The Climate Project (TCP)

Mission

The mission of the Climate Project was to increase “public awareness of the climate crisis at a grassroots level in the United States and abroad.” It was founded in June 2006, by Nobel laureate Al Gore, a former vice president of the United States (1993-2001) and an environmental activist and author. In 2010, The Climate Project and the Alliance for Climate Protection, another organization founded by Al Gore, combined. In July 2011, the new organization was named The Climate Reality Project.

The original Climate Project grew out of a slide-show presentation that Gore, an early activist on the issue of preventing global warming, had been giving around the United States and internationally. In the slide show, Gore summarized the scientific arguments supporting the causes and dangers of global warming and described the political and economic consequences of ignoring the issue. The presentation was filmed, becoming the Academy Award-winning 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and a companion book became a New York Timesbest seller. Requests for showings of the film and presentations about global warming, and questions about Gore’s next step in spreading his message, reached such a high level that Gore formed the Climate Project to help “educate, encourage, and promote dialogue about climate change as well as potential solutions.” On the film’s website, he sent out a call for one thousand “Climate Change Messengers,” whom he would train to help deliver his message about global warming.

In Nashville, Gore began training hundreds of volunteers to deliver a version of the popular slide show. Volunteers in Australia, Canada, India, Spain, and the United Kingdom were also trained. The project expanded to include a special faith community training session, helping members of churches and other faith communities deliver the presentation, organize other faith-based activities to educate about global warming, and talk about global warming in the context of their faiths. Through the Climate Project website, anyone interested could request a presentation in the local community, delivered by a volunteer at no charge. Volunteers paid their own expenses to travel to training sessions, but donations to the Climate Project helped support their travel as they made presentations and paid for the brochures and other materials they distributed.

The Alliance for Climate Change was also founded in 2006 by Al Gore, with headquarters originally in California before relocating to Washington, D.C. This organization also focused on grassroots activism but included lobbying for federal policies that limited greenhouse gas emissions and supported low-carbon power sources as well. In March 2010, the Alliance joined with The Climate Project, eventually becoming The Climate Reality Project in July 2011.

Significance for Climate Change

Under the original Climate Project, presenters committed to making at least ten presentations in a year, hoping to alert citizens to the dangers of global warming and to affect local and national policy decisions. For their programs, volunteers typically combined slides from Gore’s presentation with new slides showing the local effects of global warming. In Australia, those who are uncomfortable with the idea of speaking at length in public can instead become “connectors,” who commit to showing a digital video disc (DVD) called Telling the Truth, leading a discussion about global warming, and asking members of the audience to sign a statement that supports the Climate Project.

Volunteers, who had to apply and be selected by the Climate Project, came from a variety of age groups and professions. They included a former Australian professional rugby player, a Canadian railroad executive, a French fashion model (who urged celebrity friends to design T-shirts to raise money for the project), a former member of the Canadian national women’s hockey team, a mother and massage therapist, an astrophysicist, an eleven-year-old girl, and a woman in her nineties. Critics of the original project objected that many of the presenters were not scientifically knowledgeable enough to make intelligent arguments about an issue as technically complex as global climate change. Others praised the Climate Project for encouraging so many people to think seriously about an important issue. Public presentations, which ran less than an hour, typically drew audiences of twenty to thirty people, but some drew a hundred or more.

Gore himself inspired and attracted volunteers. Most of the volunteers were trained by Gore, who conducted two- and three-day training sessions in Nashville, Tennessee; Montreal, Canada; and Melbourne, Australia. After he spoke in Montreal, Canada, in April 2008, the number of Canadian volunteers grew from twenty to more than 250 in six months. By October 2008, the Climate Project had trained more than 2,500 volunteer presenters, whose programs reached audiences totaling more than four million people.

When The Climate Project merged with the Alliance for Climate Protection in July 2011 to form The Climate Reality Project, the work continued. The organization hosts an annual event called 24 Hours of Reality, a twenty-four-hour live broadcast featuring public figures discussing the climate crisis and promoting solutions. The Climate Reality Project has also mobilized a network of Climate Reality Leaders in their Climate Reality Leadership Corps. These individuals advocate within local communities and provide education about climate change.

Bibliography

24 Hours of Reality, www.24hoursofreality.org/. Accessed 13 Dec. 202

"2024 Was a Big Year At Climate Reality." The Climate Reality Project, 12 Dec. 2024, www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/2024-was-big-year-climate-reality. Accessed 13 Dec. 2024.

Adams, David. “Global Warming, Meet Your New Adversary.” St. Petersburg Times, January 23, 2007, p. 1A.

Della Caca, Marco R. “Al Gore Trains a Global Army: Soldiers March Forth with Environmental Message.” USA Today, April 25, 2007, p. 1D.

Gore, Al. An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale, 2006.

Meacham, Steve. “Standing Up for the Planet: The Messengers.” Sydney Morning Herald, December 10, 2008, p. 19.

"Our Mission." Climate Reality Project, www.climaterealityproject.org/our-mission. Accessed 13 Dec. 202