Gore 'soldier' to speak on global warming

By Tom Dalton , Staff writer
Salem News

SALEM - Al Gore's fight against global warming doesn't stop with the dramatic win Sunday night at the Academy Awards. It continues tonight when one of his environmental soldiers brings the battle to Salem.

"He calls us the cavalry," said the Rev. Jeffrey Barz-Snell, who will speak on climate change at 7 p.m. at The First Church, 316 Essex St. The program is free and open to the public.

Barz-Snell, the church's pastor, is one of hundreds of volunteers trained by the former vice president, whose campaign to educate the public about the dangers of global warming is the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."

All the attention the film has been getting the past few days could boost the crowd tonight.

"I think it makes more people interested in the film and his message, and this can only be a good thing," Barz-Snell said.

Last month, the Salem minister spent three days in a hotel in Nashville, Tenn., with other volunteers as part of what Gore calls "The Climate Project." They are being trained to deliver the same slide-show presentation Gore does in the film in the hope of spreading the word and motivating citizens to take action in their own homes and communities.

"He's looking for people all over the country ... to start talking about it and really engage people," Barz-Snell said.

The Salem minister is not a newcomer to environmental activism. He is co-leader of the Salem Alliance for the Environment, a local advocacy group, and took a sabbatical last year to study climate change and environmental ethics at Tufts University. He plans to return for a master's degree.

"I've been studying (the subject) since divinity school," he said.

When he heard Gore was looking for 1,000 volunteers, Barz-Snell jumped at the chance. He wasn't alone.

"There were people of all walks of life," he said. "It was amazing - there were CEOs, professionals, teachers, businesspeople and movie stars. ... Cameron Diaz was one of the people in my training session."

Barz-Snell said he was impressed more by Gore the environmentalist than by Gore the former presidential candidate. Gore narrowly lost to George Bush in 2000.

"He's passionate about this. ... He doesn't care about the political implications of what he's saying. He wants people to understand the challenges we face. ... I don't think he really wants to run for president. I think he really wants to wake this country up."

The idea behind this project, Barz-Snell said, was "that people who wouldn't go to see the movie and don't like Al Gore might be willing to hear someone else talk about climate change. He realizes he's a polarizing person on this issue. ... What I've been trained to do is deliver an updated, slightly more technical version of the slide show you see in the film."

Like other volunteers, Barz-Snell has committed to do 10 presentations. He has already spoken at Salem Academy Charter School and in Beverly and Manchester. Future speaking engagements will be listed on salemsafe.org.