Background Image

...

As I Have Said For Many Years Throughout This Land, We're Borrowing Money From China To Buy Oil From The Persian Gulf To Burn It In Ways That Destroy The Future Of Human Civilization. Every Bit Of That Has To Change.

-Al Gore

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

As I Have Said

Al Gore

...

As I Have Said For Many Years Throughout This Land, We're Borrowing Money From China To Buy Oil From The Persian Gulf To Burn It In Ways That Destroy The Future Of Human Civilization. Every Bit Of That Has To Change.

Views: 4

Topic

More From Al Gore

Our New Technologies, Combined With Our Numbers, Have Made Us, Collectively, A Force Of Nature

A Majority Of Trump's Voters Were In Favor Of Staying In The Paris Agreement. And If You Look At What's Really Happening In The Economy, The Economic Argument Actually Is Very Strongly In Favor Of The Paris Agreement. There Are Now Twice As Many Jobs In The Solar Industry As In The Coal Industry. Solar Jobs Are Growing 17 Times Faster Than Other Jobs In The U.s.

I Take No Pleasure In The Fact That The Scientific Predictions I’ve Relayed To Popular Audiences Turn Out To Be True.

That We Can Be E Pluribus Unum - Out Of One, Many

Two Thousand Scientists, In A Hundred Countries, Engaged In The Most Elaborate, Well Organized Scientific Collaboration In The History Of Humankind, Have Produced Long-since A Consensus That We Will Face A String Of Terrible Catastrophes Unless We Act To Prepare Ourselves And Deal With The Underlying Causes Of Global Warming.

I Do Genuinely Believe That The Political System Is Not Linear. When It Reaches A Tipping Point Fashioned By A Critical Mass Of Opinion, The Slow Pace Of Change We're Used To Will No Longer Be The Norm. I See A Lot Of Signs Every Day That We're Moving Closer And Closer To That Tipping Point.

I Just Think That A Much More Important Part Of The Problem We Face, Which Was Evident 10 Years Ago And Is Even More Evident Now, Is That The Way We Share Information Among Ourselves As American Citizens Has Been Radically Transformed. The Line Between News And Entertainment Has Almost Dissolved, Where Ratings Now Have A Big Impact On What Kinds Of Stories Are Covered And Not Stories.

I Think It's Harder For People Than It Should Be. But As More And More Of Us Become Carbon Neutral And Change The Patterns In Our Lives To Be Part Of The Solution Instead Of Part Of The Problem, We Are Now Beginning To See The Changes In Policy That Are Needed.

What Changed In The United States With Hurricane Katrina Was A Feeling That We Have Entered A Period Of Consequences.

There's A Law Of Physics: For Every Action There's An Equal And Opposite Reaction. And Sometimes That Shows Up In Politics And Society. And I Think That The Reaction To President Trump's Decision On The Paris Agreement Has Been Much Stronger Than I Had Even Hoped For. And The Determination Being Expressed By So Many People In State Governments, City Governments, In The Business Community, The Investor Community, Is Really Heartening To Me.

The Consensus Is Clear. We Need An Immediate And Determined Shift To A Clean, Renewable Economy. The Continued Mass Burning Of Fossil Fuels Is Inconsistent With A Healthy, Prosperous Future For Our Civilization.

Prosperous Future

Now Comes The Threat Of Climate Crisis - A Threat That Is Real, Rising, Imminent, And Universal. Once Again, It Is The 11th Hour. The Penalties For Ignoring This Challenge Are Immense And Growing, And At Some Near Point Would Be Unsustainable And Unrecoverable. For Now We Still Have The Power To Choose Our Fate, And The Remaining Question Is Only This: Have We The Will To Act Vigorously And In Time, Or Will We Remain Imprisoned By A Dangerous Illusion?

The Climate, Financial And National Security Crises Are All Connected. They Share The Same Cause: Our [the Usa's] Absurd Dependency On Foreign Oil. As Long As We Need To Spend Billions Of Dollars Each Year To Buy Foreign Oil From State-run Oil Companies In The Persian Gulf, Our Problems Of A Trade Deficit, A Budget Deficit And A Climate Crisis Will Persist.

This Is By Far The Most Serious Crisis Civilisation Has Ever Faced.

Any Of Us Who Work On The Task Of Solving The Climate Crisis Have At Times An Internal Struggle Between Hope And Despair. But That's One Of The Things That Connects This Climate Movement To The Previous Great Moral Revolutions, Like The Civil Rights Movement And More Recently The Gay Rights Movement. So Those Who Feel Despair Should Be Of Good Cheer, As The Bible Says. Have Faith, Have Hope. We Are Going To Win This.

The Carbon Fuels Industry-big Oil And Coal-have A 50-year Lease On The Republican Party And They Are Drilling It For Everything It's Worth.

You Have To Rip Your Opponent's Lungs Out And Then Move On.

Civil Disobedience Has An Honourable History, And When The Urgency And Moral Clarity Cross A Certain Threshold, Then I Think That Civil Disobedience Is Quite Understandable, And It Has A Role To Play.

Some Of The Most Intriguing New Research Is In The Area Of Extreme Weather Events And Rainfall. A Recent Study By German Scientists Published In Climatic Change Projects That Extreme Precipitation Will Increase Significantly In Regions That Are Already Experiencing Extreme Rainfall. Man-made Global Warming Has Already Increased The Moisture Content Of The Air Worldwide, Causing Bigger Downpours. Each Additional Degree Of Temperature Increase Causes Another Seven Percent Increase In Moisture In The Air, And Even Larger Downpours When Storm Conditions Trigger Heavy Rains And Snows.

