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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.

-Al Gore

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Eventually We'll Use A

Al Gore

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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.

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More From Al Gore

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

What We Take For Granted Might Not Be Here For Our Children.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

Ethical Standards

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.

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.

Iraq Does Pose A Serious Threat To The Stability Of The Persian Gulf And We Should Organize An International Coalition To Eliminate His Access To Weapons Of Mass Destruction. Iraq's Search For Weapons Of Mass Destruction Has Proven Impossible To Completely Deter And We Should Assume That It Will Continue For As Long As Saddam Is In Power.

Mass Destruction

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.

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'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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Our Democracy, Our Constitutional Framework Is Really A Kind Of Software For Harnessing The Creativity And Political Imagination For All Of Our People. The American Democratic System Was An Early Political Version Of Napster.

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]

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.

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

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

I Was Born A Poor Black Child.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Founders Of The U.s. Gave The Senators A Term Of Office Three Times Longer Than That Of A Representative Precisely To Encourage A Reflective Frame Of Mind, A Distance From The Passions Of The Voters, And A Capacity For Deliberative Consideration.

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.

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

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

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

...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.

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 Now Face The Prospect Of A Kind Of Global Civil War Between Those Who Refuse To Consider The Consequences Of Civilization's Relentless Advance And Those Who Refuse To Be Silent Partners In The Destruction. More And More People Of Conscience Are Joining The Effort To Resist, But The Time Has Come To Make This Struggle The Central Organizing Principle Of World Civilizations.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

...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.

I'm Sorry I Ever Invented The Electoral College.

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

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.

American Democracy Has Been Hacked.

Democracies Have

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.

The Wind And The Sun Are Free.

As It Turns Out, The Scientific Community Has Been Addressing This Particular Question For Some Time Now And They Say That Increased Heavy Snowfalls Are Completely Consistent With What They Have Been Predicting As A Consequence Of Man-made Global Warming.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

...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.

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.

I Feel Passionate About Solving The Climate Crisis.

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 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.

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

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.

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

Renewable Resources

Global Warming Pollution, Indeed All Pollution, Is Now Described By Economists As An “externality.” This Absurd Label Means, In Essence: We Don’t To Keep Track Of This Stuff So Let’s Pretend It Doesn’t Exist.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The Entire North Polar Ice Cap Is Disappearing Before Our Very Eyes. It's Been The Size Of The Continental United States For The Last 3 Million Years And Now 40 Percent Is Gone And The Rest Of It Is Going.

I Have Always Been Fascinated With Those Who Try To Look Over The Horizon And See Things That Are Coming At Us.

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.

I Pledge To You Today That As President, In My First Budget, I Will Introduce The Largest Increase In Special Education Ever.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

(george Bush) Betrayed This Country! He Played On Our Fears. He Took America On An Ill-conceived Foreign Adventure Dangerous To Our Troops, An Adventure Preordained And Planned Before 9/11 Ever Took Place!

How Could This Y2k Be A Problem In A Country Where We Have Intel And Microsoft?

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.

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

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.

[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 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.

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.

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?'

When People Flirt With Despair About The Future, They Are Less Likely To Take The Actions Necessary To Safeguard It, Focusing Instead On The Short-term.

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.

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.

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.

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

The Insistence On Complete Certainty About The Full Details Of Global Warming-the Most Serious Threat We Have Ever Faced-is Actually An Effort To Avoid Facing The Awful, Uncomfortable Truth: That We Must Act Boldly, Decisively, Comprehensively, And Quickly, Even Before We Know Every Last Detail About The Crisis. Those Who Continue To Argue That The Appropriate Response Is Merely Additional Research Are Simply Seeking To Camouflage Timidity Or Protect Their Vested Interest In The Status Quo.

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."

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.

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 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.'

The United States Is The Only Nation That Can Lead The World Toward A Solution On Climate Change.

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.

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

The Global Warming Deniers Persist In This Air Of Unreality. After All, The Entire North Polar Icecap, Which Has Been There For Most Of The Last 3 Million Years, Is Disappearing Before Our Eyes. Forty Percent Is Already Gone. The Rest Is Expected To Go Completely Within The Next Decade. What Do They Think Is Causing This?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 Existence Of The Epa Regulation Will Require Large Carbon Polluters To Look At Their Hole Cards, And Some Of Them Have Decided That They Much Prefer Legislation.

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.

Today I Challenge Our Nation To Commit To Producing 100 Percent Of Our Electricity From Renewable Energy And Truly Clean Carbon-free Sources Within 10 Years.

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 Nation Has A Moral Obligation To Safeguard The Future.

Moral Obligation

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

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

In The End, We Must Restore A Balance Within Ourselves Between Who We Are And What We Are Doing. Each Of Us Must Take A Greater Personal Responsibility For This Deteriorating Global Environment; Each Of Us Must Take A Hard Look At The Habits Of Mind And Action That Reflect - And Have Led To - This Grave Crisis.

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.

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 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.

I Put All My Sighs In A Lockbox

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.

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."

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.

A Zebra Can Not Change It's Spots.

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.

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

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

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.

Believe In The Power Of Your Own Voice.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Pollution Should Never Be The Price Of Prosperity.

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