The love song of A. Arnold Gore

When my girlfriend dumped me in my junior year of high school, I spent the next three months envisioning elaborate scenarios in which she would realize the gravity of her mistake. By then, it would be too late and I would never take her back, but eventually she would leave me a tearful message saying, “You were right. You were right all along.”

It now occurs to me that if I had been the 45th vice president of the United States, commanding a vast fortune and lengthy Rolodex, I would probably have released a movie similar to “An Inconvenient Truth.” It had all the salient features I would have chosen to include if my bitterness had taken the shape of a major motion picture – you’re all reprobate sinners, I alone can save us, but you messed up in not electing me and the uncomfortably warm polar bears are your punishment. Also, there will be melting ice.

Al Gore did it in style. Many believed in the problem of global warming well before “An Inconvenient Truth” came out, but they weren’t suitably afraid. Moreover, they had no savior to attach to the problem, and thus no address for their checks and trophies. Gore changed all that.

But he did it through fear. And while his thesis isn’t necessarily suspect, (namely that climate change is man-made and will have detrimental effects on society), a lot of his secondary conclusions are. And while most people dismiss any criticism of Gore’s work as simply the result of Exxon Mobil’s wishful-thinking scientists, the truth is that even within the field of climatology, there are differing opinions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N. think tank, claims that Gore’s prediction that melting glaciers could raise sea levels by 20 feet is exaggerated. Richard S. Lindzen, an MIT climatologist and member of the National Academy of Sciences, called it “shrill alarmism,” according to the New York Times.

That shrill alarmism has worked out very well for Gore. As of the 2000 presidential election, his net worth was approximately $1 million. As of last year, it was closer to $100 million.  He’s won the Nobel Peace Prize and now charges a six-figure fee for speeches.

And in 2008, Gore finally got what all of the dumped long to hear. The New York Times ran an editorial that asked him to run for president. Other groups seemed to agree. “We were wrong, Albert! Please take us back! Food doesn’t taste the same, we can’t sleep at night!”

But Gore didn’t listen. We had our chance, and we squandered it. His presence in American politics was the Avalon none of us were pure enough to gaze upon. Or maybe the money wasn’t good enough, and Gore was tired of being criticized when he could be rich and respected.

It isn’t often that one betters his lot through making a movie that could be alternatively titled “This is what happens when you don’t listen to me.” And “An Inconvenient Truth” is masturbatory until the end. It is Gore’s shrine to himself, a reflection of all his purities.

It’s too bad he doesn’t believe it. Stories surfaced last year about his obnoxiously high energy bill. As if public record wasn’t enough of an embarrassment, people began noting something called “The Gore Effect,” in which places he would visit to make speeches would experience record cold temperatures. It happened in New York, New Zealand, Australia, Montreal and Alaska, just to name a few.

And so Gore closes this chapter of his life having amassed a fortune, a Nobel Prize and the shepherd’s staff of a messiah. All he lost was the pain and suffering of the campaign for office, a campaign that would have probably reintroduced whatever constraints kept him from doing anything substantial about climate change while he was still an elected official. Climate change continues on the path it was set before, and Gore’s influence stuck for a bit and then seemed to slide off. I hope his fame, his millions and his accolades will be enough of a consolation prize.