Background Image

...

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.

-Al Gore

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Earlier In This Century,

Al Gore

...

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.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Al Gore

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.

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

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.

I Smoked Pot In College And In The Army.

When You Talk About President Trump, The Cable Networks Turned Over So Many Hours Of Prime Time To Him. Why? Because He Was Entertaining, But Also Because It Drove Ratings. And That Is Different From What The News Media Is Supposed To Focus On.

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

Each And Every One Of Us Can Make Changes In The Way We Live Our Lives And Become Part Of The Solution [to Climate Change]

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.

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

...2009 Saw The Eighth 'ten-year Flood' Of Fargo, North Dakota, Since 1989. In Iowa, Cedar Rapids Was Hit Last Year By A Flood That Exceeded The 500-year Flood Plain. All-time Flood Records Are Being Broken In Areas Throughout The World.

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

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.

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.

I'm Naturally An Optimist, But My Basis For Hope Is Rooted In My Understanding Of Human Nature.

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.

A President Who Breaks The Law Is A Threat To The Very Structure Of Our Government.

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.

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."

Even Though It's Important For All Of Us To Change Our Light Bulbs And The Vehicles We Drive, It's Much More Important To Change Our Laws And Policies. 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. But Putting The Burden On Individuals To Solve This Global Crisis Is Ultimately Not Going To Be The Most Effective Way To Solve It.

There Are Some Bright Spots, To Be Sure, But The Internet Is Still In A Wild West Phase, As Was The Case During The Early Age Of The Printing Press As Well.

I Saw The Logarithmic Growth Of Computer Power.

I Think That More Diversity Is A Good Thing, And Fresh Points Of View Articulated By People Who Are Committed To Excellence In Journalism Is A Beneficial Change In The American Media Landscape.

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.

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

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.

The Cumulative Amount Of Man-made Global Pollution That's In The Atmosphere Now Traps As Much Extra Heat Energy Every Day As Would Be Released By 400,000 Hiroshima-class Atomic Bombs Exploding Every Day. It's A Big Planet, But That's An Awful Lot Of Energy.

I Affirm My Faith When I'm Asked About It. But I Always Try To Do So In A Way That Communicates Absolute Respect, Not Only For People Who Worship In A Different Way, But Just As Much Respect For Those Who Do Not Believe In God And Who Are Atheists.

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.

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.

The Cost Reductions For Renewable Energy Continue Downward In A Very Dramatic Way. We're In The Early Stages Of A Sustainability Revolution In The Globe That Has The Scale Of The Industrial Revolution But The Speed Of The Digital Revolution. And You See It With Renewable Energy And You See It With Led Lighting, Which Takes A Fraction Of The Energy For The Existing Bulbs. All New Lights Are Going To Be Led. Electric Vehicles. There Are A Lot Of Changes Underway Right Now. I'm Excited By The Prospect, And I Look Forward To Working In The Months And Years To Come To Accelerate This Transition.

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.

I Was Born A Poor Black Child.

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

Cigarette Smoking Is A Significant Contributor To Global Warming!

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.

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.

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

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.

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

For Me, The Most Serious Problem Is How America Became So Vulnerable To The Assertion Of Blatant Falsehoods That Drive Policy And Are Not Corrected By The So-called Immune System Of Democracy, A Free Press And A Free Democratic Discourse.

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.

No Controlling Legal Authority

The Scientists Are Virtually Screaming From The Rooftops Now. The Debate Is Over! There's No Longer Any Debate In The Scientific Community About This. But The Political Systems Around The World Have Held This At Arm's Length Because It's An Inconvenient Truth, Because They Don't Want To Accept That It's A Moral Imperative.

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.

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.

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.

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 Congress Is Virtually Incapable Of Passing Any Reforms Unless They First Get Permission From The Powerful Special Interests Who Are Most Affected By The Proposal.

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

I'm Old Enough To Know That A Red Carpet's Just A Rug, And I've Been Able To Enjoy The Pageantry Without Letting It Go To My Head.

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

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.

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.

The Climate Crisis Is Not A Political Issue; It Is A Moral And Spiritual Challenge To All Of Humanity. It Is Also Our Greatest Opportunity To Lift Global Consciousness To A Higher Level.

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

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.

Atheists Have Just As Much Of A Right To The Public Discourse As Any ... People Of Any Religious Faith In This Country.

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

We Can Believe In The Future And Work To Achieve It And Preserve It, Or We Can Whirl Blindly On, Behaving As If One Day There Will Be No Children To Inherit Our Legacy. The Choice Is Ours; The Earth Is In Balance.

I Do Believe, As My Father Once Said, That "no Matter How Hard The Loss, Defeat Might Serve As Well As Victory To Shake The Soul And Let The Glory Out."

Victory And Defeat

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

Remember America, I Gave You The Internet And I Can Take It Away.

The Warnings About Global Warming Have Been Extremely Clear For A Long Time. We Are Facing A Global Climate Crisis. It Is Deepening. We Are Entering A Period Of Consequences.

