We went to see Al Gore speak last night at UMBC's Maryland Forum. His lecture was basically the same information that is contained in An Inconvenient Truth, although there were some nods to Baltimore and Maryland as well as some good edits (no big-eyed polar bear animation). There were a couple of hecklers in the audience who tried to yell out something in the early parts (probably the latest "rebuttal" of the data wherein they posit that Mars is also warming, neglecting to mention that they are basing this on only two temperature readings taken at different times of the Martian year). Gore did a drive-by on them, hardly stopping but indicating to them that the time for questions would be at the end, then plowed on through the slides. The other major difference between this live lecture and the movie, besides throwing out all the "up close and personal with Al Gore" stuff, was how much more passionate he comes across on the topic, not to mention a fair amount of Christian references and analogies (albeit always prefaced with a "your religious tradition might not be the same as mine, but..."). If anything, as J and I discussed on the way home, this talk was much more like a sermon. Usually that kind of thing bothers me, especially when politicians do it to shore up the religious vote, but since Gore is framing his call to action on climate change as an ethical issue, I thought it actually wasn't out of place, even if I don't share his tradition. The audience was likely 95% sold on it, as well, so it was also like a church service in that Gore in his role as a preacher delivered a sermon that was trying to inspire others to be evangelical on this issue. This goes along with the fact that he's now trained 1,500 "disciples" to also give the same slide show.

The lecture started about 30 minutes late (the UMBC arena was sold out and packed, and most of that time was simply getting everyone in the door and seated, although I think there might have been some additional time spent waiting on the VIPs to get there from their dinner with Gore before the lecture), so when the end came, there was only time for three questions in the following Q&A period. Unfortunately the first one wasn't a question but somebody who wanted to make a speech on Darfur. If she could have at least framed it as a question, I might have had more sympathy, but I was personally tempted to boo her at the mic. I sincerely think her "speech" had a negative impact on people's perceptions of the issue, as she placed it before people inappropriately. The second question was a little bit better. Someone on a local planning board wanted to know what one or two major issues should be addressed on a local basis to begin the process of reversing the course of climate change. Gore's answer rambled, unfortunately, although he did mention transportation and smart growth laws. The final question wasn't really a question either, although it was at least framed as one. The speaker was a Goddard employee who asked Gore to speak to his former colleagues in Congress about maintaining the Earth Sciences funding at NASA so that climate change could continue to be studied. Given that Barbara Mikulski, aka Maryland's Senior Senator and No. 1 Goddard Fan, was in the front row, Gore noted that the "question" had already been heard by the most influential person in Congress on that issue.