Carbon taxes are a way for polluters to pass their costs onto consumers below without necessarily changing their ways -- in a nutshell, to buy their way out of legal consequences.

Why should we argue for taxes against carbon? Why not just laws with consequences?

If a sign is posted at a community open space and says $500 fine for littering, this is NOT meant to be an invitation: "You're free to litter here if you pay the city $500 in advance."

Looks like Al finally has a pair of balls like Gore Vidal.
Hoa binh

What would it take to hold a national referendum along with the next presidential election, vote Yes or No on the the figures reduction goal and timeline proposed by the EU?

Let the people take back the issue!!! So it doesn''t become a political plaything every 4 years.

Good for Gore. The whole adventure is indeed a "house of cards" as long as profit-based corporations are in power.

Whatever. Mr. Gore, you can either bitch in Bali, or come back to the United States and run for president, ensuring that the treaty gets signed.

If you choose not to seek, the office of President of the United States, which you would have a strong chance of securing, then the inconvenient truth becomes, that you Mr. Gore, is nothing more than a shameless self-promoter.

You still have a chance, before everyone realizes that you are teaming up with corporations to profit from our environmental disaster, to do what you know is right.

Time is running out, both for you, and the planet.

Ramsay

You're an old curmudgeon, Ramsay. Were he to become prez, the other half of his anti-fan-club would chew him out for choosing a position from which he can't blast those who won't comply. The very next on his list is Canada: we have the biggest single carbon-producing project on the planet--the Alberta tarpits. And there are absolutely no plans to cut those emissions--not while all this money is pouring into the country. Al Gore, please blast Harpo in public. Soon.

I'm getting really sick of everyone's faith in Al Gore on CD. Al Gore has managed to re-create his history in a very Ministry of Truth style. It was Gore who suggested the Cap and Trade international system which would have allowed the States to sign Kyoto while not curbing emissions at all, because American companies would be able to buy credits from Russia and the Ukraine. (Kyoto targets are based on 1990 levels when USSR was still in heavy coal-based industrial production which has dropped significantly since, giving these two countries plenty of filth credits to shop around)

Gore has been sent by the same people who are raping our natural resources--and fucking over those who have the proper rights to these resources--so that he can put everyone back to sleep. He has taken a crisis which should have served to spark the questioning of our political economic system in its entirety and put everyone back to sleep with the lulla-by of market-based solutions and petty individual changes (inflating your tires and replacing your light bulbs). This man needs to be discredited once and for all and the pro-people/pro-earth movement returned to its rightful owners.

While never a fan of Gore, I've got to give credit when due.
I'd never support him for president but he's on target (against the empire) here and has an audience. Let the man speak, yell, pound his fists and use any support he has, financial, political or celebrity to keep pushing this most important issue forward. I don't agree with many of his solutions but I hope he keeps screaming and maybe those with real solutions to this very real problem will eventually win an audience.

good for al. go get em....... he's sexy too...........

Judging by the anti-Gore posters here, the right is scared shitless of Al. Run Al run!

It took courage for Al Gore to suggest that the world move forward with climate change actions without the United States on board because the suggestion will damage his connections in the power networks at home.

But a severing of ties with the United States is exactly what the world community needs at this point. The flaw in the world's over-dependence on US leadership has been glaring in the past seven years. The security arrangements of Japan and Germany with the US now stand out as highly problematic as does China's trade and financial relationship, not to mention Saudi Arabia's and Egypt's, and others.

The world is learning that international relationships based exclusively on commerical or security interests carry a very high cost. All of the laissez-faire capitalist dogma pushed by the United States is today almost fully discredited and US leadership is most certainly a liability, and not an asset, to the world community.

The more Al Gore speaks the more attention global warming gets. Keep on pushing this urgent message. No one else brought this problem to the masses like Al Gore has done.

If the better angels of mankind's nature can survive the next 15 years intact, then historians will marvel at the full measure of the dereliction of duty engineered by the mis-leaders of the U.S. and their oily band of theives, greased palms everywhere extended as nature sinks like the Titanic bringing every living being to a crisis of continuity. What took the great Earth Mother eons to build is being snatched up and destroyed in the relative blink of an eye. Those who own positions of power show a callous disregard for life and its myriad expressions, murderers every one of them.

I have faith in the Lawful nature of this cosmos, and duly recognize the degree to which Truth, justice, and all things sacred are being squandered to satisfy the transitory desires of a small circle of deluded and ultimately dangerous fools. Following a leit motif that's far from unique (history chronicles its playouts), they manage to still bamboozle enough citizens using the power words of 'god' and 'freedom' to run this slime show on humanity yet again. The tragic difference this time are the numbers involved in what will turn out to be an ambush of fate, and the efficiency of weapons/surveillance, the dark twin forces to which so much of the earth's treasures have been compromised. Talk about a deal with the devil while all the while the masses chant "Jesus."

