But weren't we also supposed to approach his scam like a moon shot, or storming Omaha Beach, or CFCs/ozone, or women's suffrage, or something?

Memphis: Gore calls for Civil Rights Movement-like action to that needed to deal with climate change

The schoolchildren of Memphis heard the name "Al Gore," and their loud, uninhibited response more resembled that given to a rock star than to a former vice president.

Appearing this morning at the National Civil Rights Museum's Freedom Awards public forum at the Temple of Deliverance, Gore connected the lessons imparted by Civil Rights Movement heroes like fellow honoree Diane Nash to the action needed to confront the "emergency" of global climate change.

Honored last year with a Nobel Peace prize for his efforts to raise awareness over global warming, Gore described growing up in Washington, D.C. and Carthage, near Nashville and watching on early [fossil-fueled] TVs as Nash and other students in Nashville challenged Jim Crow laws with sit-ins and by directly questioning public officials.

Gore said Nash and the Civil Rights movement pioneers were bringing what Ghandi called the "truth force" that helped bring about then-unimaginable change.

That same sense of moral and spiritual urgency is now needed, Gore said, to help create the will necessary to bring about changes to avert what he described as a growing global catastrophe.