Littleton town administrator learns about climate change from Al Gore

Town Administrator Keith Bergman was selected by Al Gore to be among the first 50 people trained to carry forward the message embodied in the hit indie movie, "An Inconvenient Truth."

The former vice president won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on combating climate change.

But for Bergman, it was a lecture Gore gave over a year ago at a small college auditorium in Tennessee that fueled his concern about Earth.

"It was mesmerizing," said Bergman from his office at Town Hall that is decorated with photos and certificates, even cartoons from his days as town manager in Provincetown.

Bergman said he was taking his daughter to visit colleges last year, including his alma mater, Vanderbilt, when the two decided to go to a speech Gore was giving at a nearby campus.

"We heard on the radio that Gore was giving a lecture on global warning, so we went," said Bergman.

"I call it Al Gore Unplugged because I heard him with no notes or slides," said Bergman. "It changed my life."

The speech was a call to action for the audience, and for Bergman who joined 49 others in Nashville to learn the drill that Gore hopes will raise awareness about the need to find alternative fuel sources, and other ways of fighting pollution.

"It got me looking at energy in a new light," said Bergman. He is active in the Climate Project at this point, training others and serving on a leadership group.

The slides and speech form the basis of the Oscar-winning movie.

"He wanted to train 1,000 people," said Bergman. "The Climate Project came into being to fulfill that pledge."

Bergman returned to P-town after the training "when gas cost $3 a gallon" and sat down with other like-minded town officials on the Cape.

"We wanted to see what we could do to deal with global warming, and balance that with the needs of our communities," he said. "Do we curtail services, or police," he asked, rhetorically.

The group decided to look at alternative energy sources, "something the Cape hadn't thought about before," said Bergman.

He worked with Rep. William Delahunt to form the Cape Cod Renewable Fuels Partnership in May, 2006 to "explore the markets for renewable energy for the Cape," including ethanol and biodiesel.

"We decided to pursue biodiesel until ethanol's time came," said Bergman.

Bergman said he gave the presentation some 15 times -at the State House, in Provincetown, at Cape Cod Community College -and is willing to give it as often as he is asked. He has not given the presentation since he started as Littleton's top administrator last fall.

Bergman said communities "need to become aware that there are many solutions" to climate change out there, but it takes a committed town to implement them.

"Audiences get it and understand there is a problem," said Bergman. "That's good because our purpose is to describe the problem."

"There are public policy initiatives and individual things that are important to be educated about," he said.

He said it takes changing one's lifestyle rather than just using fluorescent light bulbs, although changing bulbs from incandescent is helpful.

"We have to think about our carbon footprint, and reducing it," he said.

Bergman drives a Prius.

Locally, he said while the Town Hall is remodeled in the coming months, the town will perform an energy audit to ascertain how much fuel is used.

"There may even be ways to combine our economic development goals with the new "green" energy economy," said Bergman.

"With IBM coming to town, maybe we can get them to change their slogan to 'Big Blue goes green,'" he said.