Why would anyone fall for Al Gore's out-of-office talk when he was vice-President for 8 years and did nothing to stop global warming? The CAFE standards were destroyed during those years.
And globalization that he pushed is a big contributor to global warming. Shipping everything we consume from China, or Ecuador, or Indonesia consumes a lot of fuel.
And his big solution to the earth on fire? Carbon taxes.
Please
We need much bigger changes than fiddling with taxes while the earth burns

I completely say HEAR! HEAR! to GREENERTHANTHOU's comments on Gore. Where are their mouths while in office? He did nothing to stop Global Warming while VP, but promote it. Now he has the nobel peace prize...kinda like Kissinger winning the the nobel peace prize in 1973 for peace in Vietnam (ceasefire). PLEASE.

The weirder thing about carbon taxes is that whoever recieves them may then become somewhat dependent on them. They'll become part of the expected revenue stream for that branch of government. And, in an odd way, they may be disinclined to curtail their source (pollution), since it'll result in less taxes collected?

We must at the very local level: cities and counties and states, do what the Republican Administration will not do, and that is make this country strong and safe and among the best in the world.

It is so very ironic that the entire Republican base that placed this ignormaous as its leader also calls for states rights, and local control of the government, but the counties, and cities and states have not taken their cue and stepped up where Bush has been found wanting.

We should all place the important policy issues on our ballots and let the people decide. My bet is that the people are a lot wiser than our leaders.

The protocol needs supply-side sanctions. If it is dug up, it will be burned sooner or later. The policies mean nothing unless they result in the stuff being left in the ground.

"One year and 40 days from today, there will be a new inauguration in the United States. I must tell you candidly that I cannot promise that the person who is elected will have the position I expect they will have, but I can tell you I believe it is quite likely."

May the "quite likely" force be with you and us.

Remember Gore is a Viet Nam Vet. his problem was he spent to much time in DC!

Al Gore will surely now be branded as unpatriotic for his comments comments concerning our opposition to climate change mitigation measures, by the same administration that had branded Senator Max Cleland (a triple amputee Vietnam Vet) as unpatriotic for sponsoring an investigation into the causes of 9/11 which Bush also opposed.

Until Americans take back our country from this misguided administration, and its controlling interests, and put out nation back on track, our world standing can only worsen.

Mr Gore deserves credit for this even though he waited far too long.

I wonder how long it's going to take Gore to figure out that until he gets into the race and beats these folks ...

http://www.sonic.net/~taryfast/destruction.html

he won't be able to ever get the ball rolling on Climate Change.

Kudos to the fellow above who suggested that we have a proposition on the Federal ballot , next to nominations of Prez and Vice- Prez for The Old Shot-out US Of A actually getting its freak on.. once again being the roaring force of democratic ACTION ( fuck the values that is NaziUNchristian doubespeak!)anf put the goddam ballot measure on every single Diebold voteraper, double hangin chad and dew whipped old wrinkled fossil who smiles at you with no teeth and hands you a space to piss in during election Day

God keep Al Gore..
Al did it right! Run for Pres and you havre to suck multinational corporate dick for 4-8 years..
Hang out there with people who truly ARE FREE and you can get in the grill of all these phony, evil meanspirited, Pat Robertson-lobotomized Biblefuckers anytime you damn well pleawse..
Politics is about sweat.. Politics is about getting your balls smashed.. politics is about actually staneding up , identifying yourself as a real human being in all your miserable faultstricken glory and SAYING SOMETHING AND DAMN THE TORPEDOES..
nOT BEING SOME SNIVELING SPINELESS ASSCLOWN BITCHING AND MOANING BEHIND A COMPUTER SCREEN SOMEWHERE..
gOD BLESS THE BRAZEN MUTHERFDUCKER FROM TENNEESSEE yeeehaw!
aL'S GOT BALLS THAT GEORGE w bUSH CAN ONLY DREAM ABOUT WHILE HE'S HUMPIN CHENEY IN THE ASS ANF SUCKING HIS SPANIELS LITTLE DICK !

ballot or no ballot, it remains up to EACH of us to make this happen. We have waited too long for "someone else" to lead the way. We know what to do, let' get on with it!

"Whatever. Mr. Gore, you can either bitch in Bali, or come back to the United States and run for president, ensuring that the treaty gets signed.

If you choose not to seek, the office of President of the United States, which you would have a strong chance of securing, then the inconvenient truth becomes, that you Mr. Gore, is nothing more than a shameless self-promoter.

