Andrea Reimer At Large

I've Been Gored

It's been seven weeks since I stepped onto the Al Gore freight train in Nashville and still no sign of it slowing down. There's been media interviews, frenzied bookings for over two dozen events, reading hundreds of pages of new reports on the impacts of climate change, harried lessons in remote control power point projectors, four new and voluminous email listserves or various Climate Project trainee groupings, lunches, dinners, phone calls, emails...it's all climate change all the time and it just keeps coming.

On the plus side, of the two thousand some odd generations that have walked the Earth in 50,000 years of civilization, how many have gotten to live through the broad scale paradigm shift we are standing in the eye of right now? A case in point was the BC government's throne speech -- incidentally possibly also the longest throne speech in 50,000 years of history -- last Tuesday. If someone had told me a year ago even one sentence of the section on climate change would be spoken in our legislature, I would have told them it was impossible. It's a satisfying thing to see a government change its mind, but it's a beautiful thing to see a government change its heart.

Seeing Red Part 2

Another long day of Way. Too. Much. Information. This time it wasn't Al/Mr. Gore helping us along but instead Andy Goodman. Andy is an expert in making public presentations and a former comedy writer and thus a very funny guy. His job as a member of the Climate Project faculty is to help us out with the vibe of the thing.

Incidentally, if you belong to a non-profit or one of a whole bunch of acronyms that weren't translated into Canadian but sounded important, you can get a FREE copy of his book on how to give better presentations. And may I just say as a former elected official who sat through way too many excruciating power point presentations, you (yes I mean you) could benefit from clicking on that link above.

The First 24 Hours

24 hours into the Climate Project and my husband, friends and staff will be so pissed off to know that, 2000 miles away from home, I've been rendered (almost) speechless for the first time in quite a long while.

True, it was a long day which seems perhaps an inadequate way to describe sitting through the same 250+ slide power point twice in one day. First we did it "fast" (three plus hours) and then we did it slow (four plus hours). Somewhere around slide 191 on the second go-through I started to get that sublime out of body experience one has when their fever is really, really high. But I didn't have a fever, just a massive case of brain overload.

One of the reasons I came down here is because I was completely blown away by Al/Mr. Gore's ability to communicate in the movie. Given that I’m down here on his dime it’s probably impolitic to say it but I really didn’t find him that effective a communicator as a presidential candidate so I was doubly blown away by what he accomplished with the movie. Today, I was triply blown away.

Journey to Nashville Part 3: Nashville

After one bus depot, four airports and 22 hours I made it to the conference centre and the hotel we were staying at around noon today. I'm staying with another trainee and the room was in her name so I found myself starting my very first stay in a Hilton hotel...stalking the lobby for Margaret to check in so that I could get into a nice warm, horizontal bed. Not only was I stalking Margaret but something in my sleep-deprived brain thought it was OK to tell the guy at the desk this. He took it pretty well which may say something about the nature of Nashville folks. He even remembered that I'd asked for her when she came in about 20 minutes later.

With a couple more hours of sleep under my belt I struggled down to the trainee registration, took a pass on an informal giddy-a-thon in one of the conference rooms with the other trainee and decided to get some food. Heading outside I was amazed at how cold it was. I mean the weather channel said it would be cold but for some reason I just couldn't imagine Nashville as a sort of 0 degree celsius sort of place.

Found food, got back to hotel in time to sit through welcome speech by Climate Project staff, said polite words to some other trainees, went back to bed for an hour more in the hopes to be refreshed for the main event: dinner at Union Station with an address from Al Gore.

The amazing thing is that Al Gore looks exactly the same in person as he does in the movie. That probably sounds like a weird thing to say but generally speaking when I've met people from movies or TV, they look nothing like the people they play. And I guess that's kind of the point: Al Gore was playing, is playing...Al Gore. But it certainly has the affect of triple-underlining that this is the real thing.

Al (Mr. Gore?) gave a very gracious welcome that I will not butcher by paraphrasing here other than one little piece. He said that this past week the Climate Project trainees from the first four sessions have officially given the presentation to more people than he's been able to the entire time he's been doing the show. Amazing to think of the power of the people! Although I'm suspecting he's not including the movie viewing numbers in there but I guess I'll find out tomorrow. We're up at 7:00 am (5:00 in my head for those who care about such things) and start going through slide by slide with Al/Mr. Gore.

As they say at Tootsie's country and western bar where a group of us stopped for a beer on the way back from Union Station - goodnight y'all.

Journey to Nashville Part 2: Charlotte (North Carolina)

(written at 4:50 am - January 8)

Before today I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard of Charlotte specifically although I can say that I’ve heard of North Carolina. I may have even hitchhiked through the state in my younger years on my way somewhere north or south but the best I can remember is that North Carolina is north of South Carolina, which itself has some very memorable beaches.

Charlotte and I are not getting acquainted under the best of circumstances. I’ve been on the road since 3:00 yesterday afternoon and now, 14+ hours later with just three teency hours of sleep under my belt – one on the bus from Vancouver to Seattle and two on the flight from Seattle to Charlotte – I’m several hundred miles further east than my destination (couldn’t they just have handed me a parachute over Nashville?) and trying to navigate what I think must be the biggest building I’ve ever been in at 4:49 am in the morning.

Apparently Charlotte is the hub for US Airways, an entity that I’m not all that familiar with. US Airways is itself apparently unfamiliar with the concept of a map in their 100+ gate terminal which seems strange for a company whose job it is to get people from point A to point B. Maybe they feel this responsibility on their part extends only off the ground.

Journey to Nashville Part 1: Seattle

(written at 10:45 pm - January 7th)

I’m at the Seattle Airport which I’ve learned is probably the only airport in North America that uses it’s outdoor public address system not to tell you about where you can and can’t park but instead to tell you where you can and can’t smoke. It’s nice not to be reminded of terrorism every 23 seconds when you’re about to take an airplane. But just like the “no parking in the blue zone” announcement the loop starts to drive you just a little crazy.

After giving John Baird a hard time for the carbon emissions from his impending Ottawa to Stanley Park discovery tour, I’m on a plane journey of my own. Mine is to Nashville to see Al Gore and learn from him how to give his power point presentation from An Inconvenient Truth. For those of you that saw the movie and wondered well that’s all really scary but what the hell can I do about it, this was something you could do. The Climate Project was set up after the movie and one of its first aims is to train 1,000 people in the United States, Canada and Australia to give Gore’s presentation in their local communities.

In an eerie echo of climate change itself however, you only had a limited time to get it together. For now at least the sign up is closed. Although you may want to count yourself lucky: you only had 65 agonizing words to say why you should get to go and, among other things, meet a man who describes himself as “the guy who used to be the next President of the United States”.

Now you’ll have to wait and come hear me evangelize (does it say something about a person if it takes them four tries to spell evangelize right?) instead and get involved in an effort much closer to home.