Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
Speech by Al Gore on the acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize
December 10, 2007
Oslo, Norway
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Honorable members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen.
I have a purpose here today. It is a purpose I have tried to serve for many years. I have prayed that God would show me a way to accomplish it.
Sometimes, without warning, the future knocks on our door with a precious and painful vision of what might be. One hundred and nineteen years ago, a wealthy inventor read his own obituary, mistakenly published years before his death. Wrongly believing the inventor had just died, a newspaper printed a harsh judgment of his life’s work, unfairly labeling him “The Merchant of Death” because of his invention - dynamite. Shaken by this condemnation, the inventor made a fateful choice to serve the cause of peace.
Seven years later, Alfred Nobel created this prize and the others that bear his name.
Seven years ago tomorrow, I read my own political obituary in a judgment that seemed to me harsh and mistaken - if not premature. But that unwelcome verdict also brought a precious if painful gift: an opportunity to search for fresh new ways to serve my purpose.
Unexpectedly, that quest has brought me here. Even though I fear my words cannot match this moment, I pray what I am feeling in my heart will be communicated clearly enough that those who hear me will say, “We must act.”
The distinguished scientists with whom it is the greatest honor of my life to share this award have laid before us a choice between two different futures - a choice that to my ears echoes the words of an ancient prophet: “Life or death, blessings or curses. Therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.”
We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency - a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here. But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst - though not all - of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly.
However, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many of the world’s leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler’s threat: “They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.”
So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun.
As a result, the earth has a fever. And the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself. We asked for a second opinion. And a third. And a fourth. And the consistent conclusion, restated with increasing alarm, is that something basic is wrong.
We are what is wrong, and we must make it right.
Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is “falling off a cliff.” One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years.
Seven years from now.
In the last few months, it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter. Major cities in North and South America, Asia and Australia are nearly out of water due to massive droughts and melting glaciers. Desperate farmers are losing their livelihoods. Peoples in the frozen Arctic and on low-lying Pacific islands are planning evacuations of places they have long called home. Unprecedented wildfires have forced a half million people from their homes in one country and caused a national emergency that almost brought down the government in another. Climate refugees have migrated into areas already inhabited by people with different cultures, religions, and traditions, increasing the potential for conflict. Stronger storms in the Pacific and Atlantic have threatened whole cities. Millions have been displaced by massive flooding in South Asia, Mexico, and 18 countries in Africa. As temperature extremes have increased, tens of thousands have lost their lives. We are recklessly burning and clearing our forests and driving more and more species into extinction. The very web of life on which we depend is being ripped and frayed.
We never intended to cause all this destruction, just as Alfred Nobel never intended that dynamite be used for waging war. He had hoped his invention would promote human progress. We shared that same worthy goal when we began burning massive quantities of coal, then oil and methane.
Even in Nobel’s time, there were a few warnings of the likely consequences. One of the very first winners of the Prize in chemistry worried that, “We are evaporating our coal mines into the air.” After performing 10,000 equations by hand, Svante Arrhenius calculated that the earth’s average temperature would increase by many degrees if we doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Seventy years later, my teacher, Roger Revelle, and his colleague, Dave Keeling, began to precisely document the increasing CO2 levels day by day.
But unlike most other forms of pollution, CO2 is invisible, tasteless, and odorless — which has helped keep the truth about what it is doing to our climate out of sight and out of mind. Moreover, the catastrophe now threatening us is unprecedented - and we often confuse the unprecedented with the improbable.
We also find it hard to imagine making the massive changes that are now necessary to solve the crisis. And when large truths are genuinely inconvenient, whole societies can, at least for a time, ignore them. Yet as George Orwell reminds us: “Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.”
In the years since this prize was first awarded, the entire relationship between humankind and the earth has been radically transformed. And still, we have remained largely oblivious to the impact of our cumulative actions.
Indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself. Now, we and the earth’s climate are locked in a relationship familiar to war planners: “Mutually assured destruction.”
More than two decades ago, scientists calculated that nuclear war could throw so much debris and smoke into the air that it would block life-giving sunlight from our atmosphere, causing a “nuclear winter.” Their eloquent warnings here in Oslo helped galvanize the world’s resolve to halt the nuclear arms race.
Now 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.”
As the American poet Robert Frost wrote, “Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice.” Either, he notes, “would suffice.”
But neither need be our fate. It is time to make peace with the planet.
