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We Can Solve It

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Politics doesn't feature highly in most honeymoons (with good reason) but it was centre stage for ours. By coincidence (a planning glitch meant our trip to the Amalfi Coast was unceremoniously scrapped), my new husband and I landed in Florida – 'Home of the Hanging Chad' – just after the 2000 election between Al Gore and George Bush. By a much stranger coincidence we left two weeks later still not knowing who'd won.

I've had quite a soft spot for Mr Gore ever since. He recovered from that 'loss' and has kept himself pretty busy, thankfully not on the golf course, but as a Nobel prize-winning spokesperson for... I suppose for the planet. His new venture is We Can Solve It, an optimistic title for an optimistic site from an optimistic man – and this week's featured selection.

In an interview with American TV show 60 Minutes, Gore says "Are we destined to destroy this place we call home, Planet Earth?... That's not our destiny. We have to awaken to the moral duty that we have to do the right thing." We Can Solve It gets shortened to WE (with an upside-down M as the W – great in print, awkward on the web, Al). On the site, you can sign petitions for a global treaty on climate change and to press the press to move climate change to the top the agenda. There's also information on clean energy and renewables.

One of WE's main missions is a $300 million, three-year campaign of TV ads for the US. WE hopes this landmark campaign will motivate grass-roots Americans to demand better from corporations, the press and especially the government. The one I've seen (have a look here) is powerful and appeals to the American desire to go back to that golden age when America was perceived as a problem solver rather than the problem:

"We didn't wait for someone else to storm the beaches at Normandy

We didn't wait for someone else to guarantee civil rights

or put a man on the moon

and we can't wait for someone else to solve the global climate crisis

We need to act

And we need to act now"

I know dark greens will be sceptical. This message is baby steps and what we need right now are giant leaps for mankind. But the campaign aim is to motivate millions of people to lobby for change, to open their minds to the ideas of new technology, to get them to cut back on energy waste and to wake up to the consequences of their actions. It's a start.

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