What is The Alliance for Climate Protection?

While pundits the world over were busy speculating about whether Al Gore's new Nobel Peace Prize would send him back on a quest to be the next president of the United States, Gore was quietly making planet Earth's "PR Agent" a little richer.

Within minutes of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, he had announced that his $750,000 share of the prize (split evenly with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) would be donated to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a year-old California-based non profit group.

So what is the Alliance for Climate Protection?

Well, it is Al Gore, substantially -- not that his gift will make the man any richer. He is the chairman of the board, and the organization can be thought of as a vast extension of Al Gore's now-famous slide show depicted in An Inconvenient Truth. It's received many of the proceeds of the film, and the Live Earth concert.

"Our mission is to persuade the American people -- and people elsewhere in the world -- of the importance and urgency of adopting and implementing effective and comprehensive solutions for the climate crisis," reads the group's mission statement.

As one example -- of both the group's near-synonymous relationship with Gore, and of its mission -- the Alliance for Climate Protection was a partner in the Live Earth concerts that Gore and Kevin Wall staged to raise consciousness about global warming. Another: Its "working with Gore's Current TV and such actors as George Clooney and Orlando Bloom, the alliance created a '60 Seconds to Save the Earth' contest in which people were invited to submit short videos on taking environmental action," according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

But the group is non-partisan, with prominent Republicans and business people sitting beside Gore on the board, and its mission is clear: It uses advertising techniques to get the message out, and inspire lobbying and action among its audience.

"The Alliance for Climate Protection is undertaking an unprecedented mass persuasion exercise based on scientific facts," according to the group's Web site. "Through a new combination of non-partisan alliances with Americans from all walks of life and innovative and far-reaching communication techniques the Alliance will focus on presenting the facts about climate change and its solutions to the general public in an accurate, clear and compelling manner."

COMMENTS ()