07.11.06 - Gore, TODAY spread green message

By Mike Celizic; TODAYShow.com contributor
Matt Lauer was in Greenland, at the top of the planet. Literally half a world away, Ann Curry reported from Antarctica’s McMurdo Station. Joining them from a cloud forest on the equator in Ecuador was Al Roker. And putting what they were doing in perspective was Al Gore, the Nobel laureate and former vice president.

“I congratulate the TODAY Show for going to the Arctic and the Antarctic and the equator, and  really going all out to tell this story,” Gore told TODAY co-anchor Meredith Vieira, who was in New York on Monday quarterbacking the unprecedented reporting from the ends of the earth on global warming and climate change.



Gore, who also won an Oscar for his film on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” said that he’s been trying to tell the story TODAY is pursuing this week for 30 years. Winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his work has given his effort a big boost, he told Vieira.

“It’s an opportunity to communicate more effectively about the climate crisis because of the respect in which the committee awarding it is held,” Gore said. “I’ve been trying to tell this story for more than 30 years.”

In 1992, then-President George Bush had ridiculed Gore for his preaching about the damage humans are doing to the atmosphere, calling him “Ozone Man.”

“It’s not about me,” Gore said, dismissing the dig. “It’s about getting this message out to as many people as possible as quickly as possible. We face a planetary emergency, Meredith. The climate crisis is by far the largest challenge human civilization has ever faced.”

Read the full story here.