Need a solution to the the world's climate crisis? Al Gore has an app for that.

Keith Olbermann has gotten all the press with his move to Current TV. But there's another debut that happens tonight on Current and it's a local boy.

Chapel Hill native Matthew Humphreys stars in "Bar Karma" (10 p.m.), a new sci-fi series with an interesting twist: viewers help tell the story, going on line to add plot points, choose the music, even create episodes. The show was created by video game creator Will Wright, whose work includes The Sims and Sim City, and Albie Hecht.

Humphreys portrays Doug Jones, who walks out of bedroom and into a bar at the edge of the universe. There, he meets James (William Sanderson), a 20,000 year-old bartender and waitress Dayna (Cassie Howarth). Basically, Doug learns that his fate is unknown, and until it is, he now owns the bar and must help others who enter make the right decisions to change their grim fates.

Although the cable TV news channels have a lot of time to fill, there isn't much investigative reporting on them. Investigations take time and can cost a lot of money. It's much cheaper to spew bipartisan opinion.

Current TV, aka the network co-founded by Al Gore, is trying to make its name with long-form investigative pieces on cable TV. So tonight at 9, the channel's "Vanguard" program debuts a three-part investigative series on U.S. - Mexico border issues. Part two and three air on Nov. 22 and Nov. 29.

Current, you might remember, was also the employer of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the reporters held by North Koreans, for allegedly crossing into North Korean territory while on assignment. In other words, reporters at the channel pride themselves on going deep when they investigate a story.

I'm really not one to think that the end of anyone's 40-year marriage is good fodder for great hilarity. It's truly sad is what it is. But the separation of Al and Tipper Gore was so unexpected and seemingly inexplicable and their public personas so huge that I thought this cartoon was pretty clever.

Former Vice President Albert A. Gore Jr., who received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his advocacy of environmental causes, will speak April 8 at Duke University.

Gore will give the 2010 spring Duke Environment and Society Lecture at 6 p.m. in Page Auditorium on Duke's West Campus.

The event is open to the public. It is sponsored by Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment.

Though it is free, you need a ticket to get in. Ticket and event information are available online at www.nicholas.duke.edu/deanseries.
 
“Since the beginning of his career, Al Gore has been relentless in his quest to bring the truth about global warming to the world, even when the world wasn’t listening,” said William L. Chameides, dean of the Nicholas School, in a news release distributed by the university. “But the world can hear him now. We are fortunate and thrilled to have him bring his message to Duke.”

Gore, the 45th vice president and former presidential candidate, emerged from the political arena in 2000 to write “An Inconvenient Truth,” the best-selling book on the threat of and solutions to global warming. The movie made from the book received an Academy Award in 2007 and is one of the best-known documentary films in history.
 
On Oct. 12, 2007, Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations’ global warming committee.