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.
These were not comforting and misleading assurances that the threat was not real or imminent; that it would affect others but not ourselves; that ordinary life might be lived even in the presence of extraordinary threat; that Providence could be trusted to do for us what we would not do for ourselves.
No, these were calls to come to the defense of the common future. They were calls upon the courage, generosity and strength of entire peoples, citizens of every class and condition who were ready to stand against the threat once asked to do so. Our enemies in those times calculated that free people would not rise to the challenge; they were, of course, catastrophically wrong.
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?
Mahatma Gandhi awakened the largest democracy on earth and forged a shared resolve with what he called “Satyagraha” - or “truth force.”
In every land, the truth - once known - has the power to set us free.
Truth also has the power to unite us and bridge the distance between “me” and “we,” creating the basis for common effort and shared responsibility.
There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” We need to go far, quickly.
We must abandon the conceit that individual, isolated, private actions are the answer. They can and do help. But they will not take us far enough without collective action. At the same time, we must ensure that in mobilizing globally, we do not invite the establishment of ideological conformity and a new lock-step “ism.”
That means adopting principles, values, laws, and treaties that release creativity and initiative at every level of society in multifold responses originating concurrently and spontaneously.
This new consciousness requires expanding the possibilities inherent in all humanity. The innovators who will devise a new way to harness the sun’s energy for pennies or invent an engine that’s carbon negative may live in Lagos or Mumbai or Montevideo. We must ensure that entrepreneurs and inventors everywhere on the globe have the chance to change the world.
When we unite for a moral purpose that is manifestly good and true, the spiritual energy unleashed can transform us. The generation that defeated fascism throughout the world in the 1940s found, in rising to meet their awesome challenge, that they had gained the moral authority and long-term vision to launch the Marshall Plan, the United Nations, and a new level of global cooperation and foresight that unified Europe and facilitated the emergence of democracy and prosperity in Germany, Japan, Italy and much of the world. One of their visionary leaders said, “It is time we steered by the stars and not by the lights of every passing ship.”
In the last year of that war, you gave the Peace Prize to a man from my hometown of 2000 people, Carthage, Tennessee. Cordell Hull was described by Franklin Roosevelt as the “Father of the United Nations.” He was an inspiration and hero to my own father, who followed Hull in the Congress and the U.S. Senate and in his commitment to world peace and global cooperation.
My parents spoke often of Hull, always in tones of reverence and admiration. Eight weeks ago, when you announced this prize, the deepest emotion I felt was when I saw the headline in my hometown paper that simply noted I had won the same prize that Cordell Hull had won. In that moment, I knew what my father and mother would have felt were they alive.
Just as Hull’s generation found moral authority in rising to solve the world crisis caused by fascism, so too can we find our greatest opportunity in rising to solve the climate crisis. In the Kanji characters used in both Chinese and Japanese, “crisis” is written with two symbols, the first meaning “danger,” the second “opportunity.” By facing and removing the danger of the climate crisis, we have the opportunity to gain the moral authority and vision to vastly increase our own capacity to solve other crises that have been too long ignored.
We must understand the connections between the climate crisis and the afflictions of poverty, hunger, HIV-Aids and other pandemics. As these problems are linked, so too must be their solutions. We must begin by making the common rescue of the global environment the central organizing principle of the world community.
Fifteen years ago, I made that case at the “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro. Ten years ago, I presented it in Kyoto. This week, I will urge the delegates in Bali to adopt a bold mandate for a treaty that establishes a universal global cap on emissions and uses the market in emissions trading to efficiently allocate resources to the most effective opportunities for speedy reductions.
This treaty should be ratified and brought into effect everywhere in the world by the beginning of 2010 - two years sooner than presently contemplated. The pace of our response must be accelerated to match the accelerating pace of the crisis itself.
Heads of state should meet early next year to review what was accomplished in Bali and take personal responsibility for addressing this crisis. It is not unreasonable to ask, given the gravity of our circumstances, that these heads of state meet every three months until the treaty is completed.
We also need a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store carbon dioxide.
And most important of all, we need to put a price on carbon — with a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people, progressively, according to the laws of each nation, in ways that shift the burden of taxation from employment to pollution. This is by far the most effective and simplest way to accelerate solutions to this crisis.
The world needs an alliance - especially of those nations that weigh heaviest in the scales where earth is in the balance. I salute Europe and Japan for the steps they’ve taken in recent years to meet the challenge, and the new government in Australia, which has made solving the climate crisis its first priority.
