The Kerry Event

Just got back from the Kerry Book event (see the photos here).

Maria was correct. A few local bloggers were invited to attend and the cool part was that we were to be seated directly behind the two rows reserved for the local mainstream press.

• Row 1 - Reserved for the MSM
• Row 2 - Reserved for the MSM
• Row 3 - Reserved for us bloggers
• Row 4+ - The huge huge HUGE standing room only crowd.

As another blog-perc, we bloggers (a small group which included The Spork Incident, and a pair of heavy hitters from the John Kerry Blog and Democratic Underground) got about 10 minutes alone with the Kerrys - between Jon Delano's one-on-one and the book event itself.

On a completely self-serving note, here's the complete conversation between Delano and me:

Me: Mr Delano, good to see you! (I said this as we shook hands.)
Him: Well David, (he said as he shook back) when I heard there'd be some local bloggers here, I just knew you'd have to be one of them.

Cool thing here was that this occurred not 4 feet away from the Senator himself. See? It's ALWAYS about me.

Anyway as I said, we were graciously given a few minutes of the Kerry's time before the book event to ask a question or two. As I was the tallest of the bloggers there, it seemed only natural for me to go first. I asked when dealing with environmental questions, how does one deal with the large amount of pseudoscience masquerading as science?

Senator Kerry pointed out that all the science in his book is fully anotated, that there are 928 peer reviewed studies that all point out that human beings are actively contributing to global climate change. Peer-review, he added, is the system used by the scientific community whereby a study is submitted anonymously to a separate group of scientists (ergo "peer") for the methodology and data to be checked. The point being, of course, that if it makes it into a peer-reviewed journal, the science is solid.

Of the studies that disagree, he said, none are published in peer-reviewed journals. The evidence is so overwhelming that one would have to a member of the "flat-Earth caucus (Senator Imhofe, presiding)" in order to believe otherwise.

UPDATE: Here's the youtube clip of the Senator's answer:

The conversation (and it really was more of a conversation than an interview) went in a number of different directions. The Senator pointed out what he called the "Three Big Grabs" of coming to deal with global climate change:

1. Energy Efficiency
2. Alternative fuel sources
3. Clean coal technology

And as the Senator took a quick swipe of some lip balm, we were on our way to the Q & A.

Luckily a local photog (a woman with short hair and in a salmon colored shirt) snagged what was my seat, forcing me to stand. It was lucky as I was able to get some good pics from my scrawny camera phone - better than I would have gotten had I been sitting originally. Thanks Short-haired, Salmon-shirted lady!

If you've never been in that Barnes & Noble, take a look at the pictures in Maria's early blogposting (and I apologise for the low quality of the shots. I was using my camera phone). The space was maybe 30 feet wide and 150 feet long. Filled to capacity with people - so much that they had to move one of the speakers from the front all the way to the back in order for everyone to hear.

While pointing out that the environmental stuff is "Teresa's territory," the Senator laid the ground work for our understanding of the book. All the proceed of the book are given to environmental charities and the book itself grew out of their "deep frustration" at not being able to get people to "connect the dots" during the 2004 presidential election about the environment. Teresa Heinz Kerry pointed out that the book was not written for experts or pundits, but for regular people to read.

The rest of the question and answer period had to do with specific environmental issues (mesothelioma in women caused by the asbestos they laundered out of their husband's clothing, the quality of water in the rivers of North Carolina and so on). They took most of the questions from halfway down the crowd.

At one point, after a particularly sobering assessment by Teresa Heinz Kerry of the many dangerous chemicals found in stuff that should be safe and our government's seeming inability to deal with them, John Kerry took the mic and offered up an rhetorical sorbet of sorts. He stated that he'd noticed while his wife was speaking, the sorts of books displayed around him.

"Look at the size of the Romance section! I think we've been writing the wrong type of book," He said. He read off some of the titles - giving the crowd more than a few chuckles.

There was much too much information doled out at this half-book event half political rally to be addressed here. For more, go read the book.

UPDATE: Here's Jon Delano's story. For local blog-coverage, here's The Spork Incident. And for national blog-coverage, there are two; Democratic Underground and the Kerry Blog.