The Guys and the Globe
To read the body language of the three men on the main podium at CGI today, you'd think a bunch of old college buddies had just watched their team win the championship. In truth, Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin Group, were back-slapping over Branson's blockbuster commitment to join Gore's fight to save the planet. As announced at the 2006 Clinton Global Initiative, Virgin is committing all proceeds from its plane and train businesses to renewable energy initiatives as well as the search for ways to counter emissions related to global warming.
While Clinton savored the opportunity to introduce Branson at a special briefing this morning, they both credited Gore with bringing the issue literally to Branson's doorstep in England a couple of years ago. "If you make a bold gesture," Gore persuaded him, "others will follow." Which is very much the thinking behind Clinton's gathering of leaders willing to make public commitments to a variety of causes.
And while the topics were deadly serious, covering the spectrum of human concerns from global disease to ethnic warfare to helping the world's poor, Clinton and Gore appeared to thoroughly enjoy the chance to exhibit their encyclopedic knowledge of all these subjects and more. Although 14 years and countless roller coaster news cycles have passed since Bill and Al's successful campaign in 1992, their discourses today conjured up the images of boys - no, make that wonks - on the bus that have all but faded from memory. In this morning's press conference, Clinton fielded questions about reforestation in Mexico and quoted ratios of conversion for ethanol in Brazil as if a White House staffer had prepared a briefing binder for him. In a panel discussion this afternoon, Gore fought to transcend mind-numbing statistics and create a sense of urgency - as well as empowerment - to "make a bold start" and "cross the tipping point" to mobilize a response to the planet's "fever."
Neither Gore nor Clinton shied from confrontation, either, pointing fingers at those they consider culpable, e.g. Exxon Mobil, for "spending money" as Gore put it "to intentionally confuse" the issue and create the impression that global warming is still a question open to debate. Quoting the Scientific American's latest issue, Gore cited the opening sentence, "The debate on global warming is over." The debate now, Gore said, should be about how we craft solutions.
Among those solutions are the Gores' contribution of profits from the book and movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," Branson's commitment to plowing profits into the search for answers, and grassroots efforts like restoring greenways in the South Bronx. Of the latter, Clinton was blunt: "Let's stop patronizing poor people and assuming that they don't care about a clean environment," said Clinton.
The way it looks from here, these guys are doing what they enjoy best, pulling the team together with the old college try.
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