But the outcome will be decisively influenced by two nations that are now failing to do enough: the United States and China. While India is also growing fast in importance, it should be absolutely clear that it is the two largest CO2 emitters — most of all, my own country — that will need to make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act.
Both countries should stop using the other’s behavior as an excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in a shared global environment.
These are the last few years of decision, but they can be the first years of a bright and hopeful future if we do what we must. No one should believe a solution will be found without effort, without cost, without change. Let us acknowledge that if we wish to redeem squandered time and speak again with moral authority, then these are the hard truths:
The way ahead is difficult. The outer boundary of what we currently believe is feasible is still far short of what we actually must do. Moreover, between here and there, across the unknown, falls the shadow.
That is just another way of saying that we have to expand the boundaries of what is possible. In the words of the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, “Pathwalker, there is no path. You must make the path as you walk.”
We are standing at the most fateful fork in that path. So I want to end as I began, with a vision of two futures - each a palpable possibility - and with a prayer that we will see with vivid clarity the necessity of choosing between those two futures, and the urgency of making the right choice now.
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?”
We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource.
So let us renew it, and say together: “We have a purpose. We are many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will act.”
I guess CommonDreams thinks that we didn’t get enough of this greening effort for the Dems yet? Bloody Gore is a big bore and I will never forget his very real role in killing the Iraqi people as VP.
WOW! There are lots of answers and they can be developed with existing technology, but the world will not be the same in any event. The pollution levels can be controlled by us or the pollution levels will control us, but the world will change. This is the crisis that Al Gore that we all need to meet. There are enough people who can make this happen, don’t worry about those that don’t. Safiyyah may be right, but it is irrelevant. Anybody who is alive has ancestors that probably took advantage of others. We are all as guilty as sin. So if there is a problem with our former behavior that led to injustice, move forward and deal with it. It might be worth while to check out “The Bureau of Iraqi Affairs” to compare some of our current policies with earlier actions starting with the settling of our nation at the expense of the navive people who were here first.
For answers to go places like energybulletin.net, calcars.org and UC Davis Institute of Transportation or try the book, “Radical Simplicity”.
I watched the entire speech on C-Span totally great and the entire audience stood up on their feet with a standing ovation. It will be repeated on C-Span and you will want to see it.
Here are some gems: African proverb:
If you want something done quickly, do it alone, if you want to go far, go with others and as for global warming- we need to act quickly and far ….. is what Al Gore said.
Thank you Al Gore and those of you out there- do NOT get cynical like the first writer safiyyah - that cynicism will get us nowhere fast and it is fostered by bloggers of unknown afiliation. Here is another comment from Al Gore:
FOLLOW THE STARS NOT SOME FAST MOVING SHIP IN THE NIGHT……
We are all poised to follow the real leaders who will do something so our grandchildren will be able to live on this planet too and still admire the beauty of this planet.
“…I will never forget his very real role in killing the Iraqi people as VP.”
No one treats them Iraqis as good as King George!
Hopefully those who were encouraging Gore to run for president in 2008 recognize that he could not move forward with his climate change agenda if he was forced to achieve the level of “campaign fund raising” success needed to win the election.
Gore is preaching to the choir again. Those who really need convincing are the members of the coporate oligarchy who apparently believe they can accumulate enough wealth to build a fortress, protected by government forces or mercenaries or both, and hoard enough of the remaining resources to ensure a high quality of life for themselves and their descendants, while the rest of us perish in misery and absolute poverty.
We need arguments that will convince those oligarchs that they cannot hide and they will not be able to protect themselves from the rest of us when crunch time comes. They must be convinced that the rest of us would prefer to sacrifice our lives to ensure they perish as well, even if it means humans extinction, rather than to submit to their callous, vicious, and selfish attempts at mass murder, enslavement, and total dominance.
A tribute to Al Gore et al. by “Better World Links”:
250 Links on Global Climate Change
http://www.betterworldlinks.org/index.php?cat=2009
Al Gore has done a great job in popularizing the problem of global warming. I think where he falls short is in pointing out the connection between global warming and overpopulation. “Population control” is a topic no politian will touch with a 10-foot pole, but it’s not a coincidence that the CO2 chart follows the same logarithmic curve as the human population increase!