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.

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.

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?

In A Time Of Social Fragmentation, Vulgarity Becomes A Way Of Life. To Be Shocking Becomes More Important - And Often More Profitable - Than To Be Civil Or Creative Or Truly Original.

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

A Lot Of People Go Straight From Denial To Despair Without Pausing In The Middle And Doing Something About It.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

We Need To Put A Price On Carbon, And That's What Cap-and-trade Does And That's Also What A Co2 Tax Does. As Long As Our Current Valuation In The Marketplace Tells Us Every Minute Of Every Day That It's Perfectly All Right To Dump 90 Million Tons Of Global Warming Into The Thin Atmosphere Surrounding The Planet Every 24 Hours As If That Atmosphere Is An Open Sewer, Then The Individual Actions Are Not Going To Solve The Problem.

Our Insatiable Drive To Rummage Deep Beneath The Surface Of The Earth Is A Willful Expansion Of Our Dysfunctional Civilization Into 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 Pledge To You Today That As President, In My First Budget, I Will Introduce The Largest Increase In Special Education Ever.

...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.

Although I Have A Variety Of Obligations, The Climate Crisis Is My Central Concern.

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.

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

I'm Asking You In Your Sermons To Do The Work Of The Lord Here On Earth. I Ask For Your Help In Getting That Message Out Urgently Tomorrow.

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 Want To Extend Condolences To The Families Of Those Who Died In The Service Of The United Nations.

If You Look At The Way All Of The New Reform Movements Dedicated To The Public Interest Are Living And Thriving On The Internet, I Do Think There Is Still Some Considerable Hope That The Full Participation Of Individuals In That Conversation Of Democracy Can Once Again Restore The Integrity Of The Way Our Democracy Works.

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

The American People Overwhelmingly Want Our Troops Out Of Iraq. They Want The Federal Government To Take Real And Immediate Action To Combat Global Warming And To Significantly Expand Support For Stem Cell Research. Democrats Almost Unanimously Support The People's Wishes Onthese Crucial Issues. Republicans Don't.

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.

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.

Global Warming Is Real And Human Activity Is The Main Cause. The Consequences Are Mainly Negative And Headed Toward Catastrophic, Unless We Act. However, The Good News Is That We Can Meet This Challenge. It Is Not Too Late, And We Have Everything We Need To Get Started.

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.

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.

Someone Who Expresses A View That Is Contrary To The View Of The Overwhelming Majority Should Be Allowed To Stand Undisturbed As A Monument To Our Commitment To Free Speech.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Sri Chinmoy Was A Once In A Lifetime Spiritual Leader Who Touched The Lives Of Millions Of People Through His Teachings, Art, Athletics, And Music. He Was A Student Of Peace And He Embodied Peace. Sri Chinmoy Was A Great Man And His Life's Work Significantly Helped To Build World Harmony And Will Continue To Do So.

I Did Very Extensive Diligence On Al Jazeera English, The Network From Which Al Jazeera America Is Going To Be Derived, And It's Really Very Clear That They Have Long Since Established A Reputation For Excellence And Integrity And Objectivity.

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.

The Great Norwegian Playwright, Henrik Ibsen, Wrote, "one Of These Days, The Younger Generation Will Come Knocking At My Door." The Future Is Knocking At Our Door Right Now. Make No Mistake, The Next Generation Will Ask Us One Of Two Questions. Either They Will Ask: "what Were You Thinking; Why Didn't You Act?" Or They Will Ask Instead: "how Did You Find The Moral Courage To Rise And Successfully Resolve A Crisis That So Many Said Was Impossible To Solve?

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.

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 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.

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.

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

Throughout Most Of My Life, I Raised Tobacco. I Want You To Know That My Own Hands, All Of My Life, I Put In The Plant Beds And Transferred It! I Hoed It! I've Dug In It! I've Sprayed It! I've Chopped It! I've Shredded It, Spiked It, Put It In The Barn And Stripped It And Sold It!

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

Believe In The Power Of Your Own Voice. The More Noise You Make, The More Accountability You Demand From Your Leaders, The More Our World Will Change For The Better.

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

Every Nation Has A Moral Obligation To Safeguard The Future.

Moral Obligation

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.

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 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.

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.

When Our Founders Created America, It Was In The Age Of The Printing Press, When Individuals Could Freely Join The Conversation. And That Robust, Democratic Dialogue More Often Than Not Lifted Up The Best Available Evidence And Asserted What Was More Likely To Be True Than Not.

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'.

The Wind And The Sun Are Free.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

We Sometimes Emphasize The Danger In A Crisis Without Focusing On The Opportunities That Are There.

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

...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.

A Zebra Does Not Change Its Spots.

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.

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.

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.