I Saw The Logarithmic Growth Of Computer Power.

Some People Accuse Me Of Exaggeration, So Let Me Be Clear. Those People Seek Nothing Less Than The Complete And Utter Destruction Of The American Way Of Life.

When It Comes To Climate, We Can All Make A Big Difference. At The Most Basic Level, Don't Let Denial Go Unchallenged And Win The Conversation On Climate.

It's Not At All New For Wealthy And Powerful Interests To Try To Hide The Ball And Ignore Independent Analyses Of Relevant Facts.

A Low Voter Turnout Is An Indication Of Fewer People Going To The Polls.

Those Who Are Quick To Feel Disrespected Often Have A Spiritual Vacuum In Their Lives, Because They Feel Disconnected To The Love Of Their Father In Heaven.

...the Emergent Capabilities Bursting Forth From The Revolutionary Advances In The Life Sciences Are About To Make Us The Principal Agent Of Evolution.

Co2 Is The Exhaling Breath Of Our Civilization, Literally... Changing That Pattern Requires A Scope, A Scale, A Speed Of Change That Is Beyond What We Have Done In The Past.

My Parents Were True Believers In The Efficacy Of American Constitutional Democracy, And I Was Thoroughly Inculcated With Reverence For What We The People Are Capable Of Doing. The Complication In That Simple Narrative Is That As I Got Older, The Vietnam War Shook My Confidence In How Our Democracy Was Working. I Ended Up Serving In That War, But It Started With A Lie, And I Was Very Proud Of My Father For Being One Of Its Earliest Opponents.

I Flew On Air Force Two For Eight Years, And Now I Have To Take Off My Shoes To Get On An Aeroplane.

Researchers At The Naval Postgraduate School Have Told Us That The Entire Arctic Ice Cap May Totally Disappear In Summer In As Little As Five Years If Nothing Is Done To Curb Emissions Of Greenhouse Gas Pollution.

It Is My Deep Personal Conviction That Abortion Is Wrong. I Hope That Some Day We Will See The Current Outrageously Large Number Of Abortions Drop Sharply...let Me Assure You That I Share Your Belief That Innocent Human Life Must Be Protected.

I'm Still Trying To Figure Out Exactly What President Trump Represents In American Politics. But, If Nothing Else, He Represents A Way For Tens Of Millions Of People Who Were Desperate For Change To Just Turn The Table Over And Say, We Want To Start Over Again. But It Is A Challenge For Our Democracy. It Definitely Is. But, Again, The Remedy Has To Be Devoting Enough Attention To Restoring The Way We Make Collective Decisions In This Country.

The Message From Wal-mart Today To The Rest Of The Business Community Is There Need Not Be Any Conflict Between The Environment And The Economy. We Will Find The Way Not Only To Reconcile (those), But To Find New Profits And New Opportunities As We Do The Right Thing.

Future Generations May Well Have Occasion To Ask Themselves, "what Were Our Parents Thinking? Why Didn't They Wake Up When They Had A Chance?" We Have To Hear That Question From Them, Now.

David Agus Is One Of America's Great Doctors And Medical Researchers, A Man Dedicated To Improving The Health Of As Many People As He Can. Written In A Style And Format That Will Truly Engage Readers, The End Of Illness Presents A Dramatic, New Way Of Thinking About Our Own Health-a Way That Could Lead To Greatly Improving The Quality Of Life For Millions, Starting Right Now.

Plant Trees, Lots Of Trees

Today We're Dumping 70 Million Tons Of Global-warming Pollution Into The Environment, And Tomorrow We Will Dump More, And There Is No Effective Worldwide Response. Until We Start Sharply Reducing Global-warming Pollution, I Will Feel That I Have Failed.

Environmental Pollution

I Am Old Enough To Know That A Red Carpet Is Just A Rug.

I Think That Asserting That Former President Obama Wasn't Born In The United States Was Just The Height Of Irresponsibility, Of Course. And Donald Trump Corrected That One. There Are Others That Have Yet To Be Corrected.

We Have Arrived At A Moment Of Decision. Our Home - Earth - Is In Grave Danger. What Is At Risk Of Being Destroyed Is Not The Planet Itself, Of Course, But The Conditions That Have Made It Hospitable For Human Beings.

The Climate Crisis Requires A Bottom-up, Grassroots Demand For Solutions Because The Elites In Many Parts Of The World Are Under The Influence Of Old Industry.

The Climate Crisis Is The Greatest Challenge Humanity Has Ever Faced. From Not Only The Warming Of The Earth With Higher Global Temperatures, But Also From Strengthening Storms And Expanding Droughts To Melting Ice And Rising Seas, The Costs Of Carbon Pollution Are Already Being Felt By Governments, Corporations, Taxpayers And Families Around The World. The Climate Crisis Will Affect Everything That We Love And Alter The Course Of Our Future. Now, More Than Ever, We Must Come Together To Solve This Global Crisis. We Must Act Decisively, Rise To The Occasion And Solve This Monumental Challenge.

The Key.. Will Be A New Public Awareness Of How Serious Is The Threat To The Global Environment. Those Who Have A Vested Interest In The Status Quo Will Probably Continue To Be Able To Stifle Any Meaningful Change Until Enough Citizens.. Are Willing To Speak Out.

At Some Point, A False Belief Collides With Physical Reality.

I See Myself In The Mold Of Rin Tin Tin. It Didn't Go To His Head Either.

I'm Going To Be Focused On Doing Everything I Possibly Can To Help Solve The Climate Crisis.

You Can't Be Value Free When It Comes To Marriage

I Tell You That Michael Jackson Is Unbelievable, Isn't He? He's Just Unbelievable!