Funny how I go to yahoo.com and theres no headline on this, but if I go to yahoo.au (the Aussie Yahoo) its the top article. Shows you a difference in what two countries think is newsworthy, eh?
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the CO2 issue.
To tell you the truth, I am very much confused about the empirical data that is being forwarded by researchers.
I searched the Internet and found a fair bit of controversy. The links to articles and videos are below:
The Kyoto Protocol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol
Chemtrails and Global Warming: www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2007/11/27/01946.html
An Inconvenient Truth—Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Inconvenient_Truth;
The Great Global Warming Swindle—Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle;
The Great Global Warming Swindle: www.greatglobalwarmingswindle.co.uk;
The Great Global Warming Swindle: http://en.sevenload.com/videos/ha4PoKY/The-Great-Global-Warming-Swindle;
Population Control & Global Warming: www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2007/071207Scam.htm
Thank you for time.
Al Gore: “this week, I will urge the delegates in Bali to adopt a bold mandate for a treaty that establishes a universal global cap on emissions and uses the market in emissions trading to efficiently allocate resources to the most effective opportunities for speedy reductions.”
Definitively *not* preaching to the choir.
And with his homage to Alfred Nobel, I think AG is attempting to apologise for his previous associations with the Billary.
From my perspect, he’s achieved near-total ‘realness’ as a green advocate.
“Gore is preaching to the choir again. Those who really need convincing are the members of the coporate oligarchy…”
Yeah, but c’mon, do you really think the oligarchy is listening? No amount of “convincing” will move the rich and powerful to act in anything other than their own interest. Sad, but true.
No, we need to convince ourselves to get off our soft and cushy asses and make changes in our own lives AND in the lives of others. As that old protest slogan from the 60’s went: You are either part of the solution, or you are part of the problem. The emphasis is on YOU.
I will never forget his very real role in killing the Iraqi people as VP.- safiyyah
———————————————————–
I know, I know your astrologer told you that….
safiyyah,
what the hell are you talking about? maybe you should remember all the innocent people of the world killed by the Jihadists as well! Or is only the Islamic side the one to be considered?
Thank you Al Gore for devoting your life to bringing attention to the enviromental problems that we face. From “Earth in the Balance” to “An Inconvenient Truth” you have been a true champion for the environment and you deserve this award.
He is The Hope for planetary change and civilization’s survival. His majestic comeback to the political scene would be more than welcome by the majority.
Truly said that the 500-kilogram gorilla in all this is population increase. If the earth’s population continues to increase, there is no greening effort that can do more than delay the day of reckoning. I do believe that the planet will defend itself, and that if we humans do not stop our destructive spiral, we (or our descendents) will face a mass extinction, whether it be an untreatable illness, or a catclysmic explosion, or something not yet imagined. In a few million years, other species will be examining our fossils and wondering what destroyed our powerful culture. Sic transit gloria.
Sure, Gore was a politican, and can be foregiven for what politicians have to do. But, being sentimental, I cried when I listened to his talk today. Just think what a different situation we would be in today if his election for the presidency hadn’t been stolen from him. I am sure that he wouldn’t have reacted by invading Afghanistan, and then Iraq, which have proven to be such obscene human suffering tragedies. I am sure that he would have advisors that would not have suggested such a militaristic, and illegal militaristic course. Of course, we shouldn’t speculate on what he might have done, being a politician. But, I am sure that Al Gore, who has a brain, intellect, and intelligence (and can speak in complete sentences, that convey ideas) might have taken the challenge of 9/11 in a different course.
Sure, his speech today on global warming was to us sitting in the choir, and we rose to applaud him. I hope that like a sermon I heard as a kid, will propel us, and the world community, to act.
Congratulations Al. You very much deserve it.
When I watch the candidates for president talk about their issues - immigration, pro-choice, same-sex marriage, etc I can’t help thinking that in a few years, if we don’t confront global warming there will be only one issue - survival.
Thank-you Al Gore for bringing attention to this most important crises - and Congratulations!
Do any believe Vice President Al Gore had a great deal to say or much of any influence with the decisions President Clinton made?
For one example, if I recall it correctly, when Harry S. Truman was the vice President, he was totally unaware of the Manhatten Project and the atomic weapons program until after President Roosevelt died.
We don’t know what Gore was aware of, or if he had a ‘great deal of influence’ on any major geopolitical decisions as vice president.
