Al Gore’s new plan : the WE campaign

It made the headlines of several US environmental blogs, Al Gore launched a $300 million advertisement campaign due to raise awareness on climate change.

Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection indeed launched a three year campaign named We can solve it. Its ” ultimate aim is to halt global warming. ”

With already over a million people who joined him, Mr. Gore is sending a huge sign to the US presidential candidates and to the world.

According to the Washington Post :

The Alliance for Climate Protection’s new TV ad is part of a $300 million campaign, among the costliest in U.S. history. Skeptics already are weighing in, accusing Gore of demanding sacrifices that he himself is not making.

Former vice president Al Gore will launch a three-year, $300 million campaign Wednesday aimed at mobilizing Americans to push for aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, a move that ranks as one of the most ambitious and costly public advocacy campaigns in U.S. history.

The Alliance for Climate Protection’s “we” campaign will employ online organizing and television advertisements on shows ranging from “American Idol” to “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” It highlights the extent to which Americans’ growing awareness of global warming has yet to translate into national policy changes, Gore said in an hour-long phone interview last week. He said the campaign, which Gore is helping to fund, was undertaken in large part because of his fear that U.S. lawmakers are unwilling to curb the human-generated emissions linked to climate change.

“This climate crisis is so interwoven with habits and patterns that are so entrenched, the elected officials in both parties are going to be timid about enacting the bold changes that are needed until there is a change in the public’s sense of urgency in addressing this crisis,” Gore said. “I’ve tried everything else I know to try. The way to solve this crisis is to change the way the public thinks about it.“

(…)

The new effort comes at a time when the three remaining major party presidential candidates — Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) — have all endorsed federal limits on greenhouse gases, virtually ensuring that the next occupant of the White House will offer a sharp break from President Bush’s climate policy.

All three have discussed global warming with Gore in phone calls over the course of the past few months. While McCain backs a more modest plan than that favored by the Democrats — he supports a 60 percent reduction in greenhouse gases from 1990 levels by 2050, compared with Obama and Clinton’s vow of an 80 percent cut during that period — the presumptive Republican nominee emphasized during a recent stop in Chula Vista, Calif., that he had pushed for a federal cap-and-trade system before either of his opponents came to the Senate.

(…)

Gore, who backs a 90 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by mid-century, said that while he’s “encouraged” that the remaining candidates back mandatory limits on greenhouse gases, they still need to be pushed: “What happens after the election will depend on whether or not we win enough hearts and minds in the country as a whole.“

And former Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.), a board member of the two-year-old alliance, said the candidates’ commitment to a cap-and-trade system does not negate the fact that the majority of Americans fail to see climate change as a compelling political issue.

Via La Marguerite. Thanks to her for providing us such great data.

Me, I am very happy of Mr. Gore’s latest idea and will defitively keep you posted on the developments of this massive campaign. So, for this and for much more, stay tuned !

And you, what do you think about this ? Do you think the situation is heading in the right direction ?

Further reading on this event :

• Climate change action: Al Gore and Alliance for Climate Protection launch $300 Million public service campaign to muster support on climate change action.