Orillia Packet & Times: Teviah Moro

“I’m sorry. I feel very angry about this,” a southern drawl emanating from the silhouette of a man remarked at one point to a mob of suits gathered in a hot and stuffy Hummingbird Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto.

The self-deprecating almost president of the United States – sauntering across the stage, laser pointer in hand – stuck to the script as his now famous slideshow on global warming flipped across the large screen.

But former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, whose “An Inconvenient Truth” has raised the spectre of environmental catastrophe to a new boiling point, occasionally veered from the script.

“Our planet has a fever and it’s not getting better. We owe better to our children, and our grandchildren,” a silver-haired, rotund Gore politely blasted to the investor-laden audience.

That the “recovering” politician – once parodied on Saturday Night Live for his stiff, robotic delivery – had to take the time to address global warming’s skeptics is no laughing matter.

For that alone, Gore and others have every right to feel very angry – and sorry.

The signs are everywhere.

Glaciers are melting; parched beds are taking the place of great lakes in Africa; hurricanes are bearing down on this continent like never before; and, even in Canada, pestilence in the form of beetles is creeping northward, threatening our majestic forests.

What could this minority, yet apparently influential cabal of “scientists,” allegedly commissioned by big industry, possibly come up with to convince us otherwise?

There was a time, Gore pointed out, when a panicked tobacco industry scrambled to convince the public that smoking didn’t really cause cancer.

Now, that notion provokes a light chuckle.

When it comes to the environment, most Canadians – an ever-deliberating lot that makes decisions at glacial speed – seem quite convinced something is wrong.

A recent Ipsos-Reid poll concluded 85 per cent of Canadians are concerned about climate change.

Consider Phil Morden, an associate advisor with the Ivey Group at RBC Dominion Securities in Orillia.

Expecting to be riddled with guilt, Morden, 31, said he walked out of Gore’s talk “pleasantly surprised” by his up-to-date statistics and compelling case for immediate action.

“I found it believable. I didn’t question what he was saying,” said Morden, who’s now wondering what lifestyle changes he can make to do his part.

Gore’s Oscar-winning slideshow has staged environmental concerns in larger theatres, said Nick Garrison, communications director for Zerofootprint, a two-year-old non-profit advocacy group whose aim is for people to reduce their own ecological impact.

“It’s been instrumental in bringing the environment to mainstream voters,” Garrison said.

That could help spark change, he suggested, but added the big concern is whether that change will be too little, too late.

Continue reading the full article in the Packet & Times.