Can Al Gore's '24 Hours of Reality' convert climate skeptics?

Former Vice President Al Gore is launching a multimedia blitz this week to convince skeptics that man-made climate change is causing droughts, floods, wildfires, and other disasters. The project, 24 Hours of Reality, will kick off Wednesday with the first of 24 one-hour shows, in multiple languages, to be streamed live on the Current TV website. The effort culminates with a presentation by Gore on the cable station. (Gore is the network's chairman). Will Gore win any converts this way?

He is wasting his breath: Gore's message won't be heard by anyone but Current TV watchers, says Jim Treacher at The Daily Caller, "the existence of whom has yet to be proven by science." Besides, Gore's problem isn't that his alarmist message "hasn't said it often enough, or loudly enough." If anything, we've heard from Gore way too much for this new push to stand a chance.

"Unless Al Gore caps it off by singing 'You'll Never Walk Alone,' why bother?"

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Gore has had success before: Gore's first big push — including the powerful documentary An Inconvenient Truth — spurred "a surge in climate awareness in 2007 and 2008," when 63 percent of Americans saw climate change as a threat, says Douglas Fischer at The Daily Climate. Since then, economic trouble and war have overshadowed the issue, and now only 53 percent of Americans see climate change as a threat. Rallying "a skeptical and distracted public" won't be easy, but Gore deserves credit for trying.

"Al Gore is back"

A new messenger would have better luck: "The really inconvenient truth is that 'climate change' has become political," says Jon Bershad at Mediaite. The people Gore is trying to win over see him as the "enemy," someone who has likened them to racists who resisted doing what was right in the Civil Rights era. If Gore "wants to really stop this thing, he should stop working on his message and start looking for a new messenger."

"Al Gore begins new climate change program; Is he just wasting his time?"