Former vice president Al Gore spoke to a sold-out Aragon theater on Dec. 7 to promote his new book, “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power,” as well as to discuss environmental activism.
“It’s a great venue, it’s a great place,” Gore said of Aragon. He also mentioned “a great exchange with all of the people that came.”
Gore began his discussion by talking about the current state of environmentalism in the world.
“We’re closer than we have been,” he said during the event. “It makes me feel great that there are a lot of people who have made the decision to solve this crisis. This is the most serious crisis humanity has faced.”
Gore responded to the recent natural disasters, including Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
“Not too many months ago, we had Hurricane Harvey, which dropped as much water as 509 days of the full flow of Niagara Falls in five days,” he said. “This is bizarre. We have had, in the last seven years, 14 once-in-a-thousand-year events. I’m not an expert on statistics, but I believe you are not supposed to have a once-in-a-thousand-year event every six months.”
Radio host Angie Coiro conducted the interview with Gore on stage.
“We’ll focus first on the book’s philosophy, then its content, then finally extrapolating that to current news and events,” she said. “[The conversation is] about drawing out his information, poking at it, asking him to expound, bringing his work off the page and screen and into the very Gore further talked about his annual “24 Hours of Reality” television event about climate change, a series of different presentations taking place in every time zone during the primetime hour.
“We start in the Eastern Time Zone and go west,” he said. “We were broadcasting to half a billion homes this year and we had 32 million online viewers. I get a lot of feedback from people during the event.”
Senior Frank Liu enjoyed the insight Gore shared on the current climate change issue.
“Al Gore was quite impressive to host at Aragon, especially with him being a former U.S. vice president and Nobel Prize winner,” he said. “His insight about how one individual was causing all of the distrust towards climate change was a fascinating tidbit of information that I had suspected, but would never have known to be true had he not confirmed it himself.”
Gore concluded by talking about how to get students more involved in the environmental activism process.
“I think young people … know what’s going on,” he said. “Use your voice and be politically active. Use your vote. Use your choices in life. When people demand climate-friendly alternatives, that not only helps you be part of the solution, but sends a message to business people, designers, engineers that drives change in markets. Get knowledge. Do something. Get involved.”
Additional reporting by Zack Cherkas
