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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.

-Al Gore

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I Think It's Harder

Al Gore

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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.

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More From Al Gore

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.

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

You 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."

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

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

The 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

...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.

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

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.

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.

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

It 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.

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

I'm Sorry I Ever Invented The Electoral College.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

The Ability Of Big Money To Shape Perceptions - Where You Have Four Anti-climate Lobbyists For Every Single Member Of The House And Senate - Is A Big Factor.

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.

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

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

The 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.

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?'

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?

I Put All My Sighs In A Lockbox

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

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

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 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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Pollution Should Never Be The Price Of Prosperity.

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

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

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

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 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.

As Long As The Government's Actions Are Secret, It Cannot Be Held Accountable. A Government For The People And By The People Should Be Transparent To The People.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

I Remain Optimistic That Ultimately Free Speech And A Free Press Where Individuals Have Access To The Dialogue Will Have A Self-correcting Quality.

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

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

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.

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

Renewable Resources

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

The Bush-cheney Administration Had Betrayed Some Basic American Values. So There Was Hunger For Change.

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

We All Know The Leopard Can't Change His Stripes.

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.

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.

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]

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

(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!

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

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

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.

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

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

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

I’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?

Every Nation Has A Moral Obligation To Safeguard The Future.

Moral Obligation

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."

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.

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

A Free Press Is The Immune System Of Representative Democracy.

Representatives

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

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

The 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."

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

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.

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

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

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'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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

To Use A Southern Euphemism, Our Space Program Has Been Snake-bit.

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.

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.

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 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 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.

I Have Faith In The United States And Our Ability To Make Good Decisions Based On The Facts.

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

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

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 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.

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 Would Kiss Tipper Much Longer.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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 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

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.

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.

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.

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

Fear Is The Most Powerful Enemy Of Reason.

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.

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

I 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.

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?

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

The Center Of The Earth Is About A Million Degrees.

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.

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.

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.

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.

No Controlling Legal Authority

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

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.

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Laura Schlessinger

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