We Are In An Unusual Predicament As A Global Civilization. The Maximum That Is Politically Feasible, Even The Maximum That Is Politically Imaginable Right Now, Still Falls Short Of The Minimum That Is Scientifically And Ecologically Necessary.

...it Is Appropriate To Have An Over Representation Of Factual Presentations On How Dangerous It Is, As A Predicate For Opening Up The Audience To Listen To What The Solutions Are, And How Hopeful It Is That We Are Going To Solve This Crisis.

I Was In Elective Politics For 24 Years. I've Made Four National Races, Two For President, Two For Vice President. I Have Found There Are Other Ways To Serve, And I'm Enjoying Them.

I Think That We Should Ban So-called Junk Guns. I Think We Should Ban Assault Weapons Like The Weapons Used Here [in Fort Worth], Yes. I Think That The Kinds Of Weapons That Have No Legitimate Use For Hunting Or The Kind Of Weapon That A Homeowner Would Use, I Think They Should Be Banned, Yes, Those Kind Of Weapons.

A Lot In The Faith-based Community, A Lot Of Fundamentalist Groups Are - Are Now Saying, You Know, The Earth Is The Lord And The Fullness There Of, And We Have An Obligation To Be Good Stewards Of The Planet.

Our Planet Has A Rising Fever. If The Crib Catches Fire You Don't Say: 'hmmm, How Fast Is That Crib Going To Burn? Has It Ever Burned Before? Is My Baby Flame Retardant?'

We Sometimes Emphasize The Danger In A Crisis Without Focusing On The Opportunities That Are There. We Should Feel A Great Sense Of Urgency Because It Is The Most Dangerous Crisis We Have Ever Faced, By Far. But It Also Provides Us With Opportunities To Do A Lot Of Things We Ought To Be Doing For Other Reasons Anyway. And To Solve This Crisis We Can Develop A Shared Sense Of Moral Purpose.

I've Been Dreaming Of This Moment Since I Was A Kid Growing Up In Tennessee: That One Day, I'd Have The Chance To Come Here To Madison Square Garden And Be The Warm-up Act For Elvis.

Is There Some Magic Wand They Can Wave On It And Presto! - Physics Is Overturned And Carbon Dioxide Doesn't Trap Heat Anymore? And When We See All These Things Happening On The Earth Itself, What In The Hell Do They Think Is Causing It? The Scientists Have Long Held That The Evidence In Their Considered Word Is "unequivocal," Which Has Been Endorsed By Every National Academy Of Science In Every Major Country In The Entire World.

It's An Important Point, And Every Little Bit Helps Not Least Because Those Who Make Those Kinds Of Changes Are More Likely To Make Their Voices Heard As Citizens. But The Ultimate Solutions Are Going To Come Through Policies.

I Work To Promote The Idea Of Sustainable Capitalism Driven By Long-term Considerations Rather Than Quarterly Profits, Which Seeks To Better People's Lives And The Planet Rather Than Destroy Them.

Well, The Title "an Inconvenient Truth" Is A Way Of Highlighting The Reasons Why Some People, Including The President, Don't Seem To Accept The Truth.

The Fate Of Mankind, As Well As Religion, Depends On The Emergence Of A New Faith In The Future. Armed With Such A Faith, We Might Find It Possible To Resanctify The Earth.

Consider A Clock Thermostat, And Set It So That You're Not Using Energy When You Don't Need It, When You're Out Of Your House.

My Fellow Americans, People All Over The World, We Need To Solve The Climate Crisis, It's Not A Political Issue, It's A Moral Issue. We Have Everything We Need To Get Started, With The Possible Exception Of The Will To Act, That's A Renewable Resource, Let's Renew It.

The Truth Is That We're At A Critical Juncture In The History Of Our Species And If We Don't Act Soon, We Could Inhabit A World We Don't Recognize Anymore.

Winston Churchill Aroused This Nation In Heroic Fashion To Save Civilisation In World War Two. We Have Everything We Need Except Political Will, But Political Will Is A Renewable Resource.

I Am Concerned About The Economy. I Was The First One Laid Off.

I Was Born A Poor Black Child.

If We Did Not Take Action To Solve This Crisis, It Could Indeed Threaten The Future Of Human Civilization. That Sounds Shrill. It Sounds Hard To Accept. I Believe It's Deadly Accurate. But Again, We Can Solve It.

The Center Of The Earth Is About A Million Degrees.

There Are Good People, Who Are In Politics - In Both Parties - Who Hold This At Arm's Length, Because If They Acknowledge It And Recognize It, Then The Moral Imperative To Make Big Changes Is Inescapable.

The 'well-informed Citizenry Is In Danger Of Becoming The 'well-amused Audience'.

Throughout History, Religious Wars Have Always Been The Most Brutal And Cruel And Merciless.

[t]he Scientific Enterprise Will Never Be Completely Free Of Mistakes. What Is Important Is That The Overwhelming Consensus On Global Warming Remains Unchanged.

We Americans Write Our Own History. And The Chapters Of Which We're Proudest Are The Ones Where We Had The Courage To Change. Time And Again, Americans Have Seen The Need For Change, And Have Taken The Initiative To Bring That Change To Life.

I Strongly Believe In The Separation Of Church And State. But Freedom Of Religion Does Not Mean Freedom From Religion, There Is A Better Way.

I Would Kiss Tipper Much Longer.

Americans Have The Right To Have Their Medical Decisions Made By Them And Their Doctors, And Not By Those Bureaucrats Sitting Behind A Computer Screen Hundreds Of Miles Away.

