Al Gore launches 24-hour broadcast to convert climate skeptics

LONDON (Reuters) - Former President Al Gore will renew his 30-year campaign to convince skeptics of the link between climate change and extreme weather events this week in a 24-hour global multi-media event.

"24 Hours of Reality" will broadcast a presentation by Al Gore every hour for 24 hours across 24 different time zones from Wednesday to Thursday, with the aim of convincing climate change deniers and driving action against global warming among households, schools and businesses.

The campaign also asks people to hand over control of their social networking accounts on Facebook and Twitter to it for 24 hours to deliver Gore's message.

"There will be 200 new slides arguing the connection between more extreme weather and climate change," Trewin Restorick, chief executive of the event's UK partner Global Action Plan, told Reuters on Monday.

"There will be a full-on assault on climate skeptics, exploring where they get their funding from."

Gore tried to raise awareness about global warming in the 2006 documentary film "An Inconvenient Truth," which earned $49 million at the box office worldwide. The film was criticized by some climate change skeptics for being one-sided.

Concern about climate change in the United States, the world's second biggest emitter, has fallen steadily to 48 percent in 2011, from 62 percent in 2007, an opinion poll showed in August.

Gore's presentation will be available at: https://climaterealityproject.org/

(Reporting by Nina Chestney, editing by Paul Casciato)