You still have a chance, before everyone realizes that you are teaming up with corporations to profit from our environmental disaster, to do what you know is right.

Time is running out, both for you, and the planet.

Ramsay"

That about does it.
The bully pulpit or nothing.

Finally.

But here's another inconvenient truth:

Meat Eating & Global Warming
www.ivu.org/members/globalwarming.html

"You can feel anger and frustration and direct it at the United States of America. Or you can make a second choice, you can decide to move forward and do all of the difficult work that needs to be done and save a large open blank space in our document and put a footnote by it."

While we're struggling, hoping, praying, and voting for social change, we need to make personal change and thereby create the change we wish to see in this world.

Jimmy Carter has been a pretty effective past-politician. So has been Al Gore. Curiously, these guys were Democrats.

If we could run a few more like them through The White House, just think, we could have more liberal ex-guys running around the world, free to say whatever the heck they want.

Say! I wonder what G.W. Bush is going to do for the next 20 years? Help out somehow?

Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. Clinton/Gore enabled the accelerating rape of the environment. Either Gore didn't have the courage of his convictions at the time, or he was just biding his time until he got the chance to be at the top of the ticket. Unfortunately, he got robbed by the worst parasitic greedheads. Nonetheless, he is saying all the right things now, and let's hope he can make a difference in reversing the policies of the most avaricious and short-sighted government the world has ever known, even if he doesn't stand in direct opposition to it.

What a load of crap! Gore is doing nothing more than setting the stage for an insertion of the criminal government in the new sphere of environmental awareness that will be required of future officials. How many used car salesmen do you have to be exposed to before you realize you're being sold a lemon?

Does anyone here know what they are talking about?? Do you believe in this guy who "invented the internet"!! He's made himself millions on this GW scam!!! Where is the proof that co2 emmissions are even harmful to the environment. He's alraedy run for prez and thank God he didn't make it. I know I wouldn't vote for him or anyone who would sign legislation that would sell us out to the U.N.

About freakin time!

http://geocities.com/gwlinx

Steve Jones
Hawaii, USA
---------------------------------------------

Bali is a failure, the USA makes it a faulure and the only hope for this world is an 80% cut within the next ten years and a redirection of the Global economy; Russia will not buy it, or will China, Indonesia, Brazil, Japan or India. So goes the debate, so goes the warming measures necesary for human survival.

The UN like most organizations built around the G8 nations and economics. There formulations are designed to do two things try the save humanity and try to save the world economy at the same time. The problem is that Kyoto is problematic in that its policies promote continued pollution aimed at keeping the world economy afloat. If they were really interested at saving this planet the UN would do away with pollution trading altogether and institute a crash rapid change to alternative energy and an end to global toxicity. But that is the truth so let them think, as all diplomats do. that we are really interested in change.

I have talked with delegates from the UN member nations and many of them have said to me if they really said what some of us NGO's are saying that would be recalled and never have a job again.

Most comments are very nice to hear but like the Congress they also come down beside the point as most politicians do. Like most comments from the present Congress and in the blogs avoid reality and don't really deal with the issue head on. Most are still looking for the magic technological bullet or some disingenuous politician that will save all and we can continue on the way we are going with ever more growth and ever more and greater GDP as the bankers advise. Any candidate that does not talk about environmental issues first on the agenda, including Kucinich, betrays America and the world.

But there really there isn't any quick fix. I am a filmmaker and have worked on the environmental change issues since 1978 so I have a fair amount of experience to speak. While LED light-bulbs is good and 40 MPG for cars is better it is not the at least the 80MPG that is necessary and refits for all existing cars rather than exporting them to the developing world which is presently being done and will pick up speed as restrictions rise in the western world. We continue to export the problem from the USA to other countries as if we don't share this world with other people. And while Jesse Jackson talks of the black people of the world, his particular crusade its the people of the entire world at issue.

It was GE that killed the electric car not long ago who in Congress complained about that? Whether health care, big business, environment, energy alternatives, toxicity in the environment or any and all of these it comes down to who has the courage to talk about all of them rather than focusing on the head of a pin the one important issue. You want to hear about health care? The advance of environmentally based health problems by a toxic environment and air related pandemics is what we are looking at in the next few years with rising temperatures. The candidates are discussing universal health care? Try that on for the globe and all the sicknesses the policies of the USA have caused, three percent of the world's population the USA produces seventy three percent of global toxicity. You wonder where cancer comes from?

The people of the USA have been so ill informed as to what a change would really do and mean to this country and the change in leadership, they have forgotten that no one could be worse than George Bush. . . No one not even the dog catcher, at least the dog catcher has compassion for animals!

The real problem is not Kucinich as president, the problem is that he puts his emphasis on the wrong problem at the wrong time. The problem is