Say what you want about Al, but his op-ed in today’s New York Times is a must-read. Cap and Trade is is a complicated, widely misunderstood topic. Even the climate activist community isn’t aligned on this issue. The conversation will continue on the left, as we hash out the best solutions. One thing we all agree on: climate change is real and it must be dealt with. But Gore manages to gracefully tear the far right a new one by explaining their moronic reaction to the recent snowstorms in the Northeast. He does this somehow without using the word “moron” — pretty impressive. It’s at once a critique of the ways that capitalism has gone wrong and a clarion call for reform. Like a samurai, he dispatches Glenn Beck without even uttering his name:

Simultaneously, changes in America’s political system — including the replacement of newspapers and magazines by television as the dominant medium of communication — conferred powerful advantages on wealthy advocates of unrestrained markets and weakened advocates of legal and regulatory reforms. Some news media organizations now present showmen masquerading as political thinkers who package hatred and divisiveness as entertainment. And as in times past, that has proved to be a potent drug in the veins of the body politic. Their most consistent theme is to label as “socialist” any proposal to reform exploitive behavior in the marketplace.

Ideological divisions aside, Gore explains why we must respond to the most important crisis of our times:

….what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption. After all has been said and so little done, the truth about the climate crisis — inconvenient as ever — must still be faced.

And that succinct, elegant explanation is all I need to give Al my vote for top ecosexual of the year.