Background Image

...

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.

-Al Gore

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I've Kind Of Fallen

Al Gore

...

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.

Views: 8

Topic

More From Al Gore

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

A Zebra Does Not Change Its Spots.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I've Been Dreaming Of This Moment Since I Was A Kid Growing Up In Tennessee: That One Day, I'd Have The Chance To Come Here To Madison Square Garden And Be The Warm-up Act For Elvis.

Our 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?'

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Cigarette Smoking Is A Significant Contributor To Global Warming!

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 Am Concerned About The Economy. I Was The First One Laid Off.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

...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.

Even Though It's Important For All Of Us To Change Our Light Bulbs And The Vehicles We Drive, It's Much More Important To Change Our Laws And Policies. I Drive A Hybrid And We've Changed Our Light Bulbs And Windows And Installed Solar Panels And Geothermal Ground Source Heat Pumps And Most Everything Else. But Putting The Burden On Individuals To Solve This Global Crisis Is Ultimately Not Going To Be The Most Effective Way To Solve It.

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.

In The Age Of The Internet, With All Of Its Problems, Over Time, The Very Fact That Individuals Can Join The Conversation Creates The Opportunity For The Emergence Of - For The Re-emergence Of A Genuine Conversation Of Democracy.

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

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

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.

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.

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."

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

We Have To Abandon The Conceit That Isolated Personal Actions Are Going To Solve This Crisis. Our Policies Have To Shift.

I Would Kiss Tipper Much Longer.

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

The Misconception That There Is Serious Disagreement Among Scientists About Global Warming Is Actually An Illusion That Has Been Deliberately Fostered By A Relatively Small But Extremely Well-funded Cadre Of Special Interests, Including Exxon Mobil And A Few Other Oil, Coal, And Utilities Companies. These Companies Want To Prevent Any New Policies That Would Interfere With Their Current Business Plans That Rely On The Massive Unrestrained Dumping Of Global Warming Pollution Into The Earth's Atmosphere Every Hour Of Every Day.

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

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

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

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

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

American Troops And American Taxpayers Are Shouldering A Huge Burden With No End In Sight Because Mr. Bush Took Us To War On False Premises And With No Plan To Win The Peace.

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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.

I Will Tell You That What Gives Me A Sense Of Joy Is Having Work To Do That Justifies Pouring Every Ounce Of Energy I Have Into It. That's Really A Blessing To Have In Your Life. And It Gives You Energy Back When You Have The Privilege Of Doing Work That Makes You Feel That Way.

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 Smoked Pot In College And In The Army.

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.

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

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

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.

The Rule Of Reason Is The True Sovereign In The American System.

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.

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

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

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?

Our Insatiable Drive To Rummage Deep Beneath The Surface Of The Earth Is A Willful Expansion Of Our Dysfunctional Civilization Into Nature.

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 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.

In A Time Of Darkness, You Don't Curse The Darkness, You Light A Candle.

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 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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

The Consensus Is Clear. We Need An Immediate And Determined Shift To A Clean, Renewable Economy. The Continued Mass Burning Of Fossil Fuels Is Inconsistent With A Healthy, Prosperous Future For Our Civilization.

Prosperous Future

The 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.

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

...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.

Science Has A Culture That Is Inherently Cautious And That Is Normally Not A Bad Thing. You Could Even Say Conservative, Because Of The Peer Review Process And Because The Scientific Method Prizes Uncertainty And Penalises Anyone Who Goes Out On Any Sort Of A Limb That Is Not Held In Place By Abundant And Well-documented Evidence.

The 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?

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

...the Emergent Capabilities Bursting Forth From The Revolutionary Advances In The Life Sciences Are About To Make Us The Principal Agent Of Evolution.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Sooner We Switch Away From Carbon-based Fuel And Start Relying On Renewable Energy Sources Available In The United States, The Sooner We Will Grow Our Economy By Creating The Millions Of New Jobs That Will Come From Retrofitting Homes And Businesses, Building Smart Grids, Renewable Energy Systems And Planting Trees And All The Rest. We Need To Create A Lot Of Jobs That Can't Be Outsourced.

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.

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.

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

A Zebra Can Not Change It's Spots.

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.

No Controlling Legal Authority

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

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

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

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

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.

The Center Of The Earth Is About A Million Degrees.

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.

I Was Born A Poor Black Child.

When It Comes To Climate, We Can All Make A Big Difference.

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

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.

American Democracy Has Been Hacked.

Democracies Have

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.

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

The Crisis Is A Concrete Threatening Reality Today. It Stands To Get Catastrophically Worse Unless We Take Action Before The Accumulation [of] This Global Warming Pollution Reaches Such Toxic Levels That The Problem Becomes Bigger Than We Can Solve.

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.

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.

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 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.'

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.

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.'

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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'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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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'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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Will To Act Is A Renewable Resource.

Renewable Resources

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

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

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.

Take It From Me - Every Vote Counts. In Our Democracy, Every Vote Has Power. And Never Forget - That Power Is Yours. Don't Let Anyone Take It Away Or Talk You Into Throwing It Away. And Let's Make Sure That This Time Every Vote Is Counted.

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

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

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

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.

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

If Youre A Young Person Looking At The Future Of This Planet And Looking At What Is Being Done Right Now, And Not Done, I Believe We Have Reached The Stage Where It Is Time For Civil Disobedience To Prevent The Construction Of New Coal Plants That Do Not Have Carbon Capture And Sequestration.

George Bush Taking Credit For The Wall Coming Down Is Like The Rooster Taking Credit For The Sun Rising.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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."

Hurricane Sandy Is A Disturbing Sign Of Things To Come. We Must Heed This Warning And Act Quickly To Solve The Climate Crisis. Dirty Energy Makes Dirty Weather.

The 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Trending Author

Julian Fellowes

Category