2006: Al Gore Does Sundance

Promoting Film, He Calls Global Warming A 'Planetary Emergency'

(AP)  Gore makes his case using copious scientific data and a surprising amount of humor for a politician who found it necessary during campaigns to poke fun at his own stiff image.

"I benefit from low expectations," Gore joked.

"An Inconvenient Truth" also lays out events in Gore's personal life and how they influenced his global-warming mission: A car accident that nearly killed his young son, his sister's death from lung cancer after 30 years as a smoker, his family's legacy as former tobacco farmers, the photo finish of the 2000 election.

Calling himself a "recovering politician," Gore reiterated to a Sundance audience at the film's premiere that he would not run for office again.

"What really attracted us to this presentation is the tone Al strikes," said "An Inconvenient Truth" director Davis Guggenheim. "It's not righteous. It doesn't have a political agenda. It lands right in the middle, and Al just lays out what is this inconvenient truth. And I think that's why the audience is willing to receive it."

Gore said U.S. government and business leaders must follow the lead of other nations that have enacted stricter mileage standards for cars. Utility companies worldwide must adopt cleaner methods of burning fossil fuels and focus on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power, he said.

The filmmakers brought "An Inconvenient Truth" to Sundance hoping to land a distributor that will put the documentary in theaters.

"I'm thrilled to have a chance to get this message to a broader audience, because doing it retail a few hundred people at a time is pretty exhausting," Gore said. "I'm committed to it and I'm continuing to do it, but if we can get it before a much larger audience more quickly, that serves the larger purpose."