Former Vice President Al Gore returned to his political proving grounds Wednesday as an Oscar-winning documentarian and unlikely cult hero.
Cutting a statesmanlike figure with his imposing girth and slicked-back hair, Gore warned Congress of “a true planetary emergency” in the form of global warming.
“The planet has a fever,” he said in the cadences of a Southern preacher. “If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor.”
He told of manatees migrating to Memphis and Massachusetts because the waters off Florida are too hot.
“Nature is on the run,” he boomed.
Some lawmakers hailed Gore as a returning hero. Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., compared him and his once-lonely crusade to the Nashville star who sang “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool.”
“The world is finally listening,” Gordon told him.
Gore’s remarks to panels in the Senate and House didn’t quite amount to the State of the Union address he always dreamed of delivering to Congress, but his appearances were widely watched and well-received.
“When the history of this issue is written, your name will be at the forefront,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee.
That’s not to say Gore didn’t suffer some of the indignities that congressmen can inflict on the witnesses who appear before their committees.
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, scolded him for failing to turn in his opening remarks on time. When John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, challenged those and other complaints Barton replied: “If y’all want to spend two hours here and have an absolute catfight, we’ll do it that way.”
After listening to Gore’s 30-minute opening statement, Barton said that on some points “you’re totally wrong.” In other areas, he said, “your ideas aren’t all bad.”
Barton particularly objected to Gore’s proposal to freeze all emissions of carbon dioxide, the gas most commonly linked to global warming.
“If you take that literally, we can add no new industry, no new cars and trucks on the streets and, apparently, no new people,” said Barton, noting that humans exhale carbon dioxide.
For the most part, Gore indulged in very little of the smirking, eye-rolling or know-it-all huffing political analysts say doomed him in his debates against then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., asked Gore if he would agree to a pledge to cut carbon monoxide emissions from his Tennessee mansion within a year without resorting to “offsets and gimmicks for the wealthy so they don’t have to change their lifestyles.”
Gore declined to take the pledge. He later sighed and told Inhofe that he would like to get together privately with him over breakfast to discuss the issue.