(Edited for big goofs!)
This past week, I, along with ~250 others, were in a training session with Al Gore on the global warming issue. I came back home late on Thursday night and am still trying to recover from the emotional high and calm down enough to write a rational report on it!
It was just amazing -- I am a Professor, I talk for about 75 minutes at a time and do it 4 times a week. He spoke from 8 am one morning to 5:45 pm that day, with two 10 minute breaks and one 1 hour break for lunch (and yet he could not finish his part of the lecture and so conducted another one hour session at 7:30 the next morning!): that is a total of about 8 and a half hours that he was fully engaged with us.
I am trying to say this as dispassionately as I possibly can: but his command of the scientific issues, his intelligent engagement with the audience, his passion for the issue, his absolutely amazing stamina, and above all, the spellbound and yet alert attention that he was completely given by the audience, is just unbelievable.
This past week, I, along with ~250 others, were in a training session with Al Gore on the global warming issue. I came back home late on Thursday night and am still trying to recover from the emotional high and calm down enough to write a rational report on it! It was just amazing -- I am a Professor, I talk for about 75 minutes at a time and do it 4 times a week. He spoke from 8 am one morning to 5:45 pm that day, with two 10 minute breaks and one 1 hour break for lunch (and yet he could not finish his part of the lecture and so conducted another one hour session at 7:30 the next morning!): that is a total of about 8 and a half hours that he was fully engaged with us. I am trying to say this as dispassionately as I possibly can: but his command of the scientific issues, his intelligent engagement with the audience, his passion for the issue, his absolutely amazing stamina, and above all, the spellbound and yet alert attention that he was completely given by the audience, is just unbelievable. Follow me over the fold for the report from the training...
I have followed his career for about 7 years now and was fully expecting to be fairly impressed. But what he did simply blew me away -- and my impression is that mine was not a unique experience. Every single person in that room seemed mesmerized by his performance. They sat through that incredible 10 hour day, followed him then to a dinner/concert, retired gloriously tired and came back with even more enthusiasm at 7:30 the next morning for another dose. The most heartening yet funny moment came when, upon the close of that marathon day session Gore said that in order to leave enough time for the scheduled sessions of the next day, we would have to start the day early, people actually clapped!
First, a little background. When Al released his movie and the book, on one of his rounds promoting it, he apparently casually tossed out, in response to a question about follow-up, that he was going to train a thousand people to help him disseminate the message of the movie and the book! This was just a few months ago. So his staff panicked and started arranging things so this could actually happen. They sent discreet solicitations and were inundated (for their operation size!) with applications from wannabe trainees like me. Anyway, they did their first session in early December and this was the second batch (here in the US; they had done a small one in Australia).
Our class consisted roughly of 250 people from every walk life conceivable, seemingly! We all arrived at Nashville Tennessee on Tuesday afternoon for registration -- they had a small number of volunteers and staff (also small in number) at the desk, who were friendly beyond any normal norm and way too cheerful!
Following registration, there was a get together of the trainees, where we all mingled and got to know each other. There were people from all 50 states (no doubt by design, but still nice to see :-) -- they give us color groups to belong to, so that we could network with people in our region and possibly pool our resources when we were ready to take action. There were at least 10 people from Texas!! And we have made great plans to attack as a group!!!
After that, we walked over to a German place right across the street, for dinner and a reception with the Gores. Everyone was advised earlier to be discreet about taking pictures, but nobody seemed to remember the injunctions -- flashes galore as people clamored to have their pictures taken with him and shake his hand and chat him up even for a few minutes. There is only one reason why I ever want to talk to him and sure enough, I popped the question: "what would it take to convince you to run in '08" -- and his answer was still the same: "I am running a different kind of campaign" :-(
I tried to take the easier route by talking to Tipper Gore -- she was gracious and indulged me for nearly 15 minutes. I spoke to her too about the only thing obsessing me now and that was his run. She seemed quite unequivocal that he will not run. More about this in another diary at a later date...
We retired early that night in anticipation of the big session the next day. After breakfast, we all assembled for a day long material training session conducted by Al Gore. In the morning session, he zipped through his slides (several hundred of them!), in slightly more detail than the movie and with updated material. He made references to latest studies and is thrillingly in touch with the ultimate reality based community (aka scientists :-)
His command of the material in this section is probably well known to most people here from his movie. What is amazing is that I have seen profs presenting work that they have done together with their students, that they sometimes do not show this much comfort with! He is talking about work that is not his and he is much more confident about it! Impressive, but since I had already seen this when he presented at Dallas and in the movie, I knew it would be and I was not disappointed.
It was the rest of the day that was so scintillating. In the rest of sessions that day, he went back over each one of the slides that the trainees are going to be using, which are a subset of his portfolio, in their own presentations, addressing the relevance of the slides, the background science on it, the logic behind its positioning, the way it ties in to the next, the transitions, even the words on which to click to the next! I am telling you, I am not going to recover from this any time soon.
In these elaborate sessions, he also took questions from us. The questions came from every different angle -- logistics, science, politics (of global warming), relevance, controversies, delicacies around particular topics, uncertainty, you name it -- the question was asked. He answered them all with grace and knowledge and humor!!
That evening we all went to BBKing's for a little R&R with friends of the Gores performing. The next day we started in promptly at 7:30 and Al finished up the slide explanations, taking more questions and more comments. The next few sessions focused on presentation skills and honing. These would have been great at any other place, some other time -- but Al was an extremely tough act to follow.
As if there was more icing on the cake necessary, they gave us all a signed copy of his book, a t-shirt, a compact fluorescent bulb, a poster and a grocery bag, all emblazoned with the climate project logo. Oh, and they gave us tiny stickers with the best slogan in the world "Answer the Call"!! The idea is these tiny stickers (again with the CP logo) go on cell phones (get it? :-~)
The big picture is that we will all fan out across the country talking to small groups and our own communities, spreading the message and impressing upon the nation the urgency of the matter. If the energy, enthusiasm and passion of the people there was any indication, you will all be hearing about this in the real world soon.
This diary is getting too long, I will post more details as questions are asked in the comments. Asking technical stuff too, I am also a scientist (though not in the area, I am a computer scientist :-)) and should be able to address most questions. I am still in a trance...
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