(3 of 4)
This superstorm of change must be faced under the rising pressure of larger populations, greater competition for clean water and arable land, and shifting balances of power around the world. It's complex stuff, and Gore grows more animated and passionate the deeper he delves into the tangle. Perched on the edge of his handcrafted Tennessee rocker as if poised to spring to his feet, Gore declares that only the U.S. can lead the world through this upheaval--relying on "the machinery of politics and the mechanisms of the free market." However, at the very moment when we need better, faster decisionmaking, he continues, we find ourselves saddled instead with unresponsive government dominated by moneyed special interests. And a free market distorted by its obsession with short-term results.
Those who know Gore would say his head has always buzzed with tornadic visions of the future. But this particular project began with a question tossed his way at a conference in Switzerland eight years ago: What are the key drivers of global change? Gore tap-danced through a reply, but the question nagged on the flight home, and he began making notes on his laptop. In the weeks that followed, the question persisted, and a rough outline emerged. "It became something of an obsession," he tells me, adding a bit mysteriously, "The list wanted to fill itself out--that may sound odd."
When this man completes an outline, he really completes an outline. Gore decided two years ago to turn his project into a book and promptly removed the living-room furniture from his mansion in Nashville's Belle Meade section, filling the empty space with erasable whiteboards. His longtime marriage to his wife Tipper had dissolved. (In the book's acknowledgments, he thanks his new "partner" Elizabeth Keadle, a wealthy scientist in California.) His four children were grown and scattered to both coasts. With only his thoughts to fill his hours, his chapter outlines soon ran riot around the big room. Eventually, where Gore saw well-ordered "mind-maps" of the complex forces shaping the future, others (he had to admit) might see the demented scrawls of the schizophrenic genius in the film A Beautiful Mind.
He allows readers to judge for themselves. Gore's complicated outlines are reproduced as graphics on the opening pages of each chapter. If you ever wondered how to portray, in printed form, the nexus tying together Adam and Eve, the profit motive and spider-goats, see pages 202 and 203.
It's easy to poke fun at these spaghetti-like outlines but more difficult to find answers to the questions they pose. Around the world, humans are finally getting a handle on fatal diseases and breaking the grip of brutal tyrannies--just as we seem to be broiling the planet and gobbling up the last of its resources. Can the future have a happy ending?