Al Gore won't bring his climate change campaign to Barack Obama's administration. That's bad news for environmentalists.

Gore would have been a great champion of making sure Washington took global warming seriously. That would be a dramatic difference from the way President Bush has approached the situation.

Gore knows that his reputation -- as the winner of the Nobel prize for environmental education efforts -- gives him great publicity as a leader of the climate change advocates.

Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider told the Washington Times: "He feels very strong right now that the best thing for him to do is to build support for the bold changes that we have to make to solve the climate crisis."

Of course, Gore might have had a highly visible post with the Obama administration to push for those "bold changes."

But he also would have been constrained by how far the Obama administration would let him go in campaigning for needed action. And beyond that, Gore would have had to face the political reality that Congress might not want to go as far as he wants on global warming.

Now, by staying out of the D.C. loop, Gore is free to push for dramatic improvements, realizing he won't be blamed if they don't come true.

He can just point a finger at Obama and Congress, saying they didn't take his wonderful advice.