There Is An Air Of Unreality In Debating These Arcane Points When The World Is Changing In Such Dramatic Ways Right In Front Of Our Eyes Because Of Global Warming.

In An Economic Recession, Naturally, When You Ask People To List Their Priorities, They're Going To Place A Higher Priority On The Immediate Economic Situation.

Economic Recession

I’ve Chosen Not To Challenge The Rule Of Law, Because In Our System There Really Is No Intermediate Step Between A Supreme Court Decision And Violent Revolution. When The Supreme Court Makes A Decision, No Matter How Strongly One Disagrees With It, One Faces A Choice –are We, In John Adams’ Phrase, A Nation Of Laws, Or Is It A Contest Made On Raw Power?

Cigarette Smoking Is A Significant Contributor To Global Warming!

There's No Doubt That In The Last Two To Three Decades, American Democracy Has Been Hacked. It Was Based On The Regular Harvesting Of The Wisdom Of Crowds, But Now Big Sources Of Special Interest Money Are Able To Prevent The Passage Of Almost Any Meaningful Reform That's Aimed At The Public Interest.

Democracies Have

When We Respond To Threats Immediately And Take Action Right Away, It's Usually The Threats That We're Hard-wired To Respond To, The Kinds Of Things That Our Ancestors Survived.

It's Not Unusual To Find Big Political Shifts That Take Place Beneath The Surface Before They're Visible Above The Surface.

I Doubt Nuclear Power Will Play A Much Larger Role Than It Does Now.

The Conversation On Global Warming Has Been Stalled Because A Shrinking Group Of Denialists Fly Into A Rage When It's Mentioned.

Our Insatiable Drive To Rummage Deep Beneath The Surface Of The Earth Is A Willful Expansion Of Our Dysfunctional Civilization Into Nature.

When Politics Is Too Slow, Change Has To Come From Culture.

The Day I Made That Statement, About The Inventing The Internet, I Was Tired Because I'd Been Up All Night Inventing The Camcorder.

I'm Not Trying To Top Anything. I'm Trying To Be Useful, To Play A Positive Role, To Serve The Public Interest.

If The People That Believed The Moon Landing Was Staged On A Movie Lot Had Access To Unlimited Money From Large Carbon Polluters Or Some Other Special Interest Who Wanted To Confuse People Into Thinking That The Moon Landing Didn't Take Place, I'm Sure We'd Have A Robust Debate About It Right Now.

There Are Many Who Still Do Not Believe That Global Warming Is A Problem At All. And It's No Wonder: Because They Are The Targets Of A Massive And Well-organized Campaign Of Disinformation Lavishly Funded By Polluters Who Are Determined To Prevent Any Action To Reduce The Greenhouse Gas Emissions That Cause Global Warming Out Of A Fear That Their Profits Might Be Affected If They Had To Stop Dumping So Much Pollution Into The Atmosphere.

Our Way Of Life Is At Stake, Our Grandchildren Are At Stake, The Future Of Civilization Is At Stake.

In The Age Of The Internet, With All Of Its Problems, Over Time, The Very Fact That Individuals Can Join The Conversation Creates The Opportunity For The Emergence Of - For The Re-emergence Of A Genuine Conversation Of Democracy.

I Will Tell You That What Gives Me A Sense Of Joy Is Having Work To Do That Justifies Pouring Every Ounce Of Energy I Have Into It. That's Really A Blessing To Have In Your Life. And It Gives You Energy Back When You Have The Privilege Of Doing Work That Makes You Feel That Way.

The More Deeply I Search For The Roots Of The Global Environmental Crisis, The More I Am Convinced That It Is An Outer Manifestation Of An Inner Crisis That Is, For Lack Of A Better Word, Spiritual... What Other Word Describes The Collection Of Values And Assumptions That Determine Our Basic Understanding Of How We Fit Into The Universe?

The Truth Is That We're At A Critical Juncture In The History Of Our Species And If We Don't Act Soon, We Could Inhabit A World We Don't Recognize Anymore. But The Most Important Truth Is That We Are Capable Of Stopping Climate Change Before The Worst Of Its Consequences Are Locked In. The Solutions Exist - All We Need Is The Will To Do Something About It.

Clouds Of A Different Sort Signal An Environmental Holocaust Without Precedent. Once Again, World Leaders Waffle, Hoping The Danger Will Dissipate. Yet Today The Evidence Is As Clear As The Sounds Of Glass Shattering In Berlin.

In Digital Era, Privacy Must Be A Priority. Is It Just Me, Or Is Secret Blanket Surveillance Obscenely Outrageous?

You Need To Really Scrub Your Investment Portfolios, Because I Guarantee You, Many Of You Are Going To Find Them Chock-full Of Subprime Carbon Assets.

In A Free Society, There Comes A Time When The Truth - However Hard It May Be To Hear, However Impolitic It May Seem To Say - Must Be Told.

There Comes A Time

Judge Roberts Is A Brilliant Lawyer, A Brilliant Judge. He Is A Very Careful Judge, A Thoughtful Judge. I Would Agree With What The President Said Earlier. He Is A Decent Man. I Think Everybody Who Knows Him Likes Him.

When Energy Prices Go Up, The Difficulty Of Projecting Demand Also Goes Up - Uncertainty Goes Up.

Having Worked On Climate Crisis For Almost 40 Years Now, I've Seen Good Days And Bad Days. And Through All Of That Time, The General Trajectory Has Been It's Getting Worse, It's Getting Worse. But In The Last Ten To 20 Years, There's A Second Development; The Solutions Are More And More, And More Available. So Having This Broad Overview That I've Developed Over A Long Period Of Time, I Now See The Evidence That The Solutions Are Available. We're Gonna Do This.

