It must be a bittersweet moment to be Darrell Hammond.

Every talk Al Gore gives, after all, continues to prove the Saturday Night Live veteran’s brilliance at honing in on the speech patterns of public figures; if Gore can’t tweak his style after years of mockery, then clearly Hammond caught something elemental.

But in his speech in Washington on Thursday, the former Vice President also shattered the central premise of Hammond’s take on Al Gore — that the politician is so terminally dull, so pedantic and long-winded, that the idea of him inspiring followers is a joke. To the contrary: Despite the occasional Droopy Dog cadences of his address, Gore gave one hell of a speech.

His call for America to move to carbon-free electricity completely within 10 years is already being widely analyzed, with pundits everywhere not only weighing the plan’s chances but publicly wondering why the green evangelist won’t address a couple of nagging issues.

But citizens who rely solely on what’s being written about the speech are doing themselves a disservice. This one should be seen.

That’s partly because of the moments in which Gore overcomes his oft-noted rhetorical habits, rejecting rambling explanations in favor of an un-Gorelike directness. In analyzing the ways our economic, security, and environmental concerns are interwoven, for instance, he delivers this tidy gem: “We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet.” Gore uttered the line in such a hurry it sounded as if he himself doubted he could make a point so effectively. It earned him enormous applause.

An even larger ovation greeted Gore when he bitingly mocked the notion that the answer to high short-term gas prices was to allow more oil drilling 10 years from now. Of course, others will mock Gore’s own 10-year proposal, calling it so wildly optimistic it borders on science-fiction. Responding in advance to those naysayers, Gore argued that people are right to disbelieve politicians who make promises of change to come 40 years down the road, long after they’ve left office and can’t be held accountable. According to him, “ten years is about the maximum time that we as a nation can hold a steady aim and hit our target.”

Convincingly criticizing “the tendency to offer old solutions to each crisis separately, without taking the others into account,” and to embrace solutions that “almost always make the other crises worse,” he first underlined the need for a change as broad as eliminating carbon emissions from all electricity generation.

But he went on to argue that such an ambitious goal is “achievable, affordable, and transformative,” using as one illustration the falling price of solar-cell material — comparing it to another silicon-intensive product, computer chips, whose dramatic and sustained price drop is the stuff of legend. Comparing costs between old and new power-producing methods, he noted that “when demand for oil and coal increases, the price goes up; when the demand for solar cells increases, the price often comes down.”

Arguing for boldness and “generational change,” Gore railed against “the deep dysfunction of our politics,” which have long “tended toward incremental proposals made up of small policies designed to avoid offending special interests, alternating with small baby steps in the right direction.”

He seemed even to deliver a friendly jab at his more timid environmentalist peers when he boasted of the We campaign, a bipartisan media campaign started by Gore and colleagues’ Alliance for Climate Protection to publicize the need for climate-related changes. Said Gore, “we’re committed to changing not just light bulbs, but laws.”

Finally, he returned to a comparison many have made, suggesting that the call for a green-tech revolution should be as intense and goal-oriented as John F. Kennedy’s challenge to put a man on the moon.

As Gore recalled standing a few miles from the launch site in 1969, and watching Neil Armstrong on television a few days later, he turned a now-clichéd reference into a genuinely stirring call to action. If Darrell Hammond felt a tear welling up, he probably wasn’t the only one.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

It’s starting to sound like an Obama Campaign Slogan parsing contest out there in the U.S. Greenscape. First there was the We Campaign, started by The Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonpartisan advertising effort to raise awareness about the consequences of and solutions to global warming started by former Vice President Al Gore and colleagues.

Now, we’ve got Together, an alliance of businesses, cities and non-profit organizations, working to help America fight climate change. The group, announced earlier this month, has its own set of heavy hitter sponsors, including California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The premise behind the alliance: Most Americans want to do something about global warming, but don’t know what to do, exactly. So Together will tell them in “clear and simple steps” what they (aka we) can do to reduce their impact on the planet.

“Protecting our environment is a job that belongs to each one of us,’’ said Gov. Schwarzenegger in a news release. “It means more than companies changing their practices or governments changing their policies. It means each person finding ways to change the little things in our lives that will in turn have a huge positive impact on the world around us.”

Together is an offshoot of The Climate Group, an independent non-profit that started in the United Kingdom in 2007 (heavy hitter: Tony Blair). Together initiatives in the UK claim to have saved 522, 000 tons of carbon emissions and more than $200 million on household energy bills, according to their news release.

The Climate Group hopes to expand into Australia, China and India, thereby engaging the biggest greenhouse gas emitters worldwide, according to the press release.

Businesses involved in Together include Chase, the founding corporate partner; Dell, Lenovo, MySpace, Nestle Waters, Recycle Bank, smart USA (makers of those micro cars), Target and Timberland.

Target will herald its participation by giving away 15,000 reusable bags. MySpace and smart USA will collaborate to give away a smart fortwo car to the MySpace user who refers the most friends to join Together.

Non-profits participating include the American Red Cross in Greater New York, Climate Counts, Global Footprint Network, Mercy Corps, National Wildlife Federation and The Center for a New American Dream. Media partners include MTV, News Corporation and Time Warner.

The founding city partner is New York City and another key sponsoring organization is ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, a collaboration of cities.

The “Togetherizer” – an online aggregator will tally the combined efforts of everyone who adopts solutions promoted by Together.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media

While some global warming activists despaired over Congress’ failure to launch the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act last week, the We Campaign (founded by Al Gore and comrades to promote action against global warming) forged ahead.

We sent out an email Monday urging supporters to sign a petition to get Congress to pass another piece of legislation – not as sweeping, but also aimed at ameliorating global warming. The petition urges Congress to renew tax incentives for clean energy so that the United States can continue to build green energy companies and support workers transitioning to green jobs like foundry workers featured in the email.

Jerry Hammerschmidt and Ken Runge work at the Hodge Foundry in Greenville, Pa., building components for the wind turbines used in wind power, which “is critical to reducing America’s dependence on dirty fossil fuels,” says We CEO Cathy Zoi in the appeal.

But Jerry and Ken’s jobs, like thousands of others, are at risk unless Congress renews clean energy incentives, she writes.

These incentives have been lurking around, waiting for renewal for months. They failed to get Senate approval at a couple junctures. Lawmakers, mostly Republicans, didn’t want to fund them by taxing oil companies, or anyone else.

Now the House has passed a bill that would renew the credits and pay for them by dinging hedge fund profits, but the Senate is, well – the same body that just maneuvered around, delayed and finally voted down the Climate Security Act.

Will the Senate see the clean energy tax bill differently? It is not all-encompassing like the omnibus Lieberman-Warner which would have set up a carbon fee system, but it supports businesses large and small try to find energy solutions. Companies from Boeing to Brother Joe’s energy start-up have a stake in it; the tax incentives would help enterprises ranging from the Pennsylvania wind turbine makers to the Texas turbine installers to the entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley refining solar power materials.

Some of the clean energy credits also are aimed at regular folks, who could get tax credits for improving the energy efficiency of their homes.

Supporters tout the credits as economy-boosting, as well as a way to begin fighting carbon emissions. They worry that without the tax credits, many of which expire at the end of 2008, clean energy businesses will founder and investors will waver.

They say businesses need these tax credits as they scale up. As the San Jose Mercury News opined: “Installing solar panels and building wind turbines requires big upfront investments and long-term planning to be effective; incentives can’t be stop and go.”

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media