Lettre a Al

Dear M. Al Gore,
I watched last night with great interest the very good documentary with and by you, "An inconvenient truth". What an undertaking it is, to change public view on climate change, CO2 concentration and more importantly what we as individual human beings and societies can do to help prevent it. We will remember your very dynamic, clear, funny, terrifying, and challenging slide show, and regret we had no opportunity to attend to it live yet. I, as a French native, was also very interested by learning more about you and your personal history, and what led to the form of activism you're engaged in today.
Of course we could regret that to much time is spent on demonstrating the correlation between the unremitting increase in CO2 concentration and climate change, when most of the audience for the movie actually is all too convinced about it. Or is it that I am to European and thinking about a more aware audience than the typical, grass-root American one is ? Is it also my scientific training that makes me wince when suddenly all is bundled together emotional Katrina - emerging diseases - hunger in Africa ? ... It takes more than CO2 emissions to create these things - it's a tale of poor governance, unregulated and uncontrolled globalisation, and it could and should be linked to more general environmental degradation and political unrest.
We could have enjoyed more detailed explanations about the risk for sudden climate change and environmental imbalance (leaping rather than gradually changing), and wouldn't have minded an introduction to natural counter-balancing effects (growth in algae for example)... which, by the way, is often one of the arguments used by the ones who feel it is urgent to wait longer. Another, sadly, widespread thought is that when impacts are no longer limited, and it becomes profitable to fight off environmental degradation, then the economy and the free market, with the help or our already available or soon to be, technology, will develop in this direction and help us come out of this tight corner. L'humanite rebondit, yet it is our duty to help prepare for this and limit the damages that will precede the change.
As you said very well, people all to often jump from denial to despair, without stopping on the action stage. Developing and expanding on what we should and can do is definitely the crux and where to put the emphasis.
But I will stop here. Let me only congratulate you again and wish you good luck with your undertaking. Let me also tell you that it was an opportunity for me to hear about Moveon.org , which, in terms of citizens mobilisation and sustaining democraticy, yields a stunning and inspirational story.