We shouldn’t curse him for things he may have had little or no say about. Hell, durng his run for the presidency, many put him in the oval office with Billy and Monica. The truth is, that may have cost him a lot of votes. Gore didn’t live in the White House and had to have an invitation to go there just like everyoe else.
So if Al Gore does decide to toss his hat in the ring, let us weigh the good against the bad and judge him for what he is showing he is now. If he is nominated, he may even choose Dennis K for a running mate. Or, visa versa for those who think Dennis has a chance to win the primary.
There, now I have done it again and gotten into a political discussion. That’s my humble opinion about Gore, who like all the rest is less than perfect, and of course I am never wrong, ___about anything.
An analogy: You have to make a tough decision. Your child wants a puppy for Christmas. It’s December 24, 6pm. You go to a breeder of Irish terriers and have to select one of eight pups. None are perfect show dog quality, but one is better than the rest. Do you choose the best option, or rush to the pound and take a mixed breed that you don’t really care for? Or do you decide to not vote at all, not take any pups home and see how Christmas turns out.
Sorry to be so cynical, but as an outsider, I view people like Al Gore as “opportunists”, jumping on the bandwagon, whilst not really achieving very much. We have a political leader in the UK at the moment called David Cameron. He is the leader of our Conservative party, and it looks very much as if he will be our leader in a couple of years time. He has jumped on the “green bandwagon”, wearing recycled shoes, fitting a small turbine to the top of his house, and cycles to work (whilst a gas guzzling car follows behind, carrying his papers).
Oridinary people have been accused of taking “too many cheap holidays” - more than likely, the truth is their one holiday through a cheap airline, because that is all they can afford. The celebrities, businessmen and politicians are never criticized for their wanton wastefullness - private jets, multiple holidays, fast gas guzzling cars.
Yes, Al Gore does mention the US and China, closely followed by India, as chief culprits on carbon emissions, but will he put real pressure on anyone, should he once again become a major political figure?
Unfortunately, China’s just announced its comprehensive plan to aggressively develop its coal industry:
http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/zjgx/t20071207_177443.htm
Al Gore will eventually be seen as a major historical figure because of his courage and tenacity involving the global warming issue.
We all need to heed what he says and to prepare for a major change in how we are existing.
It’s time for the gloves to come off about our wasteful and extravagant lifestyles (yes, even the poor cannot keep polluting and consuming!)and to find less toxic ways to survive.
Congratulations, Mr. Gore, we salute you with your efforts for we will desperately need your help in the days and years to come.
Time is of the essence!
It is over.
We are already beyond the point of return.
Gore spoke of how we united once to defeat the Fascists.
What are we going to do about them now?
The Cor’Pirates’ have become so powerful that they are running the governments of the world
When Corpirates ruin government it’s FASCISM.
World Wide Fascism.
The last free peoples of this Earth are being victimized by them right now.
Anyone who has something they want is victimized so they can steal it.
Freedom for the Corpirates to do anything they want!
Rape, pillage and
Destroy the World.
Goodbye America.
Goodbye
Yellow Brick Road
and
Goodbye
The American Dream.
If you expect them to save you?
Forget it.
They are only out for themselves.
They hate us.
They look down at us.
They victimize us.
They are larcenous, lying, spying, torturous, murdering terrorists.
You are cannon farther.
Nothing more and nothing less.
To be used and abused.
I say take the gifts given to you and change for the better.
Do good and
Be good.
Survive.
Prepare and prosper.
Gain the high ground.
Invest in yourselves.
Become self reliant,
Go GREEN.
Go Organic.
Take your families with you.
For the change will come in a winkling of an eye.
Fast and furious.
This Earth is going to Twist and Shout and then the Poles will shift.
TWO THOUSAND and TWELVE.
Prepare now.
Time is of the essence!
kivals
“Those who really need convincing are the members of the corporate oligarchy…”
If the corporate oligarchy were convinced, they would become environmentalists, and somebody else would be the corporate oligarchy. It is in their very definition that they will place profits above the common good. We waste our time convincing them to become what they can not be. Our enemy is not a pack of reprehensible thieves who should be ashamed of themselves. It is a system, a beast.
The corporate oligarchy needs to be deposed, exposed, criminalized, rendered obsolete. It needs to be quickly replaced by an alternative system, as yet unimagined, adequate to organize and feed us all. I fear that “crunch time” will have to come first, that only a clear and present and palpable misery will motivate the mass of humanity to identify and disempower these sociopaths, place them in the trash bin of history and move on. They will have left us with damage that will continue to worsen long after its causes disappear, and the daunting task of reconstructing our society before we simply devolve into whatever wretched fiefdoms preceded the industrial revolution.
