New climate leaders ready for action after Al Gore's Rome training

By Paul Virgo* (ANSA) - ROME, JUL 4 - The best antidote to climate anxiety is climate action.
    And after last week's Climate Reality Project training in Rome, around 1,000 citizens concerned about the environmental crisis are primed to defeat doomism and, in the process, perhaps play a part in addressing the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced.
    For those outside the Green bubble, the Climate Reality Project is a non-profit organization founded by former United States Vice President and 2007 Nobel Prize-winner Al Gore that seeks to empower people to 'Lead on Climate' by providing them with the information and communication skills needed to raise awareness of the problem and push for the adoption of the many solutions that exist.
    The Democratic Party heavyweight, whose double Oscar-winning documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth' was instrumental in alerting the world to the dangers of global heating, personally led the training, giving a series of presentations and hosting panel discussions to dissect different aspects of the crisis during the three-day training.
    The material Gore presented was hard to take at times. It showed, for example, how many of the recent devastating extreme weather events, heatwaves and droughts that have hit Italy and other parts of the world are linked to rising temperatures.
    Gore also demonstrated how using our atmosphere as an "open sewer," by pumping millions of tonnes of pollution into it every day, is having a huge impact on people's health.
    And he documented the potential for even-worse consequences if the world's fossil-fuel giants are allowed to open up more new oil, gas and coal projects.
    But Gore, whose passion, eloquence and energy at 76 are remarkable, did not let the budding advocates get downhearted.
    He posed three questions - Must we change? Can we change? And Will we change? - and gave a host of reasons as to why the answer to all of them is yes.
    The positive message was reinforced by the wisdom of Nelson Mandela: "It always seems impossible until it's done"; and of Greta Thunberg: "No one is too small to make a difference".
    "Always remember, you're doing the right thing," Gore told the cohort of new Climate Reality leaders, who were mostly, but not exclusively, from Europe.
    Gianluca Perini, a technician at the Rome Astronomical Observatory (Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma), said the training was "a very fruitful experience.
    "On the one hand Al Gore is always a source of inspiration for progressive politics, with his elegant, cultured style, which is so badly needed in the West at this moment in time," Perini told ANSA.
    "On the other hand, we had confirmation that the climate crisis is urgent, it is real, it is undeniable, it is global and that we can address it by each one of us engaging to instill doubts in the deniers, the sceptics, the uninterested".
    Although Gore was the driving force of the training, it was not a one-man show.
    European Commissioner for Climate Action Wopke Hoekstra and Bologna Mayor Matteo Lepore were among the speakers and attendees who were also taught about coalition-building, crafting campaigns, spotting greenwashing and using storytelling for climate action.
    The new Climate Leaders were immediately launched into activism, taking part in a protest outside the Rome headquarters of Italian energy giant Eni and writing letters to newly elected members of the European Parliament reminding them of the need to address the climate crisis.
    Like Perini, Dr Bruno Mazzara, a psychology lecturer at Rome's La Sapienza University, found the experience worthwhile, while adding that he saw room for improvement.
    "The description of the climate crisis, the effectiveness of communication and the push for mobilization was all very good," Mazzara told ANSA.
    "However, I have major doubts about the proposed solutions.
    "Much of the analysis focuses on the absolute need to move away from fossil fuels and push renewables to the maximum, which is obviously fine, but it's only part of the problem.
    "The crisis of the biosphere derives not only from the greenhouse effect and global warming, but also from the breaching of a series of 'planetary limits', connected to the quantity of extracted resources, not just oil, that the current model of development requires "Therefore, the solution strategy cannot fail to include a serious rethink of the current development model, based on the constant growth of production and consumption".
    Perhaps the most moving moment was when Climate Reality's Team Italy Coordinator Dr Paola Fiore was given the network's top honour, the Alfredo Sirkis Memorial Green Ring Award, by Gore on the final day.
    "I am deeply honored and thrilled to receive this award," said Fiore, a sustainability management and communications consultant who is a much-loved and highly respected figure within the climate movement.
    "I am grateful to be part of a unique global network of committed people, dedicated to create and promote a real renewable energy transition faster and a more just present and future for all human beings and living creatures on our Beautiful Mother Earth".
    The new cohort takes the total number of trained Climate Reality leaders across 191 countries up to 50,000, including 5,000 in Europe.
    They form the nucleus of a 3.5-million-strong network of people to have taken action through one of Climate Reality's campaigns, or to have taken part in one of its 11 global branch programs or US chapters.
    *The author is a Climate Reality Leader and was among the mentors who helped train new advocates at the Rome event.
    Photo credit: Enno W. Steffens. (ANSA).