Name
Professor Martin
1301 S13
18 February 2007 
As a Matter of Fact
While former vice president Al Gore is very devoted to his cause, his speech, Finding Solutions to the Climate Crisis, could easily have gone bad. The excessive use of statistics, facts, and even logical reasoning can make a speech, or essay, dry and boring. However when these appeals to logic are balanced by emotive language, and the ability to relate to the speaker, they carry a lot of weight towards the goal of convincing an audience that the speaker’s point is valid. Throughout his speech Gore throws in words with emotional weight, whether obvious or understated. By doing this he shocks his audience with the cold water of factual reality just before instilling them with the hope inherent in humanity’s progression to the future. He gives out the cold facts, without skewing them, and allows them to speak for themselves. The manner in which he melds emotional language and cold truth succeeds in painting a linguistic picture of a dying world, yet in this world he shows that everyday Americans can take a stand and lead their government to being one of the heroes of this dark era.
	Gore sets the theme of his speech with the first words out of his mouth, “A few days ago, scientists announced alarming new evidence.” Evidence, such a plain word, I hear it everyday in the primetime television shows about police and CSI’s. Yet despite the innocuous nature of this common word it symbolizes the manner in which Gore convinces his audiences. Every paragraph is seeded with logic and evidence that cannot be denied. Like the fingerprints on the murder weapon he points out the glaring signs that mankind is adversely affecting the global climate at an alarming rate.
	In fact the majority of the speech is merely an organized compilation of evidence. This is actually one of the points of strength in Gore’s speech. Many of the statements, and statistics he gives about the, “Climate Crisis,” could easily be ignored as inconsequential, or played off as what some call, “cyclical changes.” For example, most people know that there have been a great number of wild fires throughout western America, after all, that’s normal; every year there’s been a dry season and some fires, for as long as I can remember. That’s how it is for the average American, a person hears that there has been a fire and hopes that everyone is alright, or one mourns the dead. It is on the news, fire after fire, year after year, and still one can overlook the fact that there have been more and more, and that the fires have been growing in intensity. For all that the evidence is staring everyone in the face; one does not always connect the dots from the increasing amount of wild fires to the fact that the last few years have been the hottest on record.  Gore, however, binds these and other facts together in his speech, and in doing so he takes an easily missed blood trail in the woods and shows us the irrefutable proof, the rotting corpse if you will.
	Equally important is the manner in which Gore tells the facts. It is impossible to tell a person something, in an interesting and attention grabbing manner, and not impose even the slightest of emotional overtones to the facts. And if one had any doubts as to the credibility of the speaker one might worry that he was somehow twisting the truth. I for one have a good many issues with the idea of unthinkingly trusting politicians, and I am quite certain I am not alone in that opinion. While Gore does not actively defend his credibility very often in his speech, he is always saying where his facts come from. In the beginning of his speech the information is from scientists. Later he cites different groups that hold similar beliefs about the issue of the “Climate Crisis,” and is even so specific as to say how many known individuals of groups that stereotypically oppose his position have actually changed their minds and come out supporting his side of the argument. By showing that his information is widely supported, it reassures his audience that he is trustworthy.
	He shows the audience that he is trustworthy not only so they accept the facts of his speech, but also so that they are receptive to the ideas he and other leading minds have come up with to combat this potential catastrophe. I have implied that Gore’s speech was primarily about global warming, and I hold with that. To be more specific however, his speech focuses the facts of the present to provoke his audience into taking action to save their future.  He is giving his audience all these disturbing facts, not in blocks all together, but alternating them with how we can stop what is happening.
	An excellent example is when he talks about, “one-way trade.” He paints a deeply disturbing image from his own experience, and then goes on to explain that it not only looks ugly, but that it is an ugly omen for the future of our economy. Now, were he to leave us with that and move on to yet another horrible subject, a reader could easily decide to stop reading as he is only doomsaying. After all what use is knowledge of a dark future if there is nothing anyone can do about it? Thankfully he does not leave it at that, instead he continues smoothly on into the matter of how to turn that situation around to be beneficial. The same is done with the issue of oil, gasoline, and coal as energy sources. Gore explains how harmful these substances are to the environment; he shocks listeners with the lack of development in their technologies, and disturbs them with the greed of the corporations that monopolize these resources. After which he tells his audience how other nations are making laws to fix these problems, and how, with a little push from the people, America can do so as well.
Gore seems very aware of what a careful balance he must keep. If he disturbs the audience too much they will not be nearly as receptive to his plans to solve the problem; if he does not scare people enough they will not do anything. This idea of a crisis driving change is not a new one. Individuals such as Martin Luther King jr. realized that when “such a crisis” occurs “a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.” While King’s argument is in defense of nonviolent protesting it applies itself as a potent metaphor for the way Gore’s speech is meant to affect his audience. In the case of Gore’s speech the crisis is not a protest or demonstration making life difficult, it is in fact the looming danger of our environment becoming uninhabitable. He makes it very clear that on a world wide scale America has been the nation covering its eyes and refusing to believe there is an issue to be dealt with. 
So by making his audiences confront the issue in their own minds he is partaking in an ages old method of stirring people to action. Yet again, I must stress that he does not merely do this with a doom and gloom attitude. If he were not giving out as much hope as he was doling out fear the only attitude he would foster would be that of hysteria, which is certainly not the mood he wants to propagate. What he wants people to feel is that there is a grand opportunity here. That this crisis is an opportunity to save America’s rural citizens that are falling into poverty. It is an opportunity to improve America’s defense against terrorism by spreading it’s energy sources widely across the nation, and by increasing the variety of energy production methods. As opposed to the convenient system of massive electricity plants and oil refineries, that if they were to be taken out it would cause great devastation to our economy. Changing the energy system would open the opportunity for America to improve its economic defense against natural disasters. And on top of all these others, there is the opportunity to rise above recent international shame and lead the nations once again.
This brings me to another, more subtle point Gore makes. America has historically been one of the most inventive, and innovative nations of the world. America developed its space program just to show up the Soviet Union. Thus Gore’s speech begs people to consider the unspoken questions. If we did it then, why are we not doing the same now? He tells us how so much of the technology is in its infancy. It is sitting unfunded, waiting for the government and big corporations to stop suppressing its developers. Some technologies are even fully available but American citizens may never see them. However if the government stops bowing to corporate will and demands that these technologies be made more readily available Americans could within a decade see massive improvements in solar, fuel cell, and electric car technologies. Why are we not utilizing these potential resources? Why is a contest with another nation enough to spur the amazing creations like what was developed during the space race, whose advances are still in use today, from simple things like Tang powdered juice, to satellites that do everything from taking photographs of places world wide to connecting cell phones.  And why are Americans now being passed by so many other nations in the race to save the environment? 
It is the mere fact that Gore is able to get people to consider these unspoken questions that brings me to believe he is an apt public speaker. He speaks the truth, and those that listen do not merely hear it, they feel the meaning behind the facts. After a speech from Gore, one can almost see the events of the future, and some people for a time feel driven to make a difference. Perhaps if Gore’s audience continues to grow he will achieve his dream. If enough people are infected with that need to act and to change the way they treat the environment, a need that Gore so well inspires, humanity may survive to see “a future worthy of the generations who come after us and who have a right to be able to depend on us.” 

Works Cited
Gore, Al. “Finding Solutions To The Climate Crisis.” 18 September 2006. 11February 2007 
< http://algore.org >. 
King jr, Martin. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” 16 April 1963. 31 January 2007 
<http://www.africa.unpenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html >.