With Gore's goading, Hollywood goes green at Oscars

Last updated at 10:13 26 February 2007

From the best documentary award for a slideshow on global warming to the first ever environmentally friendly ceremony, Hollywood turned green at this year's Oscars thanks largely to the urgings of Al Gore.

The former vice president who inspired the box office hit "An Inconvenient Truth" with his 30-year-old slideshow took every opportunity to drive home his message that people need to act now to stop global warming.

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• Showbiz video: Oscar special "My fellow Americans, people all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis," Gore told the audience as the film's director and producers accepted their Oscar for best documentary feature.

"It's not a political issue, it's a moral issue."

Hollywood was more than willing to listen to Gore, the man who narrowly lost out to George W. Bush in the race to be president of the United States in the 2000 elections.

More stars arrived than ever before in environmentally friendly limousines, like plug-in hybrids and all electric cars in an effort to educate Americans on alternatives to fossil fuels blamed for producing heat-trapping gases.

The Gore documentary also won best original song with "I Need to Wake Up" by Melissa Etheridge.

"Mostly I have to thank Al Gore for inspiring us, inspiring me and showing that caring about the earth is not Republican or Democrat," Etheridge said in her acceptance speech.

Earlier in the show, Gore and the hybrid-driving actor Leonardo Di Caprio took the stage to announce that it was the first time that the Academy Awards had "gone green" with environmentally sensitive methods incorporated into every aspect of putting on the show.

Many in Hollywood, impressed by Gore's persuasive message on the climate crisis, have wanted him to run for president again in 2008.

But Gore ruled that out once again on Sunday and even played with the pressure to run with a well-timed joke that won raucous laughter from the audience.
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