Wal Mart allowed journalists to cover Al Gore’s global warming presentation and one of those reporting was Amanda Griscom Little from Grist Magazine. Little called Lee And Al Show a strange scene, but she saw the sense in it.

The pairing up of Gore, this season’s It Boy in Hollywood and other left-leaning circles, and Wal-Mart, the goliath retailer loved in red states and loathed in blue cities, seems bizarre on its face — and couldn’t have happened before this year. But now, with Gore trying to spread climate awareness beyond the choir and Scott trying to give Wal-Mart a high-profile green makeover, the match actually makes sense.

One of the connections that Gore made in his talk was between China and Saudi Arabia: the Chinese becoming a major buyer of Saudi crude.

Gore also waded into politics. He called the partisan bickering in Washington “pitiful, seriously pitiful,” and mocked national leaders for “borrowing a ton of money from China to buy a ton of oil from Saudi Arabia to burn it in ways that destroy the inhabitability of the planet — not a good pattern!” He also called for a radical overhaul of the American tax system: “We should sharply reduce payroll taxes and make it all up in CO2 taxes so the low- and middle-income people don’t bear the cost burden of this big transition in energy sources.”

But what Gore missed (or chose to not mention given his audience) was where is the money coming from that
China is using to buy its oil? How about all that cheap plastic (remember plastic is made from petroleum) crap that it’s selling to the Bentonvile Behemoth?

There was also an interesting moment when Wal Mart seemed to get why monoculture (a major point in Gore’s book Earth In The Balance) is a bad thing.

The produce division is ramping up its organic offerings, and plans to move toward more local farm purchases in order to save money on truck fuel costs and refrigeration. Ron McCormick, an executive in Wal-Mart’s produce division, said he plans to purchase a broader variety of produce based on what’s available in each region, rather than insisting on a “monoculture” of produce at stores nationwide. “Our whole focus is: How can we reduce food-miles?”

And, of course, Gore was asked about his presidential aspirations.

“I really believe that the highest and best use of my experience and skills may be to concentrate all-out on changing the minds of the American people about the [climate] crisis. That way, whoever does run for president faces an electorate that flat-out demands that they make this their priority.”

I like the answer because I don’t think Gore is being coy. He means it.

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 24th, 2006 at 1711 by Jeff Hess and is filed under Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.