Published: May 04, 2006 09:38 am      

Al Gore and the Tennessee Bird Walk

RICHMOND — “Oh, remember me my darling, when spring is in the air. When bald-headed birds are whispering everywhere. When you see them walking southward in their dirty underwear. It’s The Tennessee bird walk.”

— Jack Blanchard and Misty Morgan



I have not seen birds walking southward in dirty underwear, but something is wrong with the weather. It gets hot in the winter, cold in the summer and extreme storms are common.

Many experts say that global warming is the cause.

I don’t really understand the science behind global warming, but I do understand that things are getting weird and will continue to get weirder.

I helped coordinate Al Gore’s 1988 presidential campaign for Kentucky. Two years later, I drove him from Lexington’s airport to a function in Paris, Ky. As we drove, I told him a story that I thought was funny. He told me about a book that he had written about the environment.

He didn’t laugh at my anecdote, and I didn’t understand his thoughts about global warning.

I wish Gore could have laughed at my story. He would have walked into the presidency if he had been a little looser.

I wish that I had grasped his warnings about the effects of global warming. I wasn’t in a position to stop global warming, but I would have been more interested and engaged.

I also would have made more money. Ceres, a coalition of environmentalists and institutional investors, recently issued a report about how 100 of the world’s top companies will compete in a “carbon-constrained world.”

There will be business winners and losers because of global warming. CEOs had better put it on their agenda. Investors and stockholders had better do the same.

I’ve never been a big environmentalist. Green has been about making money. Now environmentalists and the moneymakers need to get on the same page.

We will hear about Gore’s quest to curtail global warming in May with the release of a documentary film called, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

I won’t be surprised if Gore wins the presidency in 2008. In a strange way, his career is the 21st century parallel of his father’s arch nemesis, Richard Nixon.

Both Nixon and Gore were a little too serious to be in politics. Both were congressmen, senators and vice presidents at young ages. Both followed two-term presidents and “lost” disputed presidential elections that they were expected to win. Both lost to men of privilege with shorter resumes. Both were written off politically and skipped the next presidential election.

Nixon came back and won eight years later. Gore says he is not running for president, but I bet he will. He has a mission, and the presidency or even a campaign for president is a bully pulpit.

Although I am convinced that John Edwards is the person to beat, Gore has the name recognition, resources and issue to jump in the race at any time. He is the rare candidate who can show that he is driven by a cause and not just by personal ambition.

He is inching back into the national spotlight and, as “Fahrenheit 9-11” and other documentaries have shown, movies have become an effective tool in focusing political attention.

Like it or not, global warming is part of our lives. When I run the air conditioning in January, the furnace in July and see hurricane after hurricane, I don’t have to be convinced that something is wrong. Global warming was a tough issue to get excited about in 1990. It’s not so tough now.

It went from only being debated in environmental circles to becoming a serious business issue. People in the automotive, energy, travel and insurance businesses should be thinking about it every day.

I have not seen Gore in a long time, but I am sure that he is still a serious guy, focused on serious issues. He is never going to be a fun-loving, backslapper and wouldn’t think that the Tennessee Bird Walk is a funny song.

But when bald-headed birds are whispering everywhere, we might want someone like Al Gore to tell us why it is happening and how to stop it.

Don McNay is president of McNay Settlement Group and can do the Tennessee Bird Walk dance. You can write to him at don@donmcnay.com or read other things he has written at www.donmcnay.com. His award-winning column is syndicated on the CNHI News Service. He is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.