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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.

-Al Gore

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Clouds Of A Different

Al Gore

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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.

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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 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.

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.

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 All Of These Movements Have One Thing In Common: The Opposition To Progress Was Rooted In An Outdated Understanding Of Morality.

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.

Fake News Has Been Around As Long As News Has Been Around.

Pollution Should Never Be The Price Of Prosperity.

I Am Al Gore, And I Used To Be The Next President Of The United States Of America.

I'm Sorry I Ever Invented The Electoral College.

Airplane Travel Is Nature's Way Of Making You Look Like Your Passport Photo.

I've Learned The Importance Of Changing People's Minds At The Grassroots Level So That Whoever Does Run Will Have A Much Better Chance Of Encountering Public Opinion That Reaches A Critical Mass And Brings About A Change Not Only In White House Policies But In The Congress And In The State Legislatures And All Around The World.

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

You See That Pale, Blue Dot? That's Us. Everything That Has Ever Happened In All Of Human History, Has Happened On That Pixel. All The Triumphs And All The Tragedies, All The Wars All The Famines, All The Major Advances... It's Our Only Home. And That Is What Is At Stake, Our Ability To Live On Planet Earth, To Have A Future As A Civilization. I Believe This Is A Moral Issue, It Is Your Time To Seize This Issue, It Is Our Time To Rise Again To Secure Our Future.

The Moral Imperative To Make Big Changes Is Inescapable...that What We Take For Granted May Not Be Here For Our Children

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

A Day Will Come When Our Children And Grandchildren Will Look Back And They'll Ask One Of Two Questions. Either They Will Ask: "what In God's Name Were They Doing?" Or They May Look Back And Say: "how Did They Find The Uncommon Moral Courage To Rise Above Politics And Redeem The Promise Of American Democracy?"

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

There Is No Doubt That The Issue Of Race Is Always Present In American Politics And In The Politics Of Any Multiracial Society. There Is Also No Doubt That For Some People It Is An Element In The Manifested Hostility To Obama. But I Don't Think It Is The Major Theme At All. Obama Is Right When He Reminds People: By The Way, I Was Black Before The Election.

The Science Linking The Increased Frequency And Severity Of Extreme Weather To The Climate Crisis Has Matured Tremendously In The Last Couple Of Years.

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 Face The Gravest Threat That Civilization Has Ever Confronted. It's Global In Nature And Requires A Global Solution. Increased Co2 Emissions Anywhere, Whether From China Or The United States Or From One Of The Countries That Is Burning Its Forests Like Brazil Or Indonesia.

I Would Distinguish Between Donald Trump And The United States Of America. Although He Is President, He Does Not Speak For The Country On The Climate Change, And That Was Vividly Illustrated In The Aftermath Of His Speech Pulling The Us Out Of The Paris Agreement. Almost Immediately, Not Only Did The Rest Of The World Double Down On Its Commitments, But Also Here In This Country, Governors, Mayors, Business Leaders, They Said, We're Still In The Paris Agreement, And They're Doubling Down. A Lot Of Cities Have Now Made A Decision To Go 100% Renewable Energy.

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.

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.

I Drive A Hybrid, And We've Changed Our Light Bulbs And Windows And Installed Solar Panels And Geothermal Ground Source Heat Pumps And Most Everything Else.

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.

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.

There's No Such Thing As Clean Coal. It's Non-existent. Theoretically, It Might Be Possible, Many Years From Now, To Come Up With A Way To Clean It As It's Burnt. But There's Not A Single Demonstration Project In The United States. [...] Clean Coal Doesn't Exist.

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.

Believe In The Power Of Your Own Voice.

John Mccain Is Now Openly Endorsing The Policies Of The Bush-cheney White House And Promising To Actually Continue The Same Policies Over Again? Hey, I Believe In Recycling But That's Ridiculous.

A Free Press Is The Immune System Of Representative Democracy.

