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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.

-Al Gore

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Sri Chinmoy Was A

Al Gore

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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.

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Pollution Should Never Be The Price Of Prosperity.

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.

Future Generations May Well Have Occasion To Ask Themselves, "what Were Our Parents Thinking? Why Didn't They Wake Up When They Had A Chance?" We Have To Hear That Question From Them, Now.

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.

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.

Every Nation Has A Moral Obligation To Safeguard The Future.

Moral Obligation

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

We'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 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.

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."

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

Fear Is The Most Powerful Enemy Of Reason.

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.

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.

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.

Believe In The Power Of Your Own Voice.

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

I'm Sorry I Ever Invented The Electoral College.

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.

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.

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.

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

Procrastination

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

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.

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.

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.

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

If The People That Believed The Moon Landing Was Staged On A Movie Lot Had Access To Unlimited Money From Large Carbon Polluters Or Some Other Special Interest Who Wanted To Confuse People Into Thinking That The Moon Landing Didn't Take Place, I'm Sure We'd Have A Robust Debate About It Right Now.

We Face The Gravest Threat That Civilization Has Ever Confronted. It's Global In Nature And Requires A Global Solution. Increased Co2 Emissions Anywhere, Whether From China Or The United States Or From One Of The Countries That Is Burning Its Forests Like Brazil Or Indonesia.

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

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

Manbearpig, Half Man, Half Bear, Half Pig

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

I Drive A Hybrid, And We've Changed Our Light Bulbs And Windows And Installed Solar Panels And Geothermal Ground Source Heat Pumps And Most Everything Else.

The 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

The 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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

National Security

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

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.

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

Because These Consequences Are Distributed Globally, The Problem Masquerades As A Distraction. Because The Length Of Time Between Causes And Consequences Stretches Out Longer Than We're Used To Dealing With, It Gives Us The Illusion That We Have The Luxury Of Time. Neither Of Those Things Is True.

The 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.

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?

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.

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."

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

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

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

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.

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

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?

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?'

We Are Running Out Of Time, We Must Have A Planetary Solution To A Planetary Crisis.

I Smoked Pot In College And In The Army.

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.

I Saw The Logarithmic Growth Of Computer Power.

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

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."

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.

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.

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.

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]

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

I Drive A Hybrid. Tipper And I Got A Lexus Hybrid. And We Have A Couple Of Priuses In The Family With Our Children. And I Encourage People To Make Environmentally Conscious Choices Because We All Have To Solve This Climate Crisis.

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

The Pacific Yew Can Be Cut Down And Processed To Produce A Potent Chemical, Taxol, Which Offers Some Promise Of Curing Certain Forms Of Lung, Breast And Ovarian Cancer In Patients Who Would Otherwise Quickly Die... 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.

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

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.

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

The Role Of Campaign Contributions In Our Political System And The Role Of Lobbyists Have Now Reached Levels That Are Quite Unhealthy For The Operations Of Our Democracy. But The Antidote, As In Past Eras Of Lobbyist Excess, Is For More Involvement By Citizens To Build Pressure On Members Of The House And Senate To Serve The Public Interest.

It's As If We Think The Laws Of Physics Are Subject To Debate And Amendment And Political Contributions Can Sway The Laws Of Physics.

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

I'm Going To Be Focused On Doing Everything I Possibly Can To Help Solve The Climate 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 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'm Old Enough To Know That A Red Carpet's Just A Rug, And I've Been Able To Enjoy The Pageantry Without Letting It Go To My Head.

A Leapord Never Changes His Stripes.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

...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.

As I Have Said For Many Years Throughout This Land, We're Borrowing Money From China To Buy Oil From The Persian Gulf To Burn It In Ways That Destroy The Future Of Human Civilization. Every Bit Of That Has To Change.

Take It From Me, Every Vote Counts.

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.

A Zebra Does Not Change Its Spots.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

Mother Nature Does Not Do Bailouts.

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.

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.

American Democracy Has Been Hacked.

Democracies Have

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

I 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.

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

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

Plant Trees, Lots Of Trees

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.

Any Child Born Into The Hugely Consumptionist Way Of Life So Common In The Industrial World Will Have An Impact That Is, On Average, Many Times More Destructive Than That Of A Child Born In The Developing World.

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

The Oil Industry Has Outpaced The Building Of A Public Consensus Of The Implications Of Climate Science.

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

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'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.

(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!

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

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.

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

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.

If You Want Your Energy Bills To Go Up, You Should Support An Ever Greater Dependence On Foreign Oil, Because The Rate Of New Discoveries Is Declining As Demand In China And India Is Growing, And The Price Of Oil And Thus The Price Of Coal Will Go Sky High.

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.

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."

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

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.

I Tell You That Michael Jackson Is Unbelievable, Isn't He? He's Just Unbelievable!

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.

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.

The Age Of Printed Pamphlets And Political Essays Has Long Since Been Replaced By Television, A Distracting And Absorbing Medium Which Seems Determined To Entertain Itself More Than It Informs And Educates.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

Cigarette Smoking Is A Significant Contributor To Global Warming!

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

There's No Doubt That In The Last Two To Three Decades, American Democracy Has Been Hacked. It Was Based On The Regular Harvesting Of The Wisdom Of Crowds, But Now Big Sources Of Special Interest Money Are Able To Prevent The Passage Of Almost Any Meaningful Reform That's Aimed At The Public Interest.

Democracies Have

We 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.

You See That Pale, Blue Dot? That's Us. Everything That Has Ever Happened In All Of Human History, Has Happened On That Pixel. All The Triumphs And All The Tragedies, All The Wars All The Famines, All The Major Advances... It's Our Only Home. And That Is What Is At Stake, Our Ability To Live On Planet Earth, To Have A Future As A Civilization. I Believe This Is A Moral Issue, It Is Your Time To Seize This Issue, It Is Our Time To Rise Again To Secure Our Future.

The 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.

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.

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.

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.

My Plan To Put Social Security In An Ironclad Lockbox Has Gotten A Lot Of Attention Recently, And I'm Glad About That. But I'm Afraid That It's Overshadowing Some Vitally Important Proposals. For Instance, I'll Put Medicaid In A Walk-in Closet. I'll Put The Community Reinvestment Act In A Secured Gym Locker. I'll Put Nasa Funding In A Hermetically Sealed Ziploc Bag.

No Controlling Legal Authority

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.

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Philip Emeagwali

Daniel Keys Moran

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