Image by OpenDemocracy
Al Gore is in Rome this Thursday for the launch of the Italian edition of Current, his television channel around user generated content, and I am among the dozen or two people invited to meet him for a couple of hours’ conversation. The questions we are going to ask him were themselves voted upon on the Current platform, in a very open manner, which was contested by some, but in my opinion was really good. (Maybe because my question received a lot of votes?)
I am going to link two of Gore’s themes and ask him how the bottom up content that Current can host and distribute together with his presentations, and sensor networks like OpenSpime is capable of positively impacting the political process and implement those necessary levers that bring forth the change we need with respect to our environment.
Because this is in my opinion the crux of the question! Al Gore on one hand influences the public discourse and popularizes the concept of the Climate Crisis, on the other hand declares that individual behavior is not going to have an impact without public policy following it too, as reported in the New York Times’ opinion piece:
“Mr. Gore’s ambition is not just to change individual behavior by getting people to buy energy-saving light bulbs: it is to change policy. Whether he can compete with the public’s preoccupations with war and the economy is unclear, but it is certainly worth the effort.”
The interaction of these two forces, from the bottom up on one hand, and from the top down on the other, is going to be a crucial element on how quickly we can implement change, and how effective we are going to be facing our existential threats as a species.