You’re sadly mistaken if you think AAAS is just a conference full of esoteric lectures and bar room hobnobbing.

Tucked away in the basement of the Hyatt Regency this year was some of the world’s brightest showing off their newest gizmos and gadgets.

Below are inventions used to catch illegal immigrants, measure the CO2 of a given point on earth and detect charges. There’s also a g-force measuring device used as the basis for Nintendo Wii remotes.

Enjoy.

— Andy Balaskovitz

When you’re a high caliber public speaker, you can deliver the same speech for weeks, months or even years with consistent interest and engagement.  It’s the same for a great Broadway play or Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

Former Vice President Al Gore has this knack.

For anyone that has seen An Inconvenient Truth, the following videos are mostly facts you’ve already heard.  Yet, like a great concert, you can hear it over and over again without it getting old or redundant.

In his introduction (below), Gore reflects on a new administration and the side effects of getting old…

He then frames climate change as one of three crises America and the world faces. About five minutes into the clip below, his iPhone goes off…

From here Gore jumps into his signature (but updated) Powerpoint slideshow. In the clip below is a simple breakdown of how greenhouse gases work, both on Earth and Venus…

Part two of the presentation shows the Arctic represented as a beating heart and also some video footage of Dr. Katie Walker from the University of Alaska performing some risky methane experiments in the Arctic…

This next segment provides dramatic images of natural disasters, their increased frequency as part of global warming and how the Maldives has a portion of its government budget devoted to buying a new island…

Gore completes his slideshow with a look at American coal companies’ controversial clean coal advertising campaign, America’s history of stepping up in dire straits and the need for excellent science communicators…

In his closing remarks Gore makes a formal call to climate change action, questions science ethics and references an African proverb: ‘If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’

“We have to go far, quickly,” he said.

— Andy Balaskovitz