Al Gore, who describes himself in the opening credits of his film as the former “next President of the United States of America,” has kick-started a campaign against climate change that has recently generated impressive public attention. His film An Inconvenient Truth has aided in propagating the recent fashionable status that environmentalism has attained.

Last Wednesday, students and members of the public lined up, not unlike Star Trek or Harry Potter fans, forming a line from the UofTtix box office all the way down to the Hart House activity room to try and score a seat to Gore’s upcoming Toronto visit on the evening of February 21 at Convocation Hall, to discuss the issues involved in global climate change.

One professor of an environmentally-related class even let his students out of class early so they could join the mad rush to try their luck in scoring tickets.

Tickets to Gore’s lecture sold out within an hour after a high volume of web patrons crashed the UofTtix computer system almost immediately, preventing anyone from ordering tickets until about 40 minutes after the box office opened at 11am.

Gore’s lecture follows a day-long symposium “Moving Canada towards Sustainability,” at the Medical Sciences building.

The symposium brings together respected UofT academics from a variety of disciplines to discuss the global issues in science, health and policy, surrounding the threat of climate change.

The bulk of the day’s discussion will be composed of three themed panel discussions on: impacts and adaptations to climate change; environment and health; and energy challenges. Before the crowd heads across King’s College Road to Convocation Hall for Gore’s presentation, the day will end with a local context, as Beth Savan, director of the Sustainability Office, speaks about the sustainable campus as a model for sustainable society.

The event itself strives to be a sustainable one, as electricity, travel and printed matter for the event will be offset through Bullfrog Power and Zerofootprint Offsets.