DC Trawler

Ten Years Ago This Week, Al Gore Gave The Earth Ten Years To Do What He Says

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former U.S. Vice President Gore gestures as he gives a speech at the 2015 China US Clean Air conference, in Beijing

REUTERS/Stringer

Jim Treacher Blogger
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Ten grim (but highly profitable) years ago, Al Gore gave us all a deadline. Now we have to live with what we’ve done. Or, more precisely, what we haven’t done. At least we won’t have long to live with our regrets as a species.

Jaclyn Schiff, AP, 1/26/06:

Former Vice President Al Gore is not all that comfortable being a star of the Sundance Film Festival. He’s far more concerned that the celebrity watchers hear what he has to say.

The former vice president came to town for the premiere of “An Inconvenient Truth,” a documentary chronicling what has become his crusade since losing the 2000 presidential election: Educating the masses that global warming is about to toast our ecology and our way of life…

And politicians and corporations have been ignoring the issue for decades, to the point that unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return, Gore said.

Wait, hold on.

Ten years? Hang on a sec. [GRABS PEN AND PAPER] 2006… plus 10… equals…

Oh no. No, no, no. What’s today’s date? What’s– [LOOKS UP AT CALENDAR, FREEZES, BUT NOT LITERALLY, OF COURSE]

…This can’t be happening. No. Nuh-nuh-no. Th-this can’t be the end. I had so much left to live for. I had so much left to do. I never even got a chance to watch the “ManBearPig” episode everybody’s always talking about!

Wow, you guys. So I guess this is really it. The end of the world. The big sign-off. Nice knowin’ ya, Earth. Sayonara, Gaia. Arrivederci, Terra.

Buh-bye.

President of the Environment Al Gore did his best, but by his own metric, he has failed utterly. It’s too late now. All his efforts have been for naught.

So, how is he saying goodbye?

As we all know, the first step to achieving “climate reality” is to make everybody forget how math works. Assuming they knew in the first place. After that, just keep scaring the hell out of them until they throw money, either their own or, preferably, somebody else’s.

Repeat until Croesus.

P.S. Speaking of disgraced members of the first and only Clinton administration, I forgot that today is the 18th anniversary of…