Representatives

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

We Ought To Approach This Challenge [of Global Warming] With A Sense Of Profound Joy And Gratitude: That We Are The Generation About Which, A Thousand Years From Now, Philharmonic Orchestras And Poets And Singers Will Celebrate By Saying, They Were The Ones That Found It Within Themselves To Solve This Crisis And Lay The Basis For A Bright And Optimistic Human Future.

I Support The Death Penalty. I Think That It Has To Be Administered Not Only Fairly, With Attention To Things Like Dna Evidence, Which I Think Should Be Used In All Capital Cases, But Also With Very Careful Attention. If The Wrong Guy Is Put To Death, Then That's A Double Tragedy. Not Only Has An Innocent Person Been Executed But The Real Perpetrator Of The Crime Has Not Been Held Accountable For It, And In Some Cases May Be Still At Large. But I Support The Death Penalty In The Most Heinous Cases.

Third World Nations Are Producing Too Many Children Too Fast...it Is Time To Ignore The Controversy Over Family Planning And Cut Out-of-control Population Growth.

The Center Of The Earth Is About A Million Degrees.

The Will To Act Is A Renewable Resource.

Renewable Resources

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

American Democracy Has Been Hacked.

Democracies Have

There Are People Who Say, "god Is In Complete Control Of Everything That Happens, And If The Earth Is Getting Warmer, Then Maybe God Intends That." Well, No. God Intends For Us To Take Responsibility For How We Treat God's Creation, And If We Choose To Use The Thin Shell Of Atmosphere Surrounding Our Planet As An Open Sewer For 110-million Tons Of Global-warming Pollution Every Day, The Consequences Are Attributable To Us. And If You Are A Believer, As I Am, I Think God Intends For Us To Open Our Eyes And Take Responsibility For The Moral Consequences Of Our Actions.

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.

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.

We Are Close To A Time When All Of Humankind Will Envision A Global Agenda That Encompasses A Kind Of Global Marshall Plan To Address The Causes Of Poverty And Suffering And Environmental Destruction All Over The Earth.

What's Really Important Is How Our Country Gets Through Trump Period, Because Nothing's Getting Done In Washington. Every Day It's Another Set Of Tweets And Another Set Of Controversies. And They're Not Getting Anything Done.

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.

Distributed Intelligence Is The Key To The Advancement Of Human Civilization. Dictatorships, Communist Countries, Monarchies In The Past All Eventually Collapsed Because Of Their Inefficiency In Moving Information.

The Truth About The Climate Crisis Is Still Inconvenient For The Large Carbon Polluters And The Politicians Who Are In Their Pockets.

We Must Also Promote Global Access To The Internet. We Need To Bridge The Digital Divide Not Just Within Our Country. But Among Countries. Only By Giving People Around The World Access To This Technology Can They Tap Into The Potential. Of The Information Age.

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

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

The Struggle Against Poverty In The World And The Challenge Of Cutting Wealthy Country Emissions All Has A Single, Very Simple Solution... Here It Is: Put A Price On Carbon.

The Scientific Evidence Of How Serious This Climate Crisis Is Becoming Continues To Amass Week After Week After Week.

Because These Consequences Are Distributed Globally, The Problem Masquerades As A Distraction. Because The Length Of Time Between Causes And Consequences Stretches Out Longer Than We're Used To Dealing With, It Gives Us The Illusion That We Have The Luxury Of Time. Neither Of Those Things Is True.

A Zebra Does Not Change Its Spots.

Of All The Works Of Civilization That Interfere With The Natural Water Distribution System, Irrigation Has Been By Far The Most Pervasive And Powerful.

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.

Anyone Who Deals With The Climate Crisis Has An Internal Dialogue Between Hope And Despair, Because The Challenge Is So Huge And The Danger Is So Great And The Stakes Are So High. But I Have Always Resolved That In Favour Of Hope, And Actually I'm More Hopeful Now Than I Was A Decade Ago When The Solutions Were Visible On The Horizon, But You Had To Seek Reassurance That The Technology Experts That They're Coming, They'll Be Here.

The Truth Is That Climate Change Is Presenting The Greatest Challenge Humanity Has Ever Faced.

