On one of my many trips between Norway and England I ended up sitting next to a man who was preparing for the end of the world. He was studying ecology in the UK, but was planning his move to a pristine area where the farming land had not been destroyed by pesticides, chemicals and misguided modern farming techniques. He said the farming land in Britain had all been destroyed; South of England would soon be flooded and the drinking water contaminated beyond use. It was the same story in most of Europe and the US he said, the only safe place to escape this ecological mayhem was......Hungary. I must admit I got quite sucked into this nightmare scenario, but snapped out of it instantly when he answered my question of if there wasn't anything we could do prevent this from happening: he said the train had all gone, there was no turning back now, the only thing that could have stopped the world from going under was.......... if Al Gore had been elected US president in 2000.

Now that's a lot of faith to put in one man, though in this week's interview with Al Gore in The Guardian, Jonathan Freedland writes: "the emotional charge running through 'An Inconvenient Truth' [Gore’s documentary about how 'humanity is cooking the planet'], and indeed Gore's speech at Hay, is that 2000 represented not just a personal blow to Gore but a terrible setback for the planet"

However, when asked if, given his ardent campaign to save the world from global warming, he didn't have a moral obligation to stand for president in 2008, Gore seems to contradict those very sentiments about how his presidency could (have) save(ed) the world: "Look, I don't deny that this is the most powerful position in the world, but even if you're the president you can't move if the people aren't there, and if Congress isn't there."

So it seems, if we are to take him on his word, Gore has confined himself to touring the word to tell us how the end is near...