By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor
March 12, 2008
(CNSNews.com) - A national advertising campaign contrasting Al Gore's "energy-consuming lifestyle" with the need for energy in developing countries was launched by a conservative think tank Tuesday despite charges from global warming activists that the new effort merely recycles old attacks on the former vice president.
"Activists are always warning us about the alleged threats from global warming, but they are usually silent about the much more immediate dangers from global warming policies," Sam Kazman, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), said after the new ad was unveiled at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
"Restricting access to affordable energy is a sure recipe for increasing poverty, disease and human misery around the world," said Kazman, who helped create the 60-second spotto run over the next two weeks in markets across the country, including Boston, Phoenix, Orlando, Pittsburgh and the nation's capital.
The advertisement begins with the sound of a chain being pulled and video of a light bulb coming on. "Here's the electricity we use at home," a male narrator says.
The bulb then goes dark as four rows of five bulbs come on behind it. "Al Gore uses 20 times as much," the narrator continues, referring to a report released last year on the former vice president's Nashville mansion by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.
Pictures of the former vice president with celebrities who are also global warming activists - such as actor Leonardo DiCaprio and comedian Larry David with his wife, Laurie, who produced Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth" - then fill the screen.
"Mr. Gore's friends use lots of energy, too, but Al Gore wants to cut our energy use, putting our jobs and our future in jeopardy," the male voice states. "Mr. Gore's future, on the other hand, couldn't be brighter.
"We depend on reliable, affordable energy for our food, our transportation, our homes," the narrator continues. "It's the best protection we have against the hazards of life, and it's even more important to people elsewhere who are struggling to survive, to break out of the prison of poverty.
"For them, affordable energy is something to hope for and something to celebrate," he says as a video shows the people in Pignon, Haiti, cheering the arrival of that town's first streetlight in February 2005.
"But what will happen to that hope if we restrict energy use?" the narrator asks.
"Some people may have a bright future," he continues, as an image of Gore in a tuxedo fills the screen. "But don't kid yourself - without affordable energy, hundreds of millions of people won't have any future at all," the narrator concludes as the original light bulb re-appears and then goes dark.
The CEI campaign comes in response to Gore's March 1 announcement of a major new set of ads from his Alliance for Climate Protection to promote the global warming issue, Kazman told Cybercast News Service Tuesday.
The first spot from the Alliance shows such items as a coffee maker, a heating vent, and a clothes dryer each producing a black balloon, which then works its way up until they almost fill the sky.
"Each one of these balloons represents two ounces of greenhouse gas," narrator Tommy Lee Jones explains. "You can't see it, but you produce greenhouse gases every time you use energy. The average home produces over 200,000 balloons every year."
"Save energy, and you'll also save money and reduce your impact on climate change," he adds before referring viewers to the organization's Web site for further information.
The Alliance for Climate Protection did not respond to several requests for comment regarding this article by press time.
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