Perhaps losing the 2000 presidential election did Al Gore more good than harm. It loosened him up enough to speak about his life and tell a few jokes at President George W. Bush and his own expenses.

Despite whatever caused his change, the former vice president and presidential candidate certainly won the majority of the Syracuse community’s hearts Thursday night, while giving his lecture on global warming, titled ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ at the Landmark Theater downtown.

The event was a collaboration between Syracuse University’s Student Association, University Union and University Lectures to celebrate SA’s 50th anniversary.

Wayne Horton, Bobby Patrick IV and Ryan Kelly, SA’s president, director of public relations and chief of staff, respectively, and University Union President Clarence Cross III all said the event went very well and was executed flawlessly.

‘I thought it was really great tonight,’ said Julie Walas, a senior broadcast journalism, public policies and Spanish major, who attended the event.

The lecture was entertaining, which was good, Walas said, because the subject matter could be boring.

More than 1,000 SU and State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry students were bused downtown for the sold out event.

They were accompanied by many members of the Syracuse community who filled the nearly 2,700-seat theater to capacity.

The lecture started about 20 minutes late, so there was no time for an audience question and answer session with Gore.

Members from many of Central New York’s most passionate activist groups such as Syracuse MoveOn, New York Public Interest Research Group, the local Green Party and Raging Grannies of Central New York stood outside the theater handing out flyers, registering voters and singing patriotic and anti-war songs.

However, it was Gore who used personal stories and passion to capture the spotlight, but ironically enough, spent most of his lecture in the dark. The darkness was necessary in order to highlight the slideshow that accompanied his presentation.

‘I used to be the next president of the United States,’ Gore said jokingly, which brought about an enormous amount of laughter and applause from the audience. ‘I don’t find that particularly funny.’

He smirked and continued speaking. But after another joke targeted toward the current White House administration, Gore said he would try to ‘keep the cheap shots’ to a minimum.

‘I am a recovering politician,’ he said, to more applause from the audience. ‘Thank you. That’s step No. 9.’

However funny or entertaining Gore’s lecture was, there was no question of what he wanted to convey-the environment is in great danger and something must be done about it.

He said it more than a few times during his lecture.

‘This crisis is by far the greatest we have ever faced,’ Gore said.

The Chinese express the word ‘crisis’ with two symbols side by side, Gore said. The first means ‘danger’ and the second ‘opportunity.’

Gore said he uses this example because while the earth is in great danger as a result of global warming, there is still the opportunity to stop it. He said he looks at global warming not as a democratic, republican, left-wing or right-wing issue-but as a moral issue.

‘If we allow this to happen, it’s immoral,’ Gore said.

Each time he referenced global warming in terms of morality, he raised his voice a bit, showing a baseline genuine concern for the environment.

Tom Hackman, a junior political science and policy studies major and NYPIRG member, agrees.

‘Environmental stuff isn’t just for liberals, it’s for everyone,’ Hackman said.

Gore gave the example of the 1960s Civil Rights movement to show how Americans have made moral choices in the past.

‘Civil Rights became a moral issue when young people saw more clearly than their parents,’ Gore said.

Gore began the explanation of global warming section of his lecture with a brief and humorous ‘Futurama’ cartoon film about the greenhouse effect. Audience members laughed.

He then shifted into the body of his lecture, which was modeled after his documentary film and book of the same name.

He began by showing the first photo ever taken of the earth, which he also showed at the end his lecture, helping the lecture come full-circle.

Gore then went through the harmful effects of global warming.

Carbon dioxide levels have always been proportional to the earth’s temperature, Gore said. But greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, have been increasing at a rapid rate annually for the past 60 years. These gases are created by human activities such as gasoline-powered vehicles and industrial factories.

The sun produces light and heat, which hit the earth and bounce back into outer space, normally, Gore said. However, because of these gases, the atmosphere has thickened, keeping more of the sun-produced heat within the bubble of the atmosphere, thus increasing the world’s annual temperature.

The more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the more the temperature increases and as a result, more sun-produced heat is trapped within it, Gore said.

The temperature increase is creating a worldwide domino effect.

Polar ice caps are melting, especially in the Himalayans, which provide 40 percent of the world’s drinking water, he said.

Additionally, permafrost is melting at the North and South poles, which is causing chunks of glacial material to sink into the ocean.

If global melting continues, Gore said, the Western Antarctic Peninsula will break off and sink into the ocean, raising oceanic water levels by 20 feet. This would completely cover the World Trade Center memorial in New York City, among other areas.

In addition, a world-wide temperature increase is causing changes in precipitation. This is why certain parts of the world are now seeing extreme droughts, while others experience heightened storms such as hurricanes, tornadoes and cyclones.

Gore discussed the past two years of hurricane activity, including a breakdown of storms that led up to and followed 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.

He showed photos of recording-breaking droughts and floods alike from around the world.

The acidity of the oceans is also rising from, Gore said as he showed coral reefs bleached from the lowering of the alkaline level in the water. He said if the acidity keeps rising, coral reefs won’t exist by about 2045.

Gore ended his lecture saying population, science and technology and a basic way of thinking are the three things that affect the earth. He said all three of these things can be altered to help the earth.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger saw ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ earlier this summer, Gore said. After watching the film, Schwarzenegger told Gore the California governor would get rid of his Hummer.

Gore ended by stating if Americans can gain independence, emancipate slaves, win votes for women, fight fascism in a world war, land men on the moon and fight for civil rights, then they can beat global warming … if they put their minds to it.

When the lecture ended, Gore received a standing ovation from the audience.

Published on September 14, 2006 at 12:00 pm