Yesterday was my first time at a typical media event in the US.  Thanks to Joanne, I went to Al Gore’s announcement of a national challenge on climate and energy.  The even was very popular and It was a rather interesting experience.

One the one hand it was well organized in terms of communication leading to the event.  By the time Joanne and I registered, we made it only to the waiting list.  Nevertheless, the organizers kept on communicating with us and encouraged us to come, assuming that they will be able to fit in everyone.  There were indeed a lot of people and getting in was quite a mess.  Of course there were some supporters of Al Gore’s ideas, some protesters, and some advocates for vegetarianvegan food, demonstrating outside.

Inside, it was rather impressive.  It was my first time in the DAR Constitutional Hall and it was packed (probably over three thousand people).  The crowd was extremely supportive.  Gore was received with standing ovations and many times his talk was interrupted with more ovations.  Well, in fact it wasn’t interrupted, as the speech was very well planned and the ovations came in all the expected places.  It was rather short and didn’t have any famous Al Gore’s use of gadgets (which I hoped for).  I didn’t have a normal camera with me, but took a few pictures with the cell phone.

The speech itself was rather simple and short.  This is not to say it was not good, but I felt slightly used, as it was too obvious that the entire event was held for the small army of journalists who were there typing, taking pictures, and filming.  The audience was there just as a decoration, and it was a really good and interactive decoration.  You usually see it on TV, but when it happens live, the feeling is quite different.

As I said, the message was simple:

• The problem: United States is in a horrible shape with weak economy, distant wars, and high gasoline prices;
• The reason: United States’ reliance on fossil fuels;
• The solution: Shift to using renewable energy sources in 10 years from… NOW!

To help everybody with that Al Gore and Co. have launched the “We” campaign, which has a nice website with additional information about the idea and footage of yesterday’s speech.  According to the website, so far over 1.3 million people already signed up.  From a quick glance at the website, the primary goal of the campaign is advocacy and it is used as a vehicle to collect signatures on various petitions.

As I said, it was an interesting experience.  It was not only a typical media event of a kind you usually see on TV (especially now, with all the coverage of US presidential election) - one that is carefully planned and has a weird mixture of sincere ideas and crafted messages.  The way the speech was delivered was also interesting.  Maybe this is the image of Al Gore that i had in my head - one of a global liberal thinker concerned with the future of the entire planet, but I found the speech to be extremely US-centric.  That makes sense in light of my other observations above (after all it is a carefully planned event), but the level of patriotism and nationalism in Al Gore’s speech caught my ear.  It sounded as if US is the world and solving the national problems will definitely make the rest of the planet a better place.  Without judging this way of presentation, it was surprising.

As to the substance, I am no expert on energy, but it looks like the speech was recieved with mixed feelings (not by the audience in the hall, but by experts elsewhere).  Nevertheless, it also seems that the environmental questions are entering every domain of public discourse, including telecom policy.