Global Warming, Along With The Cutting And Burning Of Forests And Other Critical Habitats, Is Causing The Loss Of Living Species At A Level Comparable To The Extinction Event That Wiped Out The Dinosaurs 65 Million Years Ago. That Event Was Believed To Have Been Caused By A Giant Asteroid. This Time It Is Not An Asteroid Colliding With The Earth And Wreaking Havoc: It Is Us.

There Are People Who Are Genuinely Upset In The Tea Party. I Understand That. But That Movement Was Funded With Seed Money From Right-wing Billionaires, The Koch Brothers, And Promoted On Fox News, And Turned Into A Stocking Horse For The Right-wing Agenda That A Lot Of People Have Been Trying To Push On The Country For A Long Time.

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.

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.

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.

Iraq's Search For Weapons Of Mass Destruction Has Proven Impossible To Deter And We Should Assume That It Will Continue For As Long As Saddam Is In Power.

Mass Destruction

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.

Local And State Governments Have Outrun The Federal Government. The Epa Has Served Notice That It Will Enact A Rule Requiring Co2 Reductions By Major Emitters In The Absence Of Major Legislation. But It's A Blunt Instrument That Is A Little More Difficult To Use Than A Legislative Remedy.

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.

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.

Unless We Act Boldly And Quickly To Deal With The Underlying Causes Of Global Warming, Our World Will Undergo A String Of Terrible Catastrophes.

We Need To Remake The Democratic Party. We Need To Remake America.

Take It From Me, Every Vote Counts.

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.

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.

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.

The Presidency Is More Than A Popularity Contest.

Hey, You Know What, I've Gotta Go On That 'letterman' Show. That Show Is So Lame.

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.

Manbearpig, Half Man, Half Bear, Half Pig

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.

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.

I Feel Passionate About Solving The Climate Crisis.

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.

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.

A Leapord Never Changes His Stripes.

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 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.

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.

I Don't Have The Illusion That There's Any Position Or Role In The World With As Much Potential For Bringing About Change As That Of President Of The United States.

Political Will Is A Renewable Resource, And Everyone Can Have It In Abundance If They So Choose.

Renewable Resources

I Have Felt For A Long Time That The Pathway To Solving The Climate Crisis Is Through The Building Of A Massive Grassroots Army Of Men And Women Who Will Go Out There And Win The Conversation On Climate, And Persuade Businesses, And Universities, And Towns To Switch To Renewable Energy And To Reduce Emissions. And The Big Change From Ten Years Ago Is That People Are Way More Receptive, Not Only To The Message That We Have To Act, Not Only To The Message That Now We Can Act, We Have The Solutions Now - That's The Biggest Change - But Also Willing To Make A Commitment That We Will Act.

The Center Of The Earth Is About A Million Degrees.

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

You Know The Old Saying: You Win Some, You Lose Some... And Then There's That Little-known Third Category.

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.

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

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

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.

The Constant Drive For Campaign Dollars Has Distorted Decision-making In Washington, Dc, To The Point Where Our Systems Can No Longer Effectively Address Complex, Long-term Problems Like The Climate Crisis. Which Brings Me To My Other Major Concern - The Short-term Focus Of Capitalism. It Distorts The Allocation Of Resources And The Decision-making Processes Of Companies.

We're All Capable Of Mistakes, But I Do Not Care To Enlighten You On The Mistakes We May Or May Not Have Made.

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.

We Can't Negotiate The Facts. We Can't Negotiate The Truth About The Situation. And For Those Who Are Too Fearful To Finish, It Can Be Done And Must Be Done. Make Sure We Succeed, . . . It Is Wrong For This Generation To Destroy The Habitability Of Our Planet And Ruin The Prospects Of Every Future Generation.

This Generation

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.

American Democracy Is In Grave Danger From The Changes In The Environment In Which Ideas Either Live And Spread Or Wither And Die.

...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.

I'm Not A Psychologist, And I Don't Know How To Play A More Sophisticated Role Than The One That I Have Played For Quite A Few Years, And That Is Spending A Lot Of Time With These Hard-working Scientists In The Various Fields Of Expertise That Relate To The Climate Crisis, Learning As Fully As I Can The Truths They Are Discovering, Asking Them To Explain It In Language That's Simple Enough For Me To Understand And Then Use That Language To Convey The Essence Of It, And Then Letting The Chips Fall Where They May.

The Survival Of The United States Of America As We Know It Is At Risk. And Even More — If More Should Be Required — The Future Of Human Civilization Is At Stake.

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

Procrastination

If The Only Tool We Use To Analyse What's Valuable Is A Price Tag, Then Those Things That Don't Have Price Tags Begin To Look Like They Have No Value.

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'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.

Pollution Should Never Be The Price Of Prosperity.

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

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.

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."

Scientists With Access To Data From Navy Submarines Traversing Underneath The North Polar Ice Cap Have Warned That There Is Now A 75 Percent Chance That Within Five Years The Entire Ice Cap Will Completely Disappear During The Summer Months.

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.

Trending Author

Anderson Cooper

Marian Anderson

David O. Russell

Category