Plan a Houseparty with ‘An Inconvenient Truth’
Bloggers and the Boston Globe both took notice of JK teaming up with Al Gore on the subject of the environment.
JK sent out an email about weekend house-parties organized via Moveon featuring Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.
The complete text of the email is below. In addition to the letter, JK connected with Al at a fundraiser organized by Tipper Gore for The Climate Project, an environment group founded by Tipper and Al Gore.
Linda Matchan of the Boston Globe noted that the fundraiser drew an “amalgam of guests: Senator John Kerry; Al Gore, the former vice president; interior designers; the reigning Miss Rhode Island; environmentalists; art buffs; and a lot of people who seemed to like tortoises.”
I admire Al Gore for his outspoken activism in the fight against global warming.
In the last year, his “An Inconvenient Truth” has brought the science of global climate change to millions of Americans in a dramatic and persuasive way. Al was an early leader and a visionary on climate change — and if he had not just been elected but been inaugurated as president, America today would be the world’s leading advocate, not the world’s leading opponent, of preventing climate change.
Like you, I share Al Gore’s grave concern about the environmental threat posed by global climate change. Teresa and I go way back with Al in our engagement on this gathering crisis. Now, within the next decade, if we don’t deal with global warming, our children and grandchildren will have to deal with global catastrophe. It is time to stop debating fiction writers, oil executives and flat-earth politicians, and actually do something.
That’s why I’m asking the johnkerry.com community to join MoveOn, the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters and others in sponsoring nationwide house parties crucial to our environmental future. It’s all built around the DVD release of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”
On Saturday, Americans will get together at house parties all over the country, watch the film on DVD, have a national conference call to discuss next steps, and start seriously mobilizing people. Participants will get a chance to talk to Al Gore and ask him questions.
Can you attend a screening in your town on Saturday, December 16? Click below to get started.You know the underlying message of Al Gore’s movie. It’s not just that global warming is shaping up as a catastrophe of enormous dimensions. It’s that, together, we have the ability to stop this disaster — if we act now.
Saturday’s house parties are a great opportunity. This massive effort to organize and spread the word about “An Inconvenient Truth” is one of the best chances we’ve had in a long time to demonstrate how serious the problem is — and how serious we are about pushing Congress toward real solutions. More on that later — in this new Congress the johnkerry.com community will have our own bipartisan opportunity to make Washington stop spinning and start solving this problem.
There’s no doubt that “An Inconvenient Truth” has struck a responsive chord. The DVD of the movie sold more than a million copies in its first week. When strong leaders like Al Gore step forward to educate and organize people around vitally important issues, they deserve our full support.
Help spread the word.
Thanks for taking part in this crucial undertaking.
Sincerely,
John Kerry
P.S. We may have to wait to January until the new Democratic Congress convenes to force elected leaders to take real action on global warming. But, we can start organizing public support for real leadership on this vitally important issue right now. Let’s get started.
Here’s a hattip to the blogs that have joined in spreading the word about the house-parties including automatblog, Liberal Values, Platial, and The Democratic Daily.
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Done and done. So glad to see these two working together with MoveOn :)
We have done enough partying! it is time for ACTION!
For months now I have been trying to tell the interested parties in Canada and United States about a method that reduces as much as 80% of greenhouse gas emissions as well reduces electricity consumption by up to 30%-50% (this depends on a few factors but is attainable), with the years of savings the method ends up costing the consumer nothing and then gives the consumer, the equivilent of a big tax rebate every year for years to come, as well having the satisfation of knowing that these consumers created thousands of jobs, reduced greenhouse gas emissions in a major way, and saved their country billions in purchasing out of country electricity.
I hope that Senator Kerry sees this letter.
Thank you.
It’s amazing that issues that carry as much importance as climate change and global warming receive so little discussion. This current President is ignoring the issue or even making it worse. (I heard Pres Bush is even considering bringing back leaded gasoline. This is insane.)
