DEUTSCH: You liked that?

Mr. GORE: I just want to clarify. William Hung was a rock star. I just have a slide show. But it's been fun. You know, I'm old enough to know that a red carpet's just a rug, and I can enjoy the pageantry and all the great experiences. Tipper and I love that. But I don't lose a sense of perspective about it. And because of my earlier career in politics for almost 30 years on the national, international stage, you know, this is a different way of communicating a message about transformational change.

One of the things I learned in the White House, Donny, was that yes, it's true that a president can have unparalleled influence on events. But if the people are not ready for it, if they're big changes that are needed, and the people are not supportive, and the Congress won't move, and nothing changes, our constitutional system is really designed to make it difficult to bring about big changes. The only way we can solve this crisis is by bringing about a sea change in public attitudes, in this country first and foremost, because we're the natural leaders of the world. But then all around the world, including in
China.

I've now trained, by the way , 1,300 people to give my slide show in their own voices, with their own passion. I'm starting a training program in China, I'm starting one in India, starting one in Africa, South America. I'm in this for the long haul. We're going to win this. But we may have as little as 10 years in order to make big changes, in order to avoid losing the chance to save this.

DEUTSCH: But--we do have 10 years, that's interesting. Everybody asks you, you know, `Mr. Vice President, would you ever run for president?' And you've said in so many different instances, `Well, I'm effecting a different kind of change here, and I have a certain freedom.' In other instances you say, but you know, when you--as president, if you...(unintelligible)...things through, there's a certain kind of power. We're 500 days away. But let's say now we're 300 days away from the election, and all of your proposals, a lot of them that you've laid out, in terms of whether it's the CO2 tax, or any other things, none of the current candidates have embraced. Now, I've got two paths. It's OK, you know. If my goal is to change the world in this way, and I've put this prescription out there, and I don't see any of the guys taking the football, do you then, to use your words, have a moral imperative to run at that point?

Mr. GORE: I don't expect to be a candidate, you know. I...

DEUTSCH: That's the answer...(unintelligible)

Mr. GORE: Well, but I--and it's, you know, it's safe language, because it captures the nuance that I want to convey to you. But--and I see no need to make a so-called Sherman statement.

DEUTSCH: Yeah.

Mr. GORE: I'm 59, as you say, that's the new 58, you know.

DEUTSCH: You know, I just turned 50, which is the new 30, so...(unintelligible)

Mr. GORE: Well, it may be a logarithm. Anyway, I'm really focused on this, and I have kind of fallen out of love with politics. What politics has become in the sound byte era, and the television commercial--the 30 second commercial era, demands talents that I don't think I necessarily have in abundance; a tolerance for manipulative, repetitive messaging and so forth. I really like the challenge of delivering what I deeply believe to be the truth about our situation, and trying to bring about change that we need worldwide. We have utterly transformed the relationship between human beings and the earth in less than 100 years. We've quadrupled human population on this planet in less than a century, and we have multiplied the power that we use in exploiting nature by thousands of time over. And we're now literally changing the heat balance between the earth and the sun. It's unbelievable what we're doing. And realizing it is a challenge to the moral imagination.

I--the climate has these tipping points. The political system also has a tipping point. And that's--my goal is to push the whole political system across that tipping point, beyond which the people say--and the leaders have to say we're going to solve this.

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