A Talk With Al Gore About Climate Change, Birthers and His New App

No, Al Gore did not invent the Internet, but the former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner has always has a hand in high-tech, even as he warned the world about global warming. Those two interests are intersecting with the release of a new iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch app version of his recent climate and energy book Our Choice. The app is one of the first truly multimedia e-books, with interactive graphics, video, photos with geolocation and narration by Gore himself. Gore sat down with TIME’s Bryan Walsh in the New York offices of Gore’s firm Generation Investment to talk about the Our Choice app, the state of the climate movement and post-truth politics.

Q: Does the app get you a new audience for the book?

A: Yes it does. We live in a multi-platform world. I think that the app experience is a magical one that will give it a lot of velocity as a media form because it combines books, movies, audio, animation and interactive features. There is nothing between you and the content, and there is no computer hurdle to clear. You just touch it with your finger, blow on it and manipulate it. It’s very intuitive.

(See why Al Gore wants businesses to step up to stop climate change.)

Q: Will this change the writing and the reading experience? Is this the future of books?

A: This is an evolutionary process that will find it’s own pace. My personal view is that it is going to happen fairly quickly. The advantages of an app are immediately obvious to many people who interact with it. But just as movies need a script and scripts need scriptwriters, apps that are rich in content will still be derived in one way or another from books. At some point, though, it will reach an inflection point where people begin to think about in the first instance of how the app is going to take form.

Q: Would your next book go straight to the app format?

A: If I were the age of these guys [indicating the app designers in the room], I would. But since I’m not I will probably repeat just writing first. If my learning process moves quickly, maybe instead of waiting until he last stages of the book to think about the app I will think about it at the beginning.

(See pictures of Al Gore’s American life.)

Q: How has your media consumption changed in recent years with the advent of the iPad, Twitter and other technologies?

A: I think it’s a richer experience. I tweeted the introduction of this app approximately two and a half seconds after I got the go ahead. I remember when I was a kid, television was just going in. My family didn’t get its first TV until I was 10 years old. I remember a stretch of quite a few years when people would say they had read a story in the New York Times, and then they would say, “I saw Walter Cronkite report the same story” but my experience of it was completely different. As we become bimedial, I think that it’s a richer experience. And I don’t think anything has to be lost.

Q: Where is the climate movement right now? Is it still about pushing the message out to the public, trying to build the political will for action?

A: That’s still the model of change that I am operating on. And I’m doubling down on all of my efforts to get the facts communicated as clearly as I am capable of communicating them, and importantly, to communicate the solutions. The great thing about this tool is that it draws people in and it makes the story easier to absorb. Years ago I shifted from making speeches about climate to presenting slideshows precisely because the complexity of the material makes it easier to communicate with pictures. Interactive infographics make it easier still.

Q: Has the case been conclusively made now on the science of climate change?

A: Well, I thought the case was made that Obama was born in the United States…

(See photos of how King penguins are affected by climate change.)

Q: That’s interesting — you wrote in the 2007 book The Assault on Reason about the increasingly post-truth nature of politics. Is there a way to deal with this on the climate question? Fight it with more facts?

A: Buy the app! As Theodore Adorno said, “the conversion of all questions of truth to questions of power has attacked the very heart of the distinction between true and false.” I thought the [birther] issue was receding when I wrote this introduction, but it’s a clear example of what’s going on. It so closely resembles the willful refusal of climate skeptics to accept the truth of the climate crisis. It’s like the Moynihan quote: “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.” For me the [climate change] case was made a long time ago. But the political chapter contains one of the most startling facts about this. [He shows an illustration indicating that 19% of college-educated Republicans believe in climate change, compared to 75% of college-educated Democrats.] That difference is astonishing, and it also echoes the birther controversy.

Q: Has this polarization always been this case?

A: No it hasn’t.

(See a video of an adolescent’s eye on climate change.)

Q: What’s happened to bring us to this?

A: People tend to follow their leaders.

Q: In terms of getting at that 19% of Republicans, does a solutions-oriented message, one that focused on energy and the potential for jobs, does that have a better shot?

A: I think that’s a message that is integral to solving the climate crisis.

Q: Does it make a real difference when people see these solutions at work in the real world?

A: Yes, it does. You know, News Corporation has some media properties that promote the denial of global warming, but News Corp. itself has decided to go carbon neutral. And they have. [Gore laughs.] And it works for them — it makes them money. That’s an illustration. You find lots and lots of people who may never agree chapter and verse on the nature of the problem who are nevertheless very interested in the solutions because they make sense for so many other reasons.

(See the surprisingly long history of Green Energy.)

Q: So it may not matter why they’re doing it, as long as they support these solutions?

A: Exactly.

Q: Are we falling behind China on climate and energy?

A: The app tells that story and not only in words but also in pictures and all the other elements that I have mentioned. China clearly made a choice to move as quickly as they possibly can. Have you seen their new Five Year Plan? It’s astonishing. I looked at the speeches by Xi Jinping, the next president — wow. The depth of knowledge in his speeches is quite convincing and surprising to Western eyes. They have clearly made a choice. To that extent I hope that the app will continue to contribute to that same choice being made elsewhere. And especially here.

Q: Do you still feel confident we will make he right choice?

A: Yes I do. I do.

See pictures of the effects of global warming.

See TIME’s Pictures of the Week.