It was a bittersweet homecoming. The last time Al Gore was in the United States Congress was in January 2001, to see George Bush confirmed as President after a vitriolic election campaign and count. One of the reasons he lost was his lack of passion, having listened to advice from campaign managers to focus on the economy and avoid the one issue that animates him: the environment.
He returned on Wednesday in triumph, the man who could have stopped Bush now transformed into an Oscar winner and one of the world’s leading campaigners on the dangers of global warming. He is bulkier, greyer and wrinkled. But he is also less buttoned-up, more emotional.
He spoke fluently and knowledgeably, mostly without notes, showing the kind of president he might have been and, possibly, might yet be.
His new star status as green champion and Academy Award-winner for An Inconvenient Truth had members of the public queueing outside House of Representatives committee room 2123 for 24 hours. Even journalists who had reserved places arrived an hour early.
Gore did not disappoint, offering a moving speech and lively exchanges seemingly enjoyed both by Democratic congressmen who agree with him and Republicans who remain sceptical about climate change.
Referred to formally as Mr Vice-President, he said he had returned only because Congress was now run by Democrats. ”There is a sense of hope in this country that this US Congress will rise to the occasion and present meaningful solutions to this crisis,” he said. ”Our world faces a true planetary emergency. I know the phrase sounds shrill, and I know it’s a challenge to the moral imagination.”
He appealed directly to congressmen, saying even a small number of people could change the course of history. Evoking the movie 300 showing in local cinemas, he recalled how a small band of Spartans had saved civilisation.
”This is our Thermopylae,” he said, at the end of the kind of speech that would sound high-blown and risible from a British politician but that the best American speakers can get away with.
He set out steps that could be taken, ranging from tax measures to a new international treaty. He said, as he has so often on the lecture circuit, that this generation should consider what their grandchildren would say of them: either that they ignored the clear evidence or that they took up the challenge.
About 30 teenagers, part of a school trip watching in a nearby overspill room, were typically restless and bored-looking before Gore began speaking, but then listened to him intently.
There was a half-hour delay before his appearance — the kind of procedural wrangling between Democrats and Republicans that exasperates him, given his stress on time running out and the need to put political differences aside.
Gore said he had recently returned from the United Kingdom, where there was a consensus among Labour and the Conservatives on the need to tackle global warming and the debate was on how best to do this. He contrasted this with the US, and the questions from the committee confirmed this: Democrats in agreement with him, while Republicans questioned the science, the need for more regulations and the costs.
Gore’s positive reception will encourage fans to press him to stand for the presidency. He has repeatedly said he does not intend to enter the race, but has failed to convince Washington that he really means it.
He would face a crowded and talented field, but polls suggest he would tuck into third place, behind Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama but ahead of John Edwards. — Guardian Unlimited Â