The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Jamais Cascio:

Frankly, I think Gore would have a better chance in 2012 or 2016. It's still too close to the 2000 election, and many of the same voices that worked to disparage Gore last time around are still in place. By 2012, however, the cultural churn will have been sufficient to limit the effectiveness of rehashing the same talking points, and -- much more importantly -- the effects of global warming-induced climate disruption will be all the more visible. Gore is one of the very few national figures with any real credibility on the subject, and would be well-positioned to come in as a proverbial white knight.

In short, it will probably take a few more Katrinas before people are begging him to run.

I had the pleasure of meeting Al Gore in late February, when he and I both spoke at the TED conference. At the beginning of the conference, all of the speakers got together for a raucous dinner. Working up the courage to go over to him, I introduced myself.

Now one thing not a lot of people know is that his daughter Kristin was a writer on Futurama, the science fiction cartoon from the Simpsons folks. Because of this connection, Al Gore appeareed (in cartoon form) twice; in the second appearance, he shows up as a disembodied head-in-a-jar, and is introduced as the "First Emperor of the Moon."

After exchanging the usual pleasantries, I say to him, "by the way, it's a real honor to meet the first emperor of the Moon."

Gore looks at me, leans back, and says -- in the exact voice he used on the show -- "I have ridden the mighty Moon Worm!"

Stewart Brand, who was sitting with Gore, looked a bit confused, so Gore said "I appeared a couple of times on a cartoon show called 'Futurama.' It has a bit of a... cult following."

[Fortunately, Gore really liked my talk, which opened the segment in which he spoke, so I wasn't as much of a goon in his eyes by the end of the conference.]

Comment statistics for Jamais Cascio on the Making Light blog

Total: 2 comments. View all these comments on a single page.