"Now, I want to talk about the environment here today," Gore said at a lunchtime rally here, standing on a fire truck with his jacket off, interrupting his standard stump speech on the economy, Social Security, education and the nefarious "special interests" that want to deprive seniors of their pills and patients of their rights.

"Now, look. Just today, we are seeing on television the new study that just comes out once ev'ry FAAAAHVE years where the scientific community around the world tells us what they've learned about this problem that these kids are gonna grow up with unless we do something and that's the problem of global warming."

Gore was referring to a United Nations report on global warming, issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that concludes that it could get a whole lot hotter by the end of this century -- up to 11 degrees Fahrenheit hotter, to be precise -- if greenhouse gases are not curtailed. Gore and his campaign are attempting to use the report to paint Bush not only as pollution-friendly, but a tad clueless, and certainly nowhere near the environmental guru known as Al Gore when it comes to foresight and brilliance.

"We have a situation where the big polluters are supporting Gov. Bush and they are wanting to be in control of the environmental policy," Gore said, tearing into Texas' environmental rankings. "They're No. 1 in something," he says -- "No. 1 out of all 50 in industrial pollution, they rank No. 1 as the smoggiest state. Houston just solidified its title as the smoggiest city."

Despite the fact that all environmental groups that endorse candidates -- the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth -- have endorsed Gore, the Bush campaign responds to Gore's assault with the incredible claim that Bush is actually more of an environmentalist than Gore. This is based on one provision in the Bush plan to reduce emissions from power plants, one that the Gore campaign disputes.

"There are only two candidates in this race who support a mandatory reduction of emissions from older power plants -- Gov. Bush and Ralph Nader," says Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett, apparently with a straight face. "Environmental groups have harshly criticized Al Gore's record on global warming and deforestation, while Gov. Bush has offered a plan that will help protect the endangered tropical forests of Latin and South America."

Bartlett cites a harsh critique of Gore from September 1999 by the Friends of the Earth PAC when the group endorsed Gore's then-opponent, former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley. Calling Gore a "big disappointment," the organization "graded Gore on 16 areas of his signature issue, protection of the ozone layer" and awarded Gore a "D."

But Jon Sohn, a policy analyst with Friends of the Earth, says the Bush campaign is "misguided in quoting old documents. They're trying to avoid the issue of who's a better candidate between Gore and Bush. While we have had significant differences with the Clinton-Gore administration on some issues, there's a Grand Canyon-sized gulf of leadership between Vice President Gore and Governor Bush on the environment. If Bush is elected it will do significant and irreversible harm to the global environment."

In his speech here, Gore addressed global warming in the New Democrat shades that had aroused the wrath of Friends of the Earth and continues to engender the scorn of tree-hugging voters. That hurts him in the Pacific Northwest. An American Research Group poll released Thursday shows Nader with 10 percent voter support in Oregon, pulling enough anti-Bush votes to give the state to the governor. Nader also threatens to siphon away just enough votes from Gore to hand Bush Washington state, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and Maine.

It's Gore's own doing. He perpetually describes a pending environmental apocalypse -- and then proposes solutions that will be easy and fun and no big deal at all!

"An' I know a lotta people say that it looks like [global warming] is off in the future," Gore says. "But lemme tell you what this new study said ... Unless we act, the average temperature is gonna go up 10 or 11 degrees. The storms will get stronger, the weather patterns will change. But it does not have to happen. And it won't happen if we put our minds to solving this problem ... Here is the good news. If we take the leadership role that these kids have a right to expect us to play, we can create millions of good, new, high-paying jobs by building the new cars and trucks ... and technology to STOP the pollution and lift standards of living at the same time! ARE YA WITH ME?!"

"I laid out a plan this past summer that will create partnerships with the car companies and with the utilities and with the factories that will give tax breaks to get the new kind of technologies going," Gore says. "And we'll lead the world in those technologies and all over the rest of the world, they're wanting to buy these new kinds of technologies, and we're the ones that ought to be making them and selling them to the rest of the world."

"Let's pick the hard right over the easy wrong!" he said.

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