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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.

-Al Gore

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When Our Founders Created

Al Gore

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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.

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Judge Roberts Is A Brilliant Lawyer, A Brilliant Judge. He Is A Very Careful Judge, A Thoughtful Judge. I Would Agree With What The President Said Earlier. He Is A Decent Man. I Think Everybody Who Knows Him Likes Him.

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

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

All Of Us Can Make Changes, But The Changes That Are Most Needed Are Not Light Bulbs And Windows But Laws And Policies And Treaties. So, Yes, We Are In A Phase Of This (climate Protection) Struggle Where Civic And Political Action Is At The Top Of The List.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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]

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

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?

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

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

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."

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'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.

...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.

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.

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

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

I'm Not A Psychologist, And I Don't Know How To Play A More Sophisticated Role Than The One That I Have Played For Quite A Few Years, And That Is Spending A Lot Of Time With These Hard-working Scientists In The Various Fields Of Expertise That Relate To The Climate Crisis, Learning As Fully As I Can The Truths They Are Discovering, Asking Them To Explain It In Language That's Simple Enough For Me To Understand And Then Use That Language To Convey The Essence Of It, And Then Letting The Chips Fall Where They May.

The 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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

A Zebra Does Not Change Its Spots.

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.

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.

Mother Nature Does Not Do Bailouts.

The Way To Bring Gas Prices Down Is To End Our Dependence On Oil And Use The Renewable Sources That Can Give Us The Equivalent Of $1 Per Gallon Gasoline.

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.

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

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.

Any Of Us Who Work On The Task Of Solving The Climate Crisis Have At Times An Internal Struggle Between Hope And Despair. But That's One Of The Things That Connects This Climate Movement To The Previous Great Moral Revolutions, Like The Civil Rights Movement And More Recently The Gay Rights Movement. So Those Who Feel Despair Should Be Of Good Cheer, As The Bible Says. Have Faith, Have Hope. We Are Going To Win This.

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.

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

A Lot In The Faith-based Community, A Lot Of Fundamentalist Groups Are - Are Now Saying, You Know, The Earth Is The Lord And The Fullness There Of, And We Have An Obligation To Be Good Stewards Of The Planet.

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

I 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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

When Our Founders Created America, It Was In The Age Of The Printing Press, When Individuals Could Freely Join The Conversation. And That Robust, Democratic Dialogue More Often Than Not Lifted Up The Best Available Evidence And Asserted What Was More Likely To Be True Than Not.

The 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.

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 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.

There Are Many Who Still Do Not Believe That Global Warming Is A Problem At All. And It's No Wonder: Because They Are The Targets Of A Massive And Well-organized Campaign Of Disinformation Lavishly Funded By Polluters Who Are Determined To Prevent Any Action To Reduce The Greenhouse Gas Emissions That Cause Global Warming Out Of A Fear That Their Profits Might Be Affected If They Had To Stop Dumping So Much Pollution Into The Atmosphere.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

If There Is No Cost To Be Paid For The Indiscriminate Dumping Of Pollution Into The Earth's Atmosphere, Then It Should Be A Surprise To No One That Today We Will Dump Another 70 Million Tons Of Global Warming Pollution Into The Thin Shell Of Atmosphere Surrounding Our Planet. ... We Have To [act] This Year, Not Next Year. Mother Nature Does Not Do Bailouts.

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.

Is There Some Magic Wand They Can Wave On It And Presto! - Physics Is Overturned And Carbon Dioxide Doesn't Trap Heat Anymore? And When We See All These Things Happening On The Earth Itself, What In The Hell Do They Think Is Causing It? The Scientists Have Long Held That The Evidence In Their Considered Word Is "unequivocal," Which Has Been Endorsed By Every National Academy Of Science In Every Major Country In The Entire World.

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

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

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.

The Center Of The Earth Is About A Million Degrees.

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.

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.

American Democracy Has Been Hacked.

Democracies Have

Fear Is The Most Powerful Enemy Of Reason.

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

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.

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.

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 Scientific Evidence Of How Serious This Climate Crisis Is Becoming Continues To Amass Week After Week After Week.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Used To Have A Military Officer Travelling With Me At All Times With A Suitcase - Referred To As The Nuclear Football - In Case It Had To Be Used.

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

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.

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

Most People Talk As If Miami And Bangladesh Still Have A Chance Of Surviving: Most Of The Scientists I Spoke With Assume We'll Lose Them Within The Century, Even If We Stop Burning Fossil Fuel In The Next Decade.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Take It From Me: Elections Matter.

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

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

Believe In The Power Of Your Own Voice.

A Free Press Is The Immune System Of Representative Democracy.

Representatives

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.

As President, I Will Bring All The Parties And Stakeholders Together. I Am Going To Come Up With A Solution That Respects The Environment And Does Not Cause An Upheaval In The Economy.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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'.

Having Worked On Climate Crisis For Almost 40 Years Now, I've Seen Good Days And Bad Days. And Through All Of That Time, The General Trajectory Has Been It's Getting Worse, It's Getting Worse. But In The Last Ten To 20 Years, There's A Second Development; The Solutions Are More And More, And More Available. So Having This Broad Overview That I've Developed Over A Long Period Of Time, I Now See The Evidence That The Solutions Are Available. We're Gonna Do This.

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.

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.

We Need To Put A Price On Carbon, And That's What Cap-and-trade Does And That's Also What A Co2 Tax Does. As Long As Our Current Valuation In The Marketplace Tells Us Every Minute Of Every Day That It's Perfectly All Right To Dump 90 Million Tons Of Global Warming Into The Thin Atmosphere Surrounding The Planet Every 24 Hours As If That Atmosphere Is An Open Sewer, Then The Individual Actions Are Not Going To Solve The Problem.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

The Answer Is To End Our Reliance On Carbon-based Fuels... If We Succeed, We Create Booming New Industries, Wealth, Clean Secure Energy And Maybe We Prevent The Greatest Disaster So Far In Human History, Saving Millions Of Lives While Improving Billions More. If We Fail, Basically It's Business As Usual While Things Slowly Get Worse All Around Us.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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."

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.

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

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.

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.

Unless We Stop Dumping 70 Million Tons Of Global Warming Pollution Into The Atmosphere Every 24 Hours, Which We Are Doing Right Now ... The Continued Acceleration Of This Pollution Would Destroy The Future Of Human Civilization.

We Must Also Promote Global Access To The Internet. We Need To Bridge The Digital Divide Not Just Within Our Country. But Among Countries. Only By Giving People Around The World Access To This Technology Can They Tap Into The Potential. Of The Information Age.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

When You Look At What Has Happened Over The Last Few Decades The Natural Fluctuations Point In The Opposite Direction Of What Has Actually Occurred. When They Run The Models And Plug In The Man-made Pollution, The Correspondence Is Exact. Beyond That, The Scale Of Natural Fluctuations Has Now Been Far Exceeded By The Impact Of Man-made Global Warming.

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

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

Manbearpig, Half Man, Half Bear, Half Pig

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

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

I Decided To Pick The Diet That I Thought Would Maximize My Chances Of Long-term Survival.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

...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.

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