It is sobering to remember that the transportation and communications systems by which this critical organization might take place, the keyboards we tap on, the web forum where we meet, are all created and maintained by the corporate oligarchy.
thorn3505
Reducing our population is something that, if we cannot manage to do on our own, will get nicely handled for us in the course of things.
Gore’s masterful speech leaves us with a choice:
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?”
One of those choices companies can make is to ignore the requirements to become environmentally conscious and develop sustainable solutions, or pursue business as usual.
Over at Hewlett-Packard their research scientists seem to be choosing the former - developing innovations for the environment.
I am amazed at all the liberals who think that Al Gore’s record as VP for Clinton amounts to nothing. The two of them were enablers of the neocon Republicans, who were then able to enter office because of the road so well prepped for them by these two slicks. Without them carrying on a war against Iraq for 8 long years, there never would have been an invasion of Iraq by Bush.
Yes, I will not forget that it was Gore and Clinton who had the chance to end the mess George Bush Sr had already made with Iraq, but instead prepared the way for Dubya to turn the place into a living hell for good. Several million of Iraqis have now died, and certainly Al Gore was a good part of the process that made that happen.
How then does Al Gore some how become Mr. Environment with liberals? Certainly, the Iraq War is no ecological grand happening. It is truly utterly sickening to see a man with such a background somehow being toasted like he was Jesus Christ himself in the Second Coming. Democratic Party tied Liberals seem to be have no shame.
An Open Letter to Al Gore:
I hope you or your people read the discussions on Common Dreams, sir, because I’ve got something I’d like to say to you:
That was a great speech! Thanks for making it. Thanks for all you’ve done to point out to people the seriousness of global warming.
I’ve got a favor to ask of you, though:
Could you please step up to the plate and, since you’re not running for President yourself, endorse Dennis Kucinich for the job? You see, it’s obvious that the Iraq War is the single biggest cause of global warming in the world, for the very simple reason that it sucks up so damned many of everyone’s resources, financially and/or otherwise, and Dennis Kucinich is the REAL anti-war candidate.
Just imagine how much more efficient we could be at fighting global warming if we didn’t have to waste trillions of dollars fighting a war over the substance that contributes more toward global warming than anything else on the planet.
Syllogism:
Peace = more resources to combat global warming.
Dennis Kucinich as President = Peace.
Helping to elect Dennis Kucinich President = the first step toward successfully fighting global warming.
Thank you, sir, and congratulations again on your Nobel Prize.
Ticonderaoga, what in the world makes you think that Al Gore is capable of ’stepping up to the plate’ and endorsing Kucinich? What in his history would give you even a shed of hope that his politics in the future would be any better than those of his past?
When corporations and corporate hack politicians like Al Gore talk it up about Global Warming, it’s mainly because there is money to be made, and images to be built for themselves. Not because they truly will push for a new program of any substance.
One can easily predict that all corporations and corporate spoke people will soon be covering themselves with a coat of bright green. It is the wave of the future even as we move into total disaster on this planet. The same people and institutions most responsible for our destructive way of economic life will be those with the most money to promote their superficial green-ness to us. It will be as plastic and superficial as Disney World, too.
SAFIYYAH, apparently you were privy to discussions, or printed information concerning National and or International decisions formulated by our government durng the Clinton/Gore years. How is it that you know what Gore’s actual role was as the VP on those issues? Could you elaborate for us a little.
According to things I’ve read, that are documented in the Clinton library, Al Gore had little to say about anything of substance. Another question, just exactly is it, that Clinton did, that paved the way for GWB to invade Iraq? From what I have seen, GWB and his ONLY brain Cheney and Rove, paved that disasterous road with well planed lies and deception, and Bush had our millitry use that road to Baghdad.
What never ceases to amaze me, is how some will blame Gore for everything wrong that has happened since our lunitic king took over.
Safiyyah, I am fully aware of the fact that Al Gore’s voting record isn’t nearly as environmentally conscious as most people tend to think it is. I’m also fully aware that the Clinton/Gore presidency had its own problems (I know the Clinton-era sanctions on Iraq killed half-a-million Iraqis, for example), and wasn’t quite so nice as many think it was.
