Lawrence Downes of The New York Times doesn’t like Al Gore’s media strategy to combat global warming. He writes in an op-ed piece: “If the job is so huge and urgent, why is the ad campaign so pedestrian? Mr. Gore is spending $300 million, a lot of it his own money, in the next three years to get the country moving on global warming. He has promised the biggest, most ambitious public-service advertising blitz anyone has ever seen. So far it’s a cute green logo, the word ‘me’ turned upside-down to ‘we.’ It’s an earnest Web site. It’s Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson on a couch, joshing about saving the Earth. It’s Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich, joshing on a couch.” No doubt Downes would prefer something stronger. His solution? “Get George Lois, the pope, Carole King, Neil Sedaka, will.i.am, Nelson Mandela and Steven Spielberg in a room with whoever handled the Axe body spray contract.” The pope and the Axe guys—there’s a Grand Effie-winning creative team waiting to happen. And Carole King? I thought she succumbed to carbon emissions years ago.

—Posted by David Gianatasio