Background Image

...

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.

-Al Gore

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Did Very Extensive

Al Gore

...

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.

Views: 7

Topic

More From Al Gore

Take It From Me, Every Vote Counts.

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.

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

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.

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

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

I'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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

The 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.

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

For A Free Country To Continue Thriving, There Have To Be Regular Reforms, Because Any Society, Any Economy That Stays In Place, You're Going To See Repeated Attempts To Exploit The Openings For Twisting Policy To The Advantage Of Those Who Already Have Wealth And Power.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The 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.

We Must Quickly Mobilize Our Civilization With The Urgency And Resolve That Has Previously Been Seen Only When Nations Mobilized For War. These Prior Struggles For Survival Were Won When Leaders Found Words At The 11th Hour That Released A Mighty Surge Of Courage, Hope And Readiness To Sacrifice For A Protracted And Mortal Challenge.

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

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.

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.

I Am A Passionate Advocate Of Getting Special Interest Money Out Of Politics.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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'.

Pollution Should Never Be The Price Of Prosperity.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

The 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.

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

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.

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?

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

...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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Environmental Pollution

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

Believe In The Power Of Your Own Voice.

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

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

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.

You Know There's An Old African Proverb That I Made Up: "if You Want To Go Quickly, Go Alone. If You Want To Go Far, Go Together."

We Have To Use Our Reasoning Capacity And Set Long-term Goals Based On Our Deepest Values.

I Was Born A Poor Black Child.

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

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.

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.

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.

The Will To Act Is A Renewable Resource.

Renewable Resources

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 Presidency Is More Than A Popularity Contest.

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

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."

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.

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

Plant Trees, Lots Of Trees

Well-established Theories Collapse Under The Weight Of New Facts And Observations Which Cannot Be Explained, And Then Accumulate To The Point Where The Once Useful Theory Is Clearly Obsolete.

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

Economic Recession

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

While President Bush Likes To Project An Image Of Strength And Courage, The Real Truth Is That In The Presence Of His Large Financial Contributors, He Is A Moral Coward.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

The Wind And The Sun Are Free.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

It Should Be Lifted Above Partisanship Because It's A Question Of Survival. It's A Moral Issue.

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?

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

Now We Have Things That Are Obviously False, Leading Us To War, Leading Us To Deny People Health Care, Leading Us To Ignore The Climate Crisis. We Have To Restore The Integrity Of The Democratic Conversation.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Ethical Standards

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?

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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."

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

Israel Has Its Own Right As A Nation To Defend Its National Security.

National Security

The Himalayan Glaciers On The Tibetan Plateau Have Been Among The Most Affected By Global Warming. The Himalayas...provide More Than Half Of The Drinking Water For 40% Of The World's Population...within The Next Half-century, That 40% Of The World's People May Well Face A Very Serious Drinking Water Shortage, Unless The World Acts Boldly And Quickly To Mitigate Global Warming.

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

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

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.

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?'

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

For A Long Time, The Scientists Have Been Telling Us Global Warming Increases The Temperature Of The Top Layer In The Ocean, And That Causes The Average Hurricane To Become A Lot Stronger. So, The Fact That The Ocean Temperatures Did Go Up Because Of Global Warming, Because Of Man-made Global Warming, Starting Around In The '70s, And Then We Had A String Of Unusually Strong Hurricanes Outside The Boundaries Of This Multi-decadal Cycle That Is A Real Factor; There Are Scientists Who Point That Out, And They're Right, But We're Exceeding Those Boundaries Now.

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.

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

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

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.

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

I 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

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

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

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.

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

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?"

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'm Sorry I Ever Invented The Electoral College.

Trending Author

Category