> It's not evident that he understands complex systems
It's not evident that he understand evangelizing either.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of Al Gore. The world wold be a much better place if he had won the 2000 election. But the one image that sticks with me is the scene in "An Inconvenient Truth" where Al is being driven around in the back seat of a plush town car. A more tone-deaf image in that context is hard to imagine.
Russell Brand, of all people, caught my attention one time. He said when he criticized the flaws of capitalism when he was poor, people called him jealous. When he criticized the flaws of capitalism when he was wealthy, people called him a hypocrite.
They're all ad hominem attacks. But when he's criticized for being both too poor, and for being too rich, and his message didn't change, it's particularly obvious that people just don't want to hear his position, and will do anything to discredit him.
I agree with your sentiment and like your example, but in fairness to "the people" criticizing him, it's probably different people in each instance of criticism. We personify groups of people, and then treat them as fungible units of a universal (if hypocritical) collective. Individuals will criticize everything, if given enough time and resources.
I've seen people call Gore a hypocrite for flying around.
He believes in carbon offsets.
He's also not opposed to capitalism.
So, spending money on luxury goods, and spending money to buy carbon offsets, is entirely in line with what he's stated are his views.
You're welcome to your opinion on the matter, of course, but I wanted to highlight that I don't perceive riding in a plush town car is being out of line with his message of acting on Climate Change.
I'm not criticizing Al Gore for riding in a limo. I'm criticizing him for choosing to put a scene of himself riding in a limo in a movie about climate change.
It's not evident that he understand evangelizing either.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of Al Gore. The world wold be a much better place if he had won the 2000 election. But the one image that sticks with me is the scene in "An Inconvenient Truth" where Al is being driven around in the back seat of a plush town car. A more tone-deaf image in that context is hard to imagine.