But I am willing to give Gore the benefit of the doubt. His movie WAS good, and the speech he gave that started this thread was also good. Gore’s past doesn’t make what he’s saying in the present wrong.
But I have a question for you? Do you have any positive ideas as to what we can do to get our country back on track? Can you think of anything useful we can do to end the war in Iraq? Or is resistance futile?
I mean, should we not care about voting? Should we just give up? Should we just say “We’re doomed, so let’s party and forget about it?” I bet you that’s exactly what the Bush cabal wants us to do.
ticonderoga: Gore’s past doesn’t make what he’s saying in the present wrong.
Gore’s triangulation strategy of reaching high office through complicity with the capitalist beast, and then using his stature to fix up some of the beast’s mind-boggling destruction is all too familiar and its failure painfully obvious.
While Gore’s past doesn’t make the present wrong, neither does the present excuse the past. The whole is very unimpressive. We live in a fascist state today - our democracy is lost. Fix global warming, and we still live in a fascist state that ignores the public will, we still have the blood of millions of Iraqis on our hands, we still are slaves to the capitalist beast.
So we should clean up the mess and let the beast go to create new messes? Forget it, Al Gore!! We’re targeting the capitalist beast ITSELF, not the messes it makes.
Do you, we, have a better option if Gore runs for the office? One who wins the primary? I’de personally rather have Robin Williams or Kem Bassinger as our president, they ain’t running.
Patrick, you want to know if I was privy to government tapes of Al Gore and Bill Clinton’s conversations during 8 years of the Clinton presidency? Well, No, I was not. So what? Should I have to think that Al Gore was some sort of choir boy at the time because I was not part of Slick’s Cabinet listening in on their chat?
Slick himself was a war monger and any liberal worth their salt should know that by now. Gore was his lieutenant commander. Hillary was his wife.
And, Ticonderoga, states that we now live in a fascist society under Dubya and Dick. Oh brother. That is the sort of ultraLeft hyperbole that often makes Democratic Party liberals sound as comical and loony as all the Republicans did when they used to lash out at Slick Willy for being so immoral because of his blow job by Monica.
What is just inexplicable to me, is how liberals so-so-so want to buy in on the corporate green stuff led by Democratic Party hacks like Al Gore? And YES, there is an alternative to doing that, Ticonderoga. Resistance is not futile if we just do that… RESIST… not vote Democratic Party every 4 years like brain dead zombies.
The Democratic Party will not get us out of Iraq, and they will not save the environment. They got us into both messes by going along with the Republicans. Remember?
So, do a little bit of resisting instead of just going along like chumps. Don’t vote for these lesser of two evils that really are not that at all. Try building a movement to break this undemocratic 2-party corporate con up, instead of feeding into it still more.
To me, the most important point in Gore’s speech is the idea of shifting “the burden of taxation from employment to pollution.” As he says, we need the whole world to do this and there are certainly carrots and sticks to push other countries along this path. Personally I think the carrots would go a long way.
Safiyyah or whatever, will you stop writing rubbishes if you have nothing good to write all about! Whether Al Gore actually played a role in killing of the Iraqis or not has NOTHING, as a matter of fact, to do with the matter at hand. Why not try, if for once in your life, not to condemn people by what they have done wrong. Instead, try to praise them because of what they have just done right. We all have our valleys and climaxes.
We all need convincing. We are all part of Government. Al Gore has done a good job. I, for one, now know the importance of reducing if not preventing the amount of CO2 being released into the atmosphere.
If any other person is not convinced by your speech, I am. If no other person is ready to be part of the movement, I will. If no other person is touched by your speech, I am. You’ve made an impact in some one’s life. Man, you are meant for this award.
I wonder if Safiyyah is aware that he who goes about looking for faults in others will never get his life on the move. You seem confused. Give Al Gore a chance and try to find a better way to contribute to making the world a better place than you met it. Everyone will surely remember Al Gore for this unique contribution. What will you want people to remember you for? For now you may be remembered as one who had nothing good to say. Think!!!
Actually, my attention was drawn to Al Gore’s speech by my lecturer. Let me inform you that my university is going to launch a society to be called SES (Society for Environmental Stewardship) in the middle of January 2008. This is fallout from Al Gore’s innovation. Everyone needs to be part of the campaign.
Yes Jchotch, you’ve said it all. Al Gore had preached to the choir and we the choir had given him a standing ovation. Thank you Al Gore!
