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"Wireless a Key Tool to Solving Climate Crisis," Says Al Gore

by Tom Samiljan on April 3, 2009 at 03:41 PM


Nobel Peace Prize winner and 45th Vice President of the United States Al Gore graced the mobile phone and wireless industry today with his presence at the 2009 CTIA Wireless convention in Las Vegas. As the final day's keynote speaker, Gore presented an abbreviated version of a modified 'Inconvenient Truth'-style spiel mashed-up with insert-wireless-comment-here-type generalities.

The highlights included some hilariously dry deliveries of self-deprecating jokes about his life immediately after leaving office, a subtle reminder that he invented the Internet (..."in January of 1993, there were only 50 Web sites, now there are billions..."), a long boring historical section that loosely linked the printing press and Marconi's radio with the wireless industry, and, finally, at the end, a summation and reiteration of just how the vital role that wireless technologies will play in helping save the planet, both economically and environmentally. (Some of the featured examples of wireless econo/enviro-wonders: Reduced health care costs and less paper waste thanks to electronic medical records and wireless health monitoring, high-capacity broadband networks like WiMax reaching rural parts of the world, and wireless monitoring and management of energy use.)


Gore pretty much summed it up with the following statement:

"Wireless is going to be one of the key tools we use to solve the climate crisis."

After that, he went on to talk about how the next generation will remember us, but by that time we once again tuned out, wanting to scream "I'm Brian Fellow!" as images of random animals being obnoxious filled our heads (plus plenty of other unrelated imagery).

Despite our inability to pay attention – sorry, we left history class behind a long time ago -- it was encouraging to see Green initiatives everywhere on the show floor at CTIA this week, from Nokia's Remade phone (made of recycled plastic cans and rubber tires) and Samsung's solar-powered Blue Earth handset, to Nokia's We: Offset carbon-offset mobile app and the phone-recycling envelopes strewn across the welcome desks of many booths. Let's just hope the trend is here to stay, 'cause there sure are a lot of cell phones out there in the world!

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Tags: al gore, AlGore, ctia, ctia 2009, Ctia2009, politics, top

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