This is one of those things that has hidden costs in it for everyone. Bad air can mean more days with kids coming down with breathing problems from asthma. The climate change can mean more extreme weather which can be a financial nightmare for homeowners who can’t get insurance coverage anymore for their homes that are in ‘danger zones.’
People don’t think about this as a real issue that affects them right now, but it does. We need leadership that addresses this concern and makes it real to people and points out all the ways that this affects them in health care costs, job costs and in basic issues of where they can live, farm and work.
I’m glad that these house parties are going on. Thank you for doing this Senator and thanks to former Vice President Gore for all his efforts to draw attention to this issue.
I saw Al Gore on Oprah a week or so ago, and he was really good explaining all of the science. But what was the best part of the show was at the end, where, in Oprah fashion, he was filmed shopping at Lowe’s buying all kinds of things that save energy and reduce carbon emissions. I really hope that that appearance as well as now this e-mail organized parties raise consciousness about this very big problem. Good on our two former presidential nominees of ‘00 and ‘04 to ally together on this very important issue.
Senator Kerry’s lifelong efforts in defense of the environment really shouldn’t come as a surprise to people. But apparently they do anyway, at least in some quarters.
A recent snarkitorial in The Phoenix’s ‘Talking Politics’ section practically accused the Senator of trying to plagiarize Mr. Gore’s global-warming movement for his own upcoming book just so he could to bask in the second-hand reflected votes.
Bah and/or humbug to that, of course; truth-based posters to the subsequent comments thread roundly debunked the heck out of that blatantly dubious assertion.
So much so, in fact, that one of the people commenting in that thread posted this follow-up response under the nom du tron ‘Blarney’:
You just gotta love it when that happens.
Posted by Otter | December 14, 2006 9:05 PM
“snarkitorial”
Classic! LOL!
Otter,
The link to the snarkitorial doesn’t work on my ‘puter, but that post perfectly illustrates why the grassroots Kerry supporters need to keep on doing this and get more organized about it. The education of our fellow citizens can be done one post at a time, one LTE, one radio show call in, etc. I’m not sure how many million people we are talking about. Probably a lot fewer than many would guess.
A lot of great ideas on blogging and politics in a late ‘04 book We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People by Dan Gillmor.
Kerry advocates communicating with other countries. Conservative bloggers stick by Bush’s approach of avoiding such communication:
http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=764
I have a large family function to attend on Saturday, so won’t be able to participate in this. But I went to the website to check to see if there were parties in my area (Nebraska) and was very pleased to see that there were several in the state, though none in the Omaha area. If I were going to be in town, I’d gladly host one. My husband and I are quite concerned about environmental issues.
Meredith
(aka StoryTeller)
To Gregory Cragg - instead of telling us you have a “method” to solve global warming, why don’t you tell us what it is?
J.K. & Co.,
This is an excellent program and I hope that it can be repeated with some regularity. There’s at least one huge issue affecting our state specifically, i.e., the Nantucket Wind Farm Project. Clearly we need to focus on alternative energy solutions, but do we really want to do that by building an “airport” in the middle of our fragile coastal waters? Let’s find an alternative solution. We know that if you throw your hat in on this issue, you can strongly push for a successful alternative that doesn’t sell out Cape and Islanders and our local oceanic environment to a money-hungry private firm, whatever the positive points of their agenda just because the Army Corps of Engineers (!) says its alright.
Best,
Cataumet “cousins”
The Cape Wind Farm is still an open issue. Governor-elect Patrick in Massachusetts has signaled that he is strongly in favor of this. I think he should get the last word, as it is a State issue, after all.
Americans do need to start to build and use renewable sources of energy. I think that the Cape Wind Farm is still under review though to see if it does pass environmental muster and won’t disturb those historic fishing grounds around the Cape. Maybe Sen. Kerry is going to wait until all the facts are in and then make a decision. Not all decisions are cut and dried and sometimes you need to weigh one environmental option against another.
There is a lot on both sides of this issue. I hope those who implement it are careful and make the right choice.