Al Gore is trying real hard to be the shepherd.

The climate doom-master has written a poem (in his new book "Our Choice"):

Here is how the poem begins:
One thin September soon
A floating continent disappears
In midnight sun
Vapors rise as
Fever settles on an acid sea
... Gore wrote [the poem]... because his editor nixed his request to include a separate chapter on the impacts of climate change. After all, Our Choice is supposed to be about solutions... Undeterred by his editor’s ruling, Gore re-imagined his impacts chapter in poetic form.

The result is a surprisingly accomplished, nuanced piece of writing.

Nuance. You know how I feel about nuance.

The images Gore conjures in his (untitled) poem turn a neat trick: they are visually specific and emotionally arresting even as they are scientifically accurate.
Snow glides from the mountain
Ice fathers floods for a season
A hard rain comes quickly
Then dirt is parched
Kindling is placed in the forest
For the lightning’s celebration
... [T]he final lines of Gore’s poem certainly apply to the governments that will gather in Copenhagen from December 7 to 18 for what is regarded as humanity’s last chance to avert absolutely catastrophic climate change.
The shepherd cries
The hour of choosing has arrived
Here are your tools
Is Gore himself that shepherd? No matter. What counts is that the hour of choosing has indeed arrived and, as documented in Our Choice, we do have the tools to survive—if we choose to employ them.