returned with more buttons, people asked if they could shake my hand to thank me for my work, and one man yelled out, "I love you."

Mr. Gore was absolutely incredible. He was so energetic, passionate, strong and funny. He opened up with some humor before giving the facts. He carefully alleviates the tension from the intense information he is sharing with a slight break of humor every once in a while. The information and facts he shares just roll off effortlessly, with intense passion being displayed when the news gets deep. The standing ovations he received when entering paled in comparison to what happened when he finished his presentation. I don't think any of us wanted to sit down.

The information Mr. Gore shared in his presentation was updated with current information. After thinking I had seen and heard everything before from the movie, It was disturbing to see and hear the latest news, including information highlighted for our state. Most troubling was hearing we are indeed running out of time because everything is happening faster than we thought. As he clearly stated, we are speeding up the warming at an alarming rate.

First we went from 100 years' time to act down to 50. Then a long-awaited study showed so much damage we went down to 34 years to act. Last month, new information came out saying the rate of warming was advancing so quickly to melt the arctic ice that we had only 23 years before the tipping point. Then there was last week's news that ice twice the size of England melted, then that ice the size of Florida disappeared. The day prior to his talk, Mr. Gore received word that our tipping point actually may be only seven years away. Seven years. I started to cry.

Mr. Gore said he believes we can still solve these problems, but we need to act with urgency. He is asking for citizen activism. Get involved. Go online and find out what you can do to help. He also made it clear that we must restore our democracy as we go forward. There is much work we can do.

The evening ended with Gore taking questions from the audience. At this point I figured if I got kicked out it would be worth it, so I took my draft Gore banner, opened it up and dropped it, hanging it from our legs. I know it was seen, because a friend sitting on the opposite side of the Center noticed it, and people in their seats pointed to the banner and gave it a "thumbs up."  I can only hope that Mr. Gore caught a glimpse of it during a pause in the questions because, after all, it is time. Time for a COOL change with Mr. Gore.

The final questions of the evening were from a young girl and boy, ages 12 and 13. They both wanted to know if this would be solved and by whom. They asked, "do I and my children have a chance?" That pretty much said it all as to what's on the mind of their generation. The little girl added, "good luck in winning the Nobel Peace Prize." Mr. Gore bowed his head with that and then responded that it is our 
responsibility to solve this for them and their children. And he hopes they will ask the question of how we managed to solve this. I do too. While leaving the very emotion-filled presentation, I had a chance to find that little girl and give her a button. I hope it will help give her some added hope that we will solve this crisis for her and those like her all over the world. Thank you Al Gore.

This is a guest blog by Linda in Santa Fe NM. Guest blogs provide our readers with an opportunity to express themselves and may or may not represent our views. If you'd like to submit a post for consideration as a guest blog, contact me by clicking on the Email Me link on the upper left-hand corner of the page.