Here Is The Truth: The Earth Is Round; Saddam Hussein Did Not Attack Us On 9/11; Elvis Is Dead; Obama Was Born In The United States; And The Climate Crisis Is Real.

We Know That He Has Stored Secret Supplies Of Biological And Chemical Weapons Throughout His Country.

Mass Destruction

Hurricane Sandy Is A Disturbing Sign Of Things To Come. We Must Heed This Warning And Act Quickly To Solve The Climate Crisis. Dirty Energy Makes Dirty Weather.

As Human Beings, We Are Vulnerable To Confusing The Unprecedented With The Improbable. In Our Everyday Experience, If Something Has Never Happened Before, We Are Generally Safe In Assuming It Is Not Going To Happen In The Future, But The Exceptions Can Kill You And Climate Change Is One Of Those Exceptions.

Earlier In This Century, The Heisenberg Principle Established That The Very Act Of Observing A Natural Phenomenon Can Change What Is Being Observed. Although The Initial Theory Was Limited In Practice To Special Cases In Subatomic Physics, The Philosophical Implications Were And Are Staggering.

Remember That The Problem Is Bigger Than The Car You Drive Or The Types Of Lightbulbs In City Hall. We Need A Fundamental Shift Away From Dirty Fossil Fuels That Spew Carbon Pollution. To Make That Happen, We Need To Put Pressure On Our Leaders To Take The Bold Actions Necessary To Move Us Off Dirty Sources Of Energy.

A Leapord Never Changes His Stripes.

Humankind Has Suddenly Entered Into A Brand New Relationship With Our Planet. Unless We Quickly And Profoundly Change The Course Of Our Civilization, We Face An Immediate And Grave Danger Of Destroying The Worldwide Ecological System That Sustains Life As We Know It.

New Relationship

The Presidency Is More Than A Popularity Contest.

The Symbolism - And The Substantive Significance - Of Planting A Tree Has Universal Power In Every Culture And Every Society On Earth, And It Is A Way For Individual Men, Women And Children To Participate In Creating Solutions For The Environmental Crisis.

If Youre A Young Person Looking At The Future Of This Planet And Looking At What Is Being Done Right Now, And Not Done, I Believe We Have Reached The Stage Where It Is Time For Civil Disobedience To Prevent The Construction Of New Coal Plants That Do Not Have Carbon Capture And Sequestration.

There Are Skeptics Who Do Not Come To Their View Because They Have A Source Of Income From Carbon Polluters.

When Fear Displaces Reason, The Result Is Often Irrational Hatred And Division.

Every Day We Put Another 110 Million Tons Of Global Warming Pollution Into The Sky As If It's An Open Sewer, And It's Still Building Up. And The Scientists Tell Us It's A Race Against Time. We've Stabilized Emissions Globally Now For The Last Three Years, But They Need To Start Coming Down Quickly. We've Got The Momentum, We've Got The Wind In Our Sails, We're Gonna Win This.

I Wrote Newspaper Articles Professionally For Seven Years, And I Love Newspapers.

All Of Us Can Make Changes, But The Changes That Are Most Needed Are Not Light Bulbs And Windows But Laws And Policies And Treaties. So, Yes, We Are In A Phase Of This (climate Protection) Struggle Where Civic And Political Action Is At The Top Of The List.

The Age Of Printed Pamphlets And Political Essays Has Long Since Been Replaced By Television, A Distracting And Absorbing Medium Which Seems Determined To Entertain Itself More Than It Informs And Educates.

It Took Me A Bit To Realize How Big The Changes Have Been In The Last Decade. In So Many Places - Electricity From Solar And Wind Is Cheaper Than Electricity From Fossil Fuels, And Now The Batteries Are Coming Down In Costs Very Quickly. So It's Very Exciting News That Needed To Be Told.

The Bush Administration Works Closely With A Network Of Rapid Response Digital Brownshirts Who Work To Pressure Reporters And Their Editors For 'undermining Support For Our Troops.'

I Think The Cost Of Energy Will Come Down When We Make This Transition To Renewable Energy.

The Choice To 'do Nothing' In Response To The Mounting Evidence Is Actually A Choice To Continue And Even Accelerate The Reckless Environmental Destruction That Is Creating The Catastrophe At Hand.

You Can Say The Earth Is Flat, But It Doesn't Mean You're Going To Fall Off The Edge.

My Counsel Advises Me That There Is No Controlling Legal Authority Or Case That Says There Was Any Violation Of Law Whatsoever.

There's Such A Wide Variation In Tax Systems Around The World, It's Difficult To Imagine A Harmonized Co2 Tax That Every Country Agrees To. That's Not In The Cards In The Near Term. But The Countries That Are Doing The Best Job, Like Sweden, Are Already Doing Both Of These. I Think That Eventually We'll Use Both Of Them But We Need To Get Started Right Away And The Cap-and-trade Is A Proven And Effective Tool.

During My Service In The United States Congress, I Took The Initiative In Creating The Internet. I Took The Initiative In Moving Forward A Whole Range Of Initiatives That Have Proven To Be Important To Our Country's Economic Growth And Environmental Protection, Improvements In Our Educational System.

The Gay Rights Movement Of Recent Years Has Been An Inspiring Victory For Humanity And It Is In The Tradition Of The Civil Rights Movement When I Was A Young Boy In The South, The Women's Suffrage Movement When My Mother Was A Young Woman In Tennessee, The Abolition Movement Much Farther Back, And The Anti-apartheid Movement When I Was In The House Of Representatives. All Of These Movements Have One Thing In Common: The Opposition To Progress Was Rooted In An Outdated Understanding Of Morality.