I know men make mistakes. I’ve made a few. But I’ve also done good. Helped a lot of people. Put forward ideas that helped to develop perspectives. Worked hard on ideas I was passionate about and committed to and been helped by others in turn to bring them forward and create tangible new realities, where before existed nothing.
Al Gore made a crucial mistake — when he went into politics as a means of resolving the climate crisis — that one might consider and entertain as an idea. And being in the political arena certainly would involve one engaging with circumstances where the agenda is not clear and difficult decisions are placed before one, that you suddenly find are not yours to control, but that to be controlled by. When you discover that democracy doesn’t work, and Gore stated this when he said “I’ve fallen out of love with politics” then he took a stand. Politics for him was a vehicle to address a far larger issue, larger than a single nation, but important to All Life. When he discovered that politics was not going to provide the solution, he chose an alternative route and has done the hard yards to make it possible, given the attached political stigma I think he’s done a remarkable job.
Until politics is once again “of the people” and not the core-pirates at the heart of the global crisis because of industrialism and other -isms that create untenable and unsustainable positions, we need to back the man for the consistency of his track record for managing the climate crisis and sticking with it. It’s a bigger issue. To let a smaller, and granted–important–issue get in the road of the larger issue demonstrates questionable judgment and maturity.
Life is not black-and-white, most of the time. On some things it is. This is one of them. We have to put aside those bad things that happened for now, and we have to stop fomenting conflict in order to deal with the larger issues.
Wars are nothing compared to the fact of climatic catastrophe. NOTHING.
We have to stop the wars to manage climate crisis before it becomes climate catastrophe, or we’re going to have wars the like of which none of us ever want to see.
Al Gore’s speech was brilliant. It tapped ideas that needed to be tapped from history, drawing upon the example of the human capacity for sacrifice when threatened by other kinds of global tyranny. Nations turned around as a result, pulled together and forged alliances, that some have since abandoned and forgotten in their unthinking folly. And Al Gore addressed that too. He didn’t miss a base on this one.
The irony of his position versus that of the Second Shrubbery to be POTUS is delicious, outrageous, and so ludicrous a situation as to actually provide a fuel for scripts for a lifetime or more! Providing we have some lifetimes yet to come.
If the Hollywood Writers were not on Strike (poor bastards) fighting the oligarchy for what’s only fair, then one might well imagine one of them might have crafted this scenario where the man who leads the free world, is the one who was passed over in the election!
Hiliarious! If only she does not get in.
I’m glad to see that Gore is acting with integrity, refusing to run for office, because quite frankly, he’s a better world leader out of that particular tainted institution. In that office his hands would be tied, and those who would have him run for office and are urging him to, would do well to consider what I have just offered.
Strategically, it’s a bad, bad move to go into that den of iniquity and badministration.
Gore has called it right.
He’s done the best possible thing he could do with the political clout he had and was given. He left it behind and stood on the principles that took him into an unprincipled environment.
The best thing Americans can do with their government today is clean house. All of it. Serious overhaul. Neither party has the principles or the moral foundation to run the Duperpower and return it to any kind of former prestige and glory. If the American people were smart, they’d know this and elect an independent or force a coalition.
Bush and that moroff Rove, just clever enough to engineer a bigger moroff into office, exploited a flaw they found in the democratic management of America. The exploited it. They should have fixed it, that was the democratic thing to do. The American people should mark that well.
The Democrass party has not managed to do anything sensible to restore democracy and from what I’m reading and seeing from a multiplicity of sources is they’re as powerless to do so. While they’re not as corrupt as the Repugnants, they are nearly so. And certainly one can see the influence of the corporatocracy working within their ranks. So the hidden party has to be exposed and removed from the ability to influence with dollar and other economic powers, and that’s what the American people should be looking to do with their governmental system that is now a Fascist nation and considered so by many because of what has been done during the regime of the Second Shrub and his bugs.
The American people need to give parties without those connections and influences pressing upon them a chance to truly do what the Gorge Bush promised but did not do “clean up government.”
But it occurs to me, that if Gore can do what he has done without government, then perhaps we don’t need government any more. Perhaps he is an example of what could replace a truly enlightened world, and free it from the possibility of further political pollution and corruption which has so obviously ended the Grand Experiment.
It is certainly an enntertaining idea; Enlightened anarchy.
Al corrected his mistake. He is still correcting his mistake.
Persistence overcomes resistance.
Resistance is never futile.