Gore Launches Climate Change Awareness Campaign

After earning an Oscar and Nobel Prize, Al Gore knows that when he speaks, people listen. Now his voice is even louder.

The Gore-led Alliance for Climate Protection, an all-out marketing blitz, launched on Monday with plans to “ignite” Americans into taking action on global climate change. “When people unite and call for action, change is inevitable,” says the Alliance’s website,http://www.wecansolveit.org/.

Known as the “we” campaign, the effort has launched its first national television ad, titled “Anthem.” The Alliance’s ads will air on a gamut of U.S. broadcast programs, from American Idol to the local morning news, and additional ads will also run in publications like People and The New Yorker. The media campaign is the beginning of a three year, $300-million effort to lobby the United States, and later the rest of the world, to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

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The launch coincided with the former vice president’s appearance on the CBS television program 60 Minutes on Sunday night. During the show, Gore presented a commercial where social justice advocate Reverend Al Sharpton and conservative Christian leader Pat Robertson sit together on a bench and jointly urge greater environmental protection.

“We are essentially issuing invitations to all Americans of all walks of life…to demand that leaders make this a priority,” said Brian Hardwick, the Alliance’s director of communications. “When I say leaders, I mean their own local leaders in businesses where they work, churches where they worship. We want people to demand from leaders of all kinds.”

After months of recruitment, 1 million people have joined the “we” Web site, Hardwick said. Visitors who sign on to the site’s pledge receive e-mails about personal actions they can take to address climate change, and the Alliance also sends news about national mobilization campaigns.

The Alliance for Climate Protection is a consortium of political, marketing, and environmental organizations. Gore initiated the new media campaign after contacting the Martin Agency, a marketing group known for creating the popular “talking gecko” ads for U.S. insurance company Geico. Alliance CEO Cathy Zoi has lead clean energy technology investments and awareness campaigns for organizations in California and Australia. Other Alliance partners include politicians from the administrations of U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, the United Steelworkers Union, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“Together we can do for future generations what our parents and grandparents did for us: confront the defining challenge of our time, and find the solutions together,” Gore said in a prepared statement.