I Have A Personal Staff That Helps Me Scour The Internet And Other Media For The Latest Scientific Peer-reviewed Findings, The Latest Examples Of Climate-related Extreme Weather Events, And The Latest Examples Of Progress. The World Is In The Midst Of A Sustainability Revolution That Has The Scope Of The Industrial Revolution, But With The Speed Of The Digital Revolution. That's Not Enough Without New Laws And The Right Kind Of Political Leadership. But It Does Give Us A Base From Which To Build A Movement That Will Save Us From The Most Catastrophic Consequences Of The Climate Crisis.

I Was Recently On A Tour Of Latin America, And The Only Regret I Have Was That I Didn't Study Latin Harder In School So I Could Converse With Those People.

I'm Very Familiar With The Importance Of Dairy Farming In Wisconsin. I've Spent The Night On A Dairy Farm Here In Wisconsin. If I'm Entrusted With The Presidency, You'll Have Someone Who Is Very Familiar With What The Wisconsin Dairy Industry Is All About.

America's Political System Has Evolved Over The Last 50 Years In Ways That Have Enhanced The Power Of Business Lobbies.

I Had A Detailed Plan For My Life, But It Turned Out Life Had A Completely Different Plan For Me. And I Feel Joy That I Have Work That Feels Like It Justifies Pouring Everything I Have Into It. I Never Have Fallen Prey To The Illusion That There's Any Job With As Much Ability To Influence The Future As That Of President Of The United States, But I Do Feel Grateful That I Found Other Ways To Do Work That Serves The Public Interest.

It's A Blessing To Have Work That Feels Fulfilling.

My Plan To Put Social Security In An Ironclad Lockbox Has Gotten A Lot Of Attention Recently, And I'm Glad About That. But I'm Afraid That It's Overshadowing Some Vitally Important Proposals. For Instance, I'll Put Medicaid In A Walk-in Closet. I'll Put The Community Reinvestment Act In A Secured Gym Locker. I'll Put Nasa Funding In A Hermetically Sealed Ziploc Bag.

The Task Of Saving The Earth's Environment Must And Will Become The Central Organizing Principle Of The Post-cold War World.

Junkies Find Veins In Their Toes When The Veins In Their Arms Collapse. Developing Tars Sands Is The Equivalent.

I Never Like The Question About Letter Grades, But I Think Trump Is Failing. I Think That Every Day There's Another Set Of Tweets And Another Set Of Controversies, And Nothing Seems To Be Getting Done That's Any Good. And There Seems To Be Kind Of A Policy Paralysis In Washington. Even The Appointments He's Supposed To Make As A New President, So I Focus Most Of All On Climate, And So My Opinion Of His Time As President Is Certainly Influenced By My Opinion Of The Job He's Done On Climate. He's Tried To Move The Country In The Wrong Direction.

Population Growth Is Straining The Earth's Resources To The Breaking Point, And Educating Girls Is The Single Most Important Factor In Stabilizing That. That, Plus Helping Women Gain Political And Economic Power And Safeguarding Their Reproductive Rights.

The Ten Hottest Years In The Atmospheric Record, Going Back Only 160 Years, Have Been In The Last Eleven Years.

There Was Never Any Doubt In Our Minds That Men And Women Were Equal, If Not More So.

I Wrote Newspaper Articles Professionally For Seven Years, And I Love Newspapers. I'm Hopeful That New Business Models Will Emerge That Allow The Newspaper Culture To Genuinely Thrive In The Digital Age.

We've Seen The Bankruptcy Of Many Newspapers. We've Seen A Further Erosion Of The Line Between News And Entertainment. But I Do Believe That There Is Reason To Hope That Over Time We Will See The Higher-quality Journalism Rise To The Surface.

Take It From Me - Every Vote Counts. In Our Democracy, Every Vote Has Power. And Never Forget - That Power Is Yours. Don't Let Anyone Take It Away Or Talk You Into Throwing It Away. And Let's Make Sure That This Time Every Vote Is Counted.

I Feel Passionate About Solving The Climate Crisis.

If You Allow Someone Like Saddam Hussein To Get Nuclear Weapons, Ballistic Missiles, Chemical Weapons, Biological Weapons, How Many People Is He Going To Kill With Such Weapons? He's Already Demonstrated A Willingness To Use These Weapons. He Poison-gassed His Own People. He Used Poison Gas And Other Weapons Of Mass Destruction Against His Neighbors. This Man Has No Compunction About Killing Lots And Lots Of People. So This Is A Way To Save Lives And To Save The Stability And Peace Of A Region Of The World That Is Important To The Peace And Security Of The Entire World.

Mass Destruction

We Are Seeing Every Night On The Television News Now A Nature Hike Through The Book Of Revelation. These Climate-related Extreme Weather Events Have Convinced The Vast Majority Of People That The Scientists Have Been Right For A Long Time. We Have To Address This.

George Orwell Once Wrote That A False Belief Sooner Or Later Collides With Physical Reality, Usually On A Battlefield.

If We Walk Down The Sidewalk Of Any Street In America A Significant Number Of The People We Pass By, If We Dug Into What They're Going Through In Their Lives, They're Carrying Burdens That They Don't Talk About But They're Extremely Heavy And Painful. And So, One Of The Secrets Of The Human Condition Is That Suffering Binds People Together. And When You Go Through Something Agonizing, Others Who Know What You're Feeling Because They've Been Through It Will So Often Reach Out To You And Connect With You, And Give You Strength And Lift You Up.

