AUSTIN — Days after he determine approvingly as Apple CEO Tim Cook take on the wrap off a new MacBook and gave more details on Apple Watch , former Vice President Al Gore kicked off South by Southwest Interactive with a melancholy talk on clime alteration . How are the two bear on ? Technology , of course .

long time from now , if the world has n’t been scourge by fires , floods , and dearth , Gore said the next generation will look back at us and enquire : “ How did you change ? ”

“ Part of the solution may well be that a group of people issue forth to South by Southwest in Austin , Texas in 2015 and helped to make a rotation , ” Gore said .

The audience of technical school - minded folks who have descend on Austin for the music , film , and synergistic festival was into what Gore had to say .

“ He ’s such an stirring , ” one attendant told her colleagues as they filed out of the Austin Convention Center ’s exhibit hall .

But Gore is hope SXSW ’s demographic of untested , tech - savvy , Twitter devotee will do more than just wax poetical about his presentation of clime alteration ’s devastating effect . He desire them to start a grassroots cause using social culture medium , like they did when final neutrality was peril or when the Stop Online Piracy Act ( SOPA ) threatened to blacklist websites that offered so - called illegal substance .

“ The net is now replicating the kind of free flow of ideas that we had during the mark epoch , ” he said . “ face at how we gain the struggle for final neutrality at the grassroots . All politics is local , and for some citizenry , the Internet is local . ”

That means ratify mood alteration prayer , using social media to call out climate change - deny politicans , and stream theLive Earth Road to Paris concerton June 18 , an event designed to draw attention to the climate talk happening in Paris this December .

Gore ’s firebrand of reality balk is well - known at this breaker point — he took theSXSW stage in 2013to talk about the orbicular economic system , medical instauration , and the future in the same gloomy yet bright style . From the pure tone of the chatter that follow Gore ’s talk , that style resonate with SXSW attendees not yet blunt by the brand stunts and Meerkat teem to come this weekend .