The Wind And The Sun Are Free.

There's Lots About Politics I Don't Feel Comfortable With. To Talk About The Politics Of Future Ideas Is Impossible In Soundbite Form.

Surveillance Technologies Now Available - Including The Monitoring Of Virtually All Digital Information - Have Advanced To The Point Where Much Of The Essential Apparatus Of A Police State Is Already In Place.

I Understand That Being Optimistic In This Age Is Challenging, But I Am Optimistic Nonetheless.

Any Child Born Into The Hugely Consumptionist Way Of Life So Common In The Industrial World Will Have An Impact That Is, On Average, Many Times More Destructive Than That Of A Child Born In The Developing World.

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.

As Important As It Is To Change The Light Bulbs, Its More Important To Change The Laws

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

As Many Know, The Chinese Expression For "crisis" Consists Of Two Characters Side By Side. The First Is The Symbol For "danger," The Second The Symbol For "opportunity."

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.

I Have Absolutely No Plans And No Expectations Of Ever Being A Candidate Again.

And Nobody Is Talking About Taking Guns Away From Hunters Or Sportsmen Or Banning All Guns. Nobody Is Talking About That.

We're Operating This Planet Like A Business In Liquidation.

I Think George W. Bush Has A Warm, Engaging Personality. But, You Know, The Presidency Is More Than Just A Popularity Contest.

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

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.

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. Suddenly We Must Confront Some Tough Questions. How Important Are The Medical Needs Of Future Generations?

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.

Feb. 9, 1999 Dear Friend, Without Your Previous Support, Bill Clinton And I Would Not Have Won Our Victories For The American People In 1992 And 1996. ... And To Win In 2000, I Need You By My Side.

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.

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.

Fear Is The Most Powerful Enemy Of Reason.

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.

Take It From Me, Every Vote Counts.

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

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

I Used To Have A Military Officer Travelling With Me At All Times With A Suitcase - Referred To As The Nuclear Football - In Case It Had To Be Used.

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?'

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.

The Global Environment Crisis Is, As We Say In Tennessee, Real As Rain, And I Cannot Stand The Thought Of Leaving My Children With A Degraded Earth And A Diminished Future.

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.

...it Ought To Be Possible To Establish A Coordinated Global Program To Accomplish The Strategic Goal Of Completely Eliminating The Internal Combustion Engine Over, Say, A Twenty-five-year Period.

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.

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.

The Uk Is One Of The Only Nations On Earth That Has Actually Met And Even Exceeded Its Goals Under The Kyoto Protocol.

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.

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

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.

Politics Has Become A Game Of Meaningless, Mindless Battles, Conducted By Unscrupulous Methods And People, Designed To Transform Even The Most Serious Policy Debates Into Sport.

I Think The Fact That Within The Bitcoin Universe An Algorithm Replaces The Functions Of The Government Is Actually Pretty Cool. I Am A Big Fan Of Bitcoin.

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.

Adopting A Central Organizing Principle Means Embarking On An All-out Effort To Use Every Policy And Program, Every Law And Institution, To Halt The Destruction Of The Environment.

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.

What's At Risk [in 100 Years] If We Do Not Take Action, Truly Is The Survival Of Civilization As We Know It... Literally That Is The Case. We Have Seen Global Warming So Far Of Just A Little Bit Less Than One Degree Celsius And Look At What's Happened. Superstorm Sandy. Boulder Colorado. All These Fires. Hurricane Irene One Year Before.

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.

Once The Renewable Infrastructure Is Built, The Fuel Is Free Forever. Unlike Carbon-based Fuels, The Wind And The Sun And The Earth Itself Provide Fuel That Is Free, In Amounts That Are Effectively Limitless.

Plant Trees, Lots Of Trees

There's An Old African Proverb That Says "if You Want To Go Quickly, Go Alone. If You Want To Go Far, Go Together." We Have To Go Far - Quickly. And That Means We Have To Quickly Find A Way To Change The World's Consciousness About Exactly What We're Facing, And Why We Have To Work To Solve It.

