I’ve held off saying much about this in public. But I can’t wait any longer. I can’t stay silent. I won’t be able to live with myself if I do. Can’t you feel it? The world is getting warmer. A lot warmer. The warming trend is accelerating. The crisis has become urgent. Last night I flew down to L.A. for a meeting at Barbra Streisand’s house to discuss global warming. It was a big crowd. People flew in from all around the world. Sting and Trudie, Bono, George Soros, John Doerr (who choked up and blubbered again as he did on stage recently), loads of VCs from the Valley, Andy Grove, T.J. Rodgers, Sergey and Larry (who took separate planes because I guess they’re not on good terms these days) and Squirrel Boy who also flew in by himself on his own 767, plus the usual line-up of studio executives and A-list Hollywood actors, like Brad and Angelina and Leo, and Larry David’s weirdo ex-wife, who was holding hands with Sheryl Crow, though I’m not sure if they’ve hooked up or what. Al was there as the featured speaker. I’m telling you, he’s electric. He’s fantastic. This crusade to save the planet has brought something out in him. He’s not the plodding, boring robot that he used to be. He’s a passionate, messianic robot. He’s en fuego, as the Romans used to say.

According to Al, in just the past six months — the past six months — the planet’s temperature has gone up 1.5 degrees Celsius. It’s the biggest leap in temperature ever recorded in such a short period of time. Worse yet, a huge chunk of Iceland fell off a few weeks ago. The biggest chunk ever. A chunk the size of Greenland. Don’t bother looking for any articles about this in the media. They’re all too busy trying to get paparazzi photos of Paris Hilton gnawing on dildoes in her jail cell. The ocean temperature has also gone up so much that fish like tuna and swordfish are migrating to the wrong places and fishermen can’t figure out how to find them, which I guess from the perspective of Greenpeace is a good thing, but still. Most scary of all is that the ocean levels have risen in some places by as much as a foot in the past 12 months. If the current rate of ocean warming and rising continues, according to Al, by the year 2010 one-third of the United States will be underwater, and that water will be the temperature of a warm bath. By 2020 more than half the nation will be submerged, and the water will be boiling. We’ll be boiled alive, in our own homes, like lobsters in a pot. It will happen so slowly that we won’t even notice it until we’re dead.

People, we can’t put Hilary in the White House. We just can’t. She’s obsessed with health care and isn’t paying any attention to our imminent lobsterization. Obama isn’t any better. We need Al. I told him that last night. I’ve been telling him that for months. I know, deep in his heart, that he wants to do it. But something is holding him back. I guess it’s the deep psychic wounds from his defeat in 2000.

We’re going to have to recruit him. A reader named Dave wrote to me today suggesting that we should start by choosing Al Gore’s campaign song, the way Hilary ran a contest to find her dumbass song by Celine Dion. (Which by the way is reason enough not to vote for her.) If someone wants to set up a YouTube channel, by all means, do it and I’ll promote it here, and link to good submissions. My song suggestions so far are these: “Higher Ground” by Stevie Wonder or “I Want to Take You Higher” by Sly & the Family Stone. Or “Blowin’ in the Wind” not because it has anything to do with global warming but because it’s the greatest song ever written in all of human history.