Speaking before a joint hearing of two House panels on March 21, Al Gore likened the fight against "the climate crisis" to the battle waged against overwhelming odds by a band of Spartan warriors at Thermopylae in 480 B.C., dramatized in the new movie 300. "This Congress is now the '535,'" said the former vice president, facing "a true planetary emergency." He urged U.S. legislators to find "uncommon moral courage" and "redeem the promise of American democracy." That way, they can tell future generations, "This was our Thermopylae."

Gore's testimony at twin House and Senate hearings the same day was long on metaphors. He mentioned the trials overcome by America's "greatest generation," drew parallels to the Cold War and the Marshall Plan, and fired off soundbites like "Nature is on the run" and "The planet has a fever." "If your baby has a fever," Gore quipped, "you go to the doctor. If the doctor says, 'You need to intervene here,' you don't say, 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that tells me it's not a problem.' If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame-retardant. You take action."

His noisiest Senate foe was James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who has called global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." Inhofe showed a frame from Gore's Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, which asks viewers: "Are you ready to change the way you live?" He then challenged Gore to take a "Personal Energy Ethics Pledge" to "consume

Gore dodged. "We do not contribute to the problem," he insisted, arguing that his family--whose massive energy consumption recently made headlines--purchases "wind energy" and other "green energy" to ensure their lifestyle is "carbon neutral." Inhofe frequently interrupted Gore, and was himself interrupted by Democratic committee chairman Barbara Boxer of California, who reminded Inhofe that he no longer holds the gavel. "Elections have consequences," Boxer snapped, prompting applause.

Indeed they do. And one consequence of the 2006 election is that Democrats are now better positioned to pass legislation curbing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi aims to do so this year, and the resistance from Republicans is slowly weakening. Despite all the criticism of his "hypocrisy" and his trademark hyperbole, Gore has won the first part of the debate, at least for now: Even many of his critics agree that manmade CO2 emissions have played a significant role in the Earth's recent warming. That much was evident at the hearings. Gore boasts that the "scientific consensus" is firmly on his side.

But Gore's penchant for doomsday projections tugs him beyond the "consensus." His movie trots out the specter of sea levels rising by up to 20 feet and flooding cities such as Miami, San Francisco, and New York. As GOP congressman Joe Barton of Texas reminded Gore, the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body, predicts a sea level increase of between 7 and 23 inches by the end of this century (though earlier IPCC estimates were much higher).