Unless We Stop Dumping 70 Million Tons Of Global Warming Pollution Into The Atmosphere Every 24 Hours, Which We Are Doing Right Now ... The Continued Acceleration Of This Pollution Would Destroy The Future Of Human Civilization.

I'm Not A Vegetarian, But I Have Cut Back Sharply On The Meat That I Eat.

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 Presidency Is More Than A Popularity Contest.

Science Is Warning Us That If We Do Not Quickly Reduce The Global Warming Pollution That Is Trapping So Much Of The Heat Our Planet Normally Radiates Back Out Of The Atmosphere, We Are In Danger Of Creating A Permanent 'carbon Summer'.

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

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.

I Took The Initiative In Moving Forward A Whole Range Of Initiatives That Have Proven To Be Important To Our Country's Economic Growth, Environmental Protection, Improvements In Our Educational System.

The Debate's Over. The People Who Dispute The International Consensus On Global Warming Are In The Same Category Now With The People Who Think The Moon Landing Was Staged On A Movie Lot In Arizona.

The Very First Words That We, The American Nation, Spoke Were Right Here In Philadelphia. You Know Those Words: "we The People." It Wasn't, "we The Conglomerates." It Wasn't, "we The Corporations." It Was, "we The People."

I'm A Big Fan Of Bitcoin ... Regulation Of Money Supply Needs To Be Depoliticized.

Consider What Kind Of Car You Get. Buy Cars And Other Products That Have The Least Impact Environmentally.

Tobacco Addiction Sinks Its Claws In Deeply, It's Just As Powerful Of [sic] An Addiction As Heroin Or Crack Cocaine.

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

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

There Are Skeptics Who Do Not Come To Their View Because They Have A Source Of Income From Carbon Polluters. I Don't Mean To Imply That They're All In That Category At All. There Are Also Those Who Are Also Not Motivated By Ideological Resistance For Any Role Of Government. But I Don't Know Of Any Arguments Or Any Presenters Of Arguments That Overturn The Consensus That I Think Have Gained Any Legitimacy.

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.

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

When You Look At What Has Happened Over The Last Few Decades The Natural Fluctuations Point In The Opposite Direction Of What Has Actually Occurred. When They Run The Models And Plug In The Man-made Pollution, The Correspondence Is Exact. Beyond That, The Scale Of Natural Fluctuations Has Now Been Far Exceeded By The Impact Of Man-made Global Warming.

It's As If We Think The Laws Of Physics Are Subject To Debate And Amendment And Political Contributions Can Sway The Laws Of Physics.

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

In Order To Solve The Climate Crisis, We Need To Solve The Democracy Crisis.

There Is The Natural Tendency That All Of Us Are Vulnerable To, To Deny Unpleasant Realities And To Look For Any Excuse To Push Them Away And Resolve To Think About Them Another Day Long In The Future.

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

Making Consumer Choices That Reward Eco-friendly Products And Companies Is A Great Way To Start.

Humanity Is Sitting On A Time Bomb. If The Vast Majority Of The World's Scientists Are Right, We Have Just Ten Years To Avert A Major Catastrophe That Could Send Our Entire Planet's Climate System Into A Tail-spin Of Epic Destruction Involving Extreme Weather, Floods, Droughts, Epidemics And Killer Heat Waves Beyond Anything We Have Ever Experienced - A Catastrophe Of Our Own Making.

What We've Often Seen Is That When We Americans Say, Look, We've Got To Reduce Pollution, Business - Some Businesses Complain About It, But Almost Every Time, It's Turned Out To Be Easier And Cheaper And Accomplished Faster, And They've Gained Confidence, And Then We Go Farther.

Manbearpig, Half Man, Half Bear, Half Pig

Our World Faces A True Planetary Emergency. I Know The Phrase Sounds Shrill, And I Know It's A Challenge To The Moral Imagination.

