Me and the former Veep.
So, this afternoon I went with Nick, Rachel and my little brother to see An Inconvenient Truth, immediately followed by a Q&A session with none other than Al Gore. It was awesome! Let me say first, if you haven't seen it, please... go see it. It's not the polemic that skeptics have made it out to be, and it's remarkably well produced.
Anyway, as the credits rolled, they shut off the audio, and we saw two figures walking to the front fo the theater. The entire audience (which was already applauding the end of the film), burst into a renewed round of applause, and rose to their feet out of both respect and excitement. He was introduced briefly by the Inquirer's movie critic (Carrie Rickey, who I hate), and then took a half hour of questions from the audience. They ranged from the inevitable "Are you going to run for president?", to the mundane "Can I be one of the trainees to give your slide show?", to the topical "why do things that are much less important to the fabric of our country, like abortion and gay marriage, get so much more attention than something like global warming?". The questions were ok, and his answers were good.
And then his assistant told him they had time for one more question. And he pointed right at me. At which point, the question that had been rolling through my mind all night decided to run for the hills. So I stood up. And then stumbled over a word or two. Then he walked over and handed me the mic, which gave me a valuable few seconds to collect my brain off the floor and assemble a good question. Which was something like "As an outside observer of the government, I feel like the biggest obstacle to consensus about issues like global warming, and to actual change coming about, is the extreme amount of money that is thrown into the system by lobbyists. Given that, what can we do to encourage our elected officials from both parties, given that they are entrenched in this money flooded system, to give up this money and... you know... start representing the people again?". That last bit was said with a healthy bit of bitterness and passion, which got me some nice applause from the crowd, and a complement on the well thought out question from Mr VP. I rule. While he then went on to echo my thoughts and explain to the rest of the crowd the details of what I was talking about, he didn't really have any answer for me, which was disappointing. And then he went into a rousing speech about how we need to revitalize the system, and how the climate crisis completely surmountable.
Seriously... if he had been half as charismatic as he was tonight during the campaign, he would have won in a landslide.
Anyway, as the credits rolled, they shut off the audio, and we saw two figures walking to the front fo the theater. The entire audience (which was already applauding the end of the film), burst into a renewed round of applause, and rose to their feet out of both respect and excitement. He was introduced briefly by the Inquirer's movie critic (Carrie Rickey, who I hate), and then took a half hour of questions from the audience. They ranged from the inevitable "Are you going to run for president?", to the mundane "Can I be one of the trainees to give your slide show?", to the topical "why do things that are much less important to the fabric of our country, like abortion and gay marriage, get so much more attention than something like global warming?". The questions were ok, and his answers were good.
And then his assistant told him they had time for one more question. And he pointed right at me. At which point, the question that had been rolling through my mind all night decided to run for the hills. So I stood up. And then stumbled over a word or two. Then he walked over and handed me the mic, which gave me a valuable few seconds to collect my brain off the floor and assemble a good question. Which was something like "As an outside observer of the government, I feel like the biggest obstacle to consensus about issues like global warming, and to actual change coming about, is the extreme amount of money that is thrown into the system by lobbyists. Given that, what can we do to encourage our elected officials from both parties, given that they are entrenched in this money flooded system, to give up this money and... you know... start representing the people again?". That last bit was said with a healthy bit of bitterness and passion, which got me some nice applause from the crowd, and a complement on the well thought out question from Mr VP. I rule. While he then went on to echo my thoughts and explain to the rest of the crowd the details of what I was talking about, he didn't really have any answer for me, which was disappointing. And then he went into a rousing speech about how we need to revitalize the system, and how the climate crisis completely surmountable.
Seriously... if he had been half as charismatic as he was tonight during the campaign, he would have won in a landslide.