Mark Hertsgaard's Blog

Fresh from winning the Nobel peace prize for his climate change evangelism, Al Gore is apparently considering an invitation from a prominent environmental group to engage in civil disobedience against the construction of new coal-fired power plants.

Rainforest Action Network issued the invitation to the former U.S. vice president, according to RAN executive director Michael Brune. The San Francisco-based group has a twenty year history of protesting against destructive logging practices and other causes of climate change; it specializes in targeting corporations as much as governments.

“We came across a quote from Gore in an interview with [New York Times] columnist Nicholas Kristoff back in August, saying he didn’t understand, quote, ‘why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them constructing new coal-fired power plants,’” said Brune. “We thought, ‘Great idea!’ That’s the kind of activism we do at RAN. So we decided to invite Gore to join us.”

Gore’s office confirmed that the former vice president had received RAN’s invitation and was considering it, though no decision has been made.

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Now that Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, will the US Congress take the IPCC’s scientific advice on how to fight global warming? The IPCC holds that the world must reduce greenhouse gas emissions at least 80 percent by the year 2050. Few in Congress seem prepared to go that far, however. And judging from the discussion at a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill last week, even lawmakers who personally embrace the “gold standard” of 80 percent reductions are prepared to endorse a weaker measure in the name of getting some form of climate legislation moving in Congress.

“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” So goes one of the oldest sayings in politics, generally invoked by reformers who think that half a loaf of progress is better than none. Often the reformers agree privately with more ambitious colleagues who want the entire loaf, but they argue that pushing too hard and too soon may end up yielding no progress at all.

There are times when this is sound strategic advice. Is the current battle over global warming legislation one of those times?

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