Gore Takes a Cue from Wayne Gretzky

While I've never really been that interested in sport and the finer points of hockey always eluded me, I always remember the confession of Canada's most succesful players, Wayne Gretzky,  who said, "I pass the puck not to where they are but where they are going to be."

Gore quoted Gretzky in an impassioned speech delivered in Bali a few hours ago talking about the need not just to anticipate (which is what I think the hockey player had in mind) but also to hold space for a player who clearly wasn't yet playing the same game. He urged the participants in the climate change conference not to wait on the US to create an agreement but to "move forward keeping a large blank space in your mandate, saying our mandate is incomplete but we're moving forward in the hope that it will be filled in by the time we have a treaty in Copenhagen at the end of 2009". Gore also said that the US was not the only country that could move forward and that directing anger at the US delegation could result in the entire world losing momentum.

I read into his comment  a request for charity (such an old fashioned word nowadays) as well as anticipation and urgency - wise counsel that reflects the growing awareness of people everywhere that spaceship earth does not have lifeboats; we're all in this together;  and that, unless we see ourselves as  one global family, able to both coach the reluctant as well as calm the reckless we make matters infinitely worse.

Here is a link to the most recent summary of Gore's Bali speech.

For more inspiration - below is a video of Gore's acceptance speech in Oslo on December 10th.

When I think of all that lonely travelling through all those soulless airports and mindless, inconsistent airport security checks that he had to do with a bunch of slides before enough of us "got it" , I feel deeply indebted.......