I've Kind Of Fallen Out Of Love With Politics. ...whatever Experience And Talents I've Gained Over The Years -- I Think It May Well Be That The Highest And Best Use Of That Is To Try To Bring Enough Awareness Of The Solutions To The Climate Crisis And Enough Of A Sense Of Urgency That We Come Together Across Party Lines On Behalf Of Our Children.

...the Debate Among The Scientists If Over. There Is No More Debate. We Face A Planetary Emergency. There Is No More Scientific Debate Among Serious People Who've Looked At The Science...well, I Guess In Some Quarters, There's Still A Debate Over Whether The Moon Landing Was Staged In A Movie Lot In Arizona, Or Whether The Earth Is Flat Instead Of Round.

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.

George W. Bush Promised Us A Foreign Policy With Humility. Instead, He Has Brought Us Humiliation In The Eyes Of The World. He Promised To Restore Honor And Integrity To The White House. Instead, He Has Brought Deep Dishonor To Our Country And Built A Durable Reputation As The Most Dishonest President Since Richard M. Nixon.

I Think I May Have A Future As A Disembodied Head.

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.

Where Solar Energy Is Concerned - And Wind Energy And Battery Storage And Electric Vehicles And Efficiency Technologies - That Is What We Are Now Seeing. So, Yes, I'm Very Optimistic, But Anyone Who Works On The Climate Crisis Has An Internal Struggle Between Hope And Despair. I Won't Deny That, But Hope Has Always Prevailed In My Outlook.

The Era Of Procrastination...is Coming To A Close...we Are Entering A Period Of Consequences - Winston Churchill (warning About The Danger Of Appeasement

Procrastination

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

When You're Going Through An Emotional Experience And You're Focussed Completely On What's Happening, You Can't Even Spare Any Attention That The Camera's There.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

I Decided To Pick The Diet That I Thought Would Maximize My Chances Of Long-term Survival.

The Heart Of The Security Agenda Is Protecting Lives, And We Now Know That The Number Of People Who Will Die Of Aids In The First Decade Of The 21st Century Will Rival The Number That Died In All The Wars In All The Decades Of The 20th Century.

The Mountain Glaciers In Every Region Of The World Are Melting, Many Of Them At An Accelerated Rate, Threatening Drinking Supplies - Drinking Water Supplies And Agricultural Water Supplies. We Have These Record Storms, Drought, Floods, Fires, Three Deaths (ph) In The American West, Climate Refugees Beginning Now, Expected To Rise To The Hundreds Of Millions Unless We Take Action.

I'm Passionate About Restoring The Efficacy Of American Democracy, Making Capitalism Sustainable, Prioritizing Advances In Technology, And Seizing The Opportunities To Use That Kind Of Innovation To Help Usher In A New Economy That Doesn't Rely On Carbon-spewing Fossil Fuels.

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." Another Reason For The Increased Prominence Of The Climate-change Issue Is The Paris Agreement Itself. It's Not A Small Thing When Just About Every Nation In The Entire World Comes Together And Makes An Historic Agreement Like This. It's A Big Deal. And The Old Cliché "the Train Is Leaving The Station" Kind Of Applies.

During My Service In The United States Congress, I Took The Initiative In Creating The Internet.

The Physical Relationship Between Co2 Molecules And The Atmosphere And The Trapping Of Heat Is As Well-established As Gravity, For God's Sakes. It's Not Some Mystery.

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

I Feel Passionate About Solving The Climate Crisis.

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.

Having Cameras Follow You Is Something That Requires A Little Personal Adjustment, But You Actually Do Begin To Forget They're There. It's Impossible To Maintain That Awareness All The Time, And When You're Going Through An Emotional Or Absorbing Experience, You Really Don't Have Any Spare Attention To Think, "got To Remember That The Camera Is Rolling."

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.

The Role Of Campaign Contributions In Our Political System And The Role Of Lobbyists Have Now Reached Levels That Are Quite Unhealthy For The Operations Of Our Democracy. But The Antidote, As In Past Eras Of Lobbyist Excess, Is For More Involvement By Citizens To Build Pressure On Members Of The House And Senate To Serve The Public Interest.

