Gore on global warming and offshore wind

Leaning toward Cape Wind, but not there yet

By Jack Coleman

Anyone waiting for Cape Wind to come into the discussion didn't have to wait long.

A new documentary on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," was shown in Boston for the first time last night before an audience of 200 climate scientists, environmental advocates, clergy and Gore supporters from previous campaigns.

After the 90-minute film, a compelling account of Gore's decades-long research on climate change and efforts to sound the alarm for what he sees as a looming crisis, Gore answered questions from the audience.

Not surprisingly for those following the Cape Wind debate, the first question was about the offshore wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound. Gore's words, verbatim - "You know, I don't really know the details of it. Based on what I do know, I'm for it, but I respect some of the folks that are opposed to it, Bobby Kennedy Jr. is a friend of mine. And I just don't know the details.

"We ought to try to put these things in lots of places"

"But based on what I do know, I think that it's a good idea and that the urgency of having alternative sources of energy is so high, that absent some fatal defect that I haven't been made aware of, I think that we ought to try to put these things in lots of places, along with other sources of renewable energy.

"But I didn't come here to try to pick a fight on that project, I'm just telling you what I know about it," Gore said.

Among those on hand was Cape Wind communication's director Mark Rodgers, shown in the photo shaking hands with Gore after the screening.

The documentary, directed by Davis Guggenheim, makes a persuasive case that global warming is not a fantasy concocted by alarmists. Gore provides a wealth of research to bolster his assertions in the "slide show" he has shown to more than 1,000 audiences around the world.

After watching this film, even those most skeptical of whether humanity is playing a role in climate change are likely to pause in their doubts - it is a sobering  account of a "planetary emergency" on the only heavenly body in the universe known to shelter life.

The film opens in select theaters on May 24 before its general release in early June. More information on "An Inconvenient Truth" is available at climatecrisis.net.

Jack Coleman is a writer, editor, media adviser to the pro-wind farm Clean Power Now non-profit and blogger who advocates in favor of Cape Wind at windfarmersalmanac.com.