The Spiritual Sense Of Our Place In Nature... Can Be Traced To The Origins Of Human Civilization... The Last Vestige Of Organized Goddess Worship Was Eliminated By Christianity.

I Was Honored To Serve As An Elected Official For Twenty-four Years Of My Life. But Right Now, I Believe Our Democratic Processes Have Been Hacked. They Are Not Serving The Best Interests Of The American Public.

We Face A Climate Crisis Now That Is The Most Serious Challenge Our Civilization Has Ever Confronted. And The Greatest Country In The World [america] Has To Remain A Part Of This Unprecedented Global Agreement To Deal With It.

The Signs That The World Is Spinning Out Of Kilter Are Increasingly Difficult To Misinterpret. The Question Is How To Convince Enough People To Join A Critical Mass Of Urgent Opinion, In The U.s. And The Rest Of The World.

Mother Nature Does Not Do Bailouts.

The Oil Industry Has Outpaced The Building Of A Public Consensus Of The Implications Of Climate Science.

All I'm Doing, All I Have Done For 40 Years, Is Spend Time With The Best Scientific Experts, Gain Their Confidence, And Take Advantage Of Their Patience In Explaining Things To Me Over And Over Again In Progressively Simpler Language That I Can Understand, So That I Can Read It Back To Them And Get Their Sign Off, Where They Say, "yep, That's It, Al. You've Got It." When I Understand It, I Know I Can Explain It To Other People. When The Scientists' Predictions End Up Being True, I See That As An Opportunity To Say To People, "listen Carefully To What They're Saying Now."

A Zebra Can Not Change It's Spots.

One Tragic Example Of The Loss Of Forests And Then Water Is Found In Ethiopia. The Amount Of Its Forested Land Has Decreased From 40 To 1 Percent In The Last Four Decades. Concurrently, The Amount Of Rainfall Has Declined To The Point Where The Country Is Rapidly Becoming A Wasteland.

The United States Has An Absolute, Uncompromising Commitment To Israel's Security And An Absolute Conviction That Israel Alone Must Decide The Steps Necessary To Ensure That Security. That Is Israel's Prerogative. We Accept That. We Endorse That. Whatever Israel Decides Cannot, Will Not, Will Never, Not Ever, Alter Our Fundamental Commitment To Her Security.

When You Have The Facts On Your Side, Argue The Facts. When You Have The Law On Your Side, Argue The Law. When You Have Neither, Holler.

Traditionally The United States Has Been The Natural Leader Of The World. That's Not Just Pride As An American Speaking; It's Just The Reality. Without The U.s. Being Involved In Paris Climate Agreement, It's Hard For The World Community To Move Forward As Effectively.

The Pacific Yew Can Be Cut Down And Processed To Produce A Potent Chemical, Taxol, Which Offers Some Promise Of Curing Certain Forms Of Lung, Breast And Ovarian Cancer In Patients Who Would Otherwise Quickly Die... It Seems An Easy Choice - Sacrifice The Tree For A Human Life - Until One Learns That Three Trees Must Be Destroyed For Each Patient Treated.

We Have A Planetary Emergency. We Have To Find A Way To Create, In The Generation Of Those Alive Today, A Sense Of Generational Mission.

It Is Just Human Nature To Take Time To Connect The Dots, I Know That. But I Also Know That There Can Be A Day Of Reckoning When You Wish You Had Connected The Dots More Quickly.

We're Putting 70 Million Tonnes Of Pollution Into The Atmosphere Every Day, Trapping An Enormous Amount Of Extra Heat From The Sun Inside The Earth's Atmosphere. It's Threatening To Push The Planet Past A Tipping Point Beyond Which Climate Change Would Be Difficult To Stop

Our Civilization Is Experiencing Unprecedented Changes Across Many Realms, Largely Due To The Rapid Advancement Of Information Technology. The Ability To Code And Understand The Power Of Computing Is Crucial To Success In Today's Hyper-connected World.

Fifteen Per Cent Of The Population Believe The Moon Landing Was Actually Staged In A Movie Lot In Arizona And Somewhat Fewer Still Believe The Earth Is Flat. I Think They All Get Together With The Global Warming Deniers On A Saturday Night And Party

I Remember As A Boy When The Conversation On Civil Rights Was Won In The South. I Remember A Time When One Of My Friends Made A Racist Joke And Another Said, 'hey Man, We Don't Go For That Anymore.'

We're Still Putting 110 Million Tons Of Man-made Global Pollution Into The Air Every Single Day As If The Sky Is An Open Sewer. More Than 90% Of The Extra Heat Energy Is Going Into The Oceans, And That's Why Superstorm Sandy Was So Much More Destructive, That's Why The Ice Is Melting More Rapidly, That's Why The Water Cycle Is Being Disrupted And We Get A Lot More Water Vapor Coming From The Oceans Into The Sky, And That's Why We Get These Enormous Downpours And Big Floods. They Happen All The Time. Every Night On The Tv News Is Like A Nature Hike Through The Book Of Revelation.

And Just As The False Assumption That We Are Not Connected To The Earth Has Led To The Ecological Crisis, So To The Equally False Assumption That We Arenot Connected To Each Other That Has Led To Our Social Crisis.

Many Of The Green Places And Open Spaces That Need Protecting Most Today Are In Our Own Neighborhoods. In Too Many Places, The Beauty Of Local Vistas Has Been Degraded By Decades Of Ill-planned And Ill-coordinated Development.

Most People In Politics Draw Energy From Backslapping And Shaking Hands And All That. I Draw Energy From Discussing Ideas.

