Gore Enlists Opinion Leaders on Energy

An interesting story in this morning's New York Times caught my eye. Former vice president Al Gore is calling upon bloggers to help spread the word about his energy independence campaign at http://wecansolveit.org/.

Gore's group seems to be leaning upon a bedrock of communication theory, the two-step flow. Dating back to the 1940s, this body of research found that certain opinion leaders got a lot of information from the media, and those opinion leaders were then influential within the community. Thus, the media exerted a two-step influence on public opinion.

Gore's attempt is nonpartisan in nature, and at the very least, I hope that it gets people talking about something more meaningful. The current rhetoric in the presidential campaign is extremely hollow, especially the call on more drilling, which estimates show might lower gasoline costs by 2030! We'll have much bigger problems in 22 years.