I Believe That The Purpose Of Life Is To Glorify God.

If There Is No Cost To Be Paid For The Indiscriminate Dumping Of Pollution Into The Earth's Atmosphere, Then It Should Be A Surprise To No One That Today We Will Dump Another 70 Million Tons Of Global Warming Pollution Into The Thin Shell Of Atmosphere Surrounding Our Planet. ... We Have To [act] This Year, Not Next Year. Mother Nature Does Not Do Bailouts.

I Think The Ethical Standards Established In This White House Have Been The Highest In The History Of The White House.

Ethical Standards

The Good News Is, We Have Everything We Need Now To Respond To The Challenge Of Global Warming. We Have All The Technologies We Need, More Are Being Developed.... But We Should Not Wait, We Cannot Wait, We Must Not Wait.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

Even If We Give First Priority To The Destruction Of Terrorist Networks, And Even If We Succeed, There Are Still Governments That Could Bring Us Great Harm. And There Is A Clear Case That One Of These Governments In Particular Represents A Virulent Threat In A Class By Itself: Iraq. As Far As I Am Concerned, A Final Reckoning With That Government Should Be On The Table.

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.

We Are Monumentally Distracted By A Pervasive Technological Culture That Appears To Have A Life Of Its Own, One That Insists On Our Full Attention, Continually Seducing Us And Pulling Us Away From The Opportunity To Experience Directly The True Meaning Of Our Own Lives.

I Don't Really Consider This A Political Issue, I Consider It To Be A Moral Issue.

We Need To Put A Price On Carbon. This Needs To Be A Priority For All Of Us In How We Vote.

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

The Interior Of The Earth Is Extremely Hot – Several Million Degrees.

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.

Most People Talk As If Miami And Bangladesh Still Have A Chance Of Surviving: Most Of The Scientists I Spoke With Assume We'll Lose Them Within The Century, Even If We Stop Burning Fossil Fuel In The Next Decade.

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.

Capitalism Is The Best Way Of Organizing Economic Activity For A Lot Of Reasons. It Unlocks A Higher Fraction Of Human Potential, It Balances Supply And Demand, It's More Consistent With Higher Levels Of Freedom. But The Way We're Pursuing It Now, Focuses On Such Short-term Horizons, That A Lot Of Businesses And Investors Are Tempted To Look At Investments In Terms Of What's Gonna Happen In The Next 90 Days, What's Gonna Happen In One Year. But The Old Phrase, "good Things Take Time," Is True Of Successful Businesses As Well.

Eventually We'll Use A Co2 Tax Offset By A Reduction In Taxes Elsewhere Alongside A Cap-and-trade Plan, But The Degree Of Difficulty Associated With A Co2 Tax Far Exceeds That With A Cap-and-trade Plan. We're Seeing It's Hard To Get A Cap-and-trade Plan And It's Much Easier To Use As A Basis For A Global Agreement Than A Co2 Tax.

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.

From Wherever The Emissions Come, They Have The Same Effect: They Trap Much More Heat From The Sun, Melt The Ice, Raise The Sea Level, Cause Stronger Storms, Floods, Drought, Bigger Fires, Generate Millions Of Climate Refugees, Destabilize Political Systems, Threaten The Growing Of Food Crops And Cause A Number Of Other Catastrophic Consequences Which, Taken Together, Threaten The Basis For The Future Of Human Civilization On The Earth.

You Can Push Your Local Communities To Adopt More Sustainable Sources Of Energy And Environmentally-friendly Practices.

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.

We Can Build A Collective Civic Space Large Enough For All Our Separate Identities, That We Can Be E Pluribus Unum - Out Of One, Many.

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

Mass Destruction

Incredibly, While These 18 To 20 Year-olds Cannot Legally Buy A Beer, Cannot Purchase A Bottle Of Wine And Cannot Order A Drink In A Bar, Right Now They Can Walk Into Any Gun Shop, Any Pawn Shop, Any Gun Show, Anywhere In America And Buy A Handgun.

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

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