You Know, In Physics There's The Old Law For Every Action There's A Equal Amount Of Reaction. Sometimes That's True In Politics. If Somebody's Out There Making Nonsensical Statements, But Wielding Power Behind Them A Lot Of People Say, "well, I Need To React To That." I Think That's Happening.

The Struggle To Save The Global Environment Is In One Way Much More Difficult Than The Struggle To Vanquish Hitler, For This Time The War Is With Ourselves. We Are The Enemy, Just As We Have Only Ourselves As Allies.

The Misconception That There Is Serious Disagreement Among Scientists About Global Warming Is Actually An Illusion That Has Been Deliberately Fostered By A Relatively Small But Extremely Well-funded Cadre Of Special Interests, Including Exxon Mobil And A Few Other Oil, Coal, And Utilities Companies. These Companies Want To Prevent Any New Policies That Would Interfere With Their Current Business Plans That Rely On The Massive Unrestrained Dumping Of Global Warming Pollution Into The Earth's Atmosphere Every Hour Of Every Day.

For Me, The Most Disturbing Aspect Of The Republican Political Culture Is How It Puts Its Unquenchable Thirst For Power, Domination And A Radical Ideology Above Facts, Reason And The Truth.

The Answer Is To End Our Reliance On Carbon-based Fuels... If We Succeed, We Create Booming New Industries, Wealth, Clean Secure Energy And Maybe We Prevent The Greatest Disaster So Far In Human History, Saving Millions Of Lives While Improving Billions More. If We Fail, Basically It's Business As Usual While Things Slowly Get Worse All Around Us.

In The United States Of America, Unfortunately We Still Live In A Bubble Of Unreality.

I'm Sorry I Ever Invented The Electoral College.

All I Have To Do Is Be The Best Al I Can Be, Because I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough And, Doggone It, People Like Me.

The Dominance Of Short-term Perspectives Has Led To Routine Decisions In The Markets That Sacrifice The Long-term Buildup Of Genuine Value In Pursuit Of Artificial, Short-term Gains.

In The United States Of America, Unfortunately We Still Live In A Bubble Of Unreality. And The Category 5 Denial Is An Enormous Obstacle To Any Discussion Of Solutions. Nobody Is Interested In Solutions If They Don’t Think There’s A Problem. Given That Starting Point, I Believe It Is Appropriate To Have An Over-representation Of Factual Presentations On How Dangerous It Is, As A Predicate For Opening Up The Audience To Listen To What The Solutions Are, And How Hopeful It Is That We Are Going To Solve This Crisis.

Like An Audience Entertained By A Magician, We Allow Ourselves To Be Deceived By Those With A Stake In Persuading Us To Ignore Reality.

The Catastrophe Now Threatening Us Is Unprecedented - And We Often Confuse The Unprecedented With The Improbable.

The Golden Thread Of Reason That Used To Be Stretched Taut To Mark The Boundary Between The Known And The Unknown Is Now Routinely Disrespected.

There Are Many Who Would Much Prefer That The Word 'climate' Never Be Mentioned And That The Issue Be Eliminated From Our National Conversation.

I Didn't Realize I Was In A Buddhist Temple.

As Many Of You Know, I Was Very Instrumental In The Founding Of The Internet

As President, I Will Bring All The Parties And Stakeholders Together. I Am Going To Come Up With A Solution That Respects The Environment And Does Not Cause An Upheaval In The Economy.

The Truth About The Climate Crisis Is Still Inconvenient To The Large Carbon Polluters. And So They Want To Bob And Weave And Dodge The Truth, And Pretend Like It's Still A Big Controversy, And It's Not. They Want To Pretend That This Is Up For Debate. Like, Whether Or Not The World Is Round Is Up For Debate, Or Whether The Moon Landing Really Took Place.

I Have A Sense Of Mission On This Climate Crisis, And I'm Trying To Pour All The Energy I Have Into It. And I Hope That I, Along With Others, Can Catalyze The Emergence Of Real Solutions To The Climate Crisis. I Think We're Making A Lot Of Progress. I Think We're Going To Win This, But It Matters How Quickly We Win It. So I'm Focused On That.

Science Has A Culture That Is Inherently Cautious And That Is Normally Not A Bad Thing. You Could Even Say Conservative, Because Of The Peer Review Process And Because The Scientific Method Prizes Uncertainty And Penalises Anyone Who Goes Out On Any Sort Of A Limb That Is Not Held In Place By Abundant And Well-documented Evidence.

The Internet Empowers Individuals To Play A More Active Role In The Political Process, As Obama's Campaign Has Manifested.

The Crisis Is A Concrete Threatening Reality Today. It Stands To Get Catastrophically Worse Unless We Take Action Before The Accumulation [of] This Global Warming Pollution Reaches Such Toxic Levels That The Problem Becomes Bigger Than We Can Solve.

You're Going To See New Processes That Utilize Waste As The Source Of Energy, So There's No Petroleum Consumed In The Process - That Makes The Energy Balance Uniformly Positive.

We The Human Species, Are Confronting A Planetary Emergency-a Threat To The Survival Of Our Civilization That Is Gathering Ominous And Destructive Potential...the Earth Has A Fever. And The Fever Is Rising...indeed, Without Realizing It, We Have Begun To Wage War On Earth Itself.

Speaking From My Own Religious Tradition In This Christmas Season, 2,000 Years Ago A Homeless Woman Gave Birth To A Homeless Child In A Manger Because The Inn Was Full.

The Planet Has A Fever. If Your Baby Has A Fever, 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 Told Me It's Not A Problem.'... You Take Action.

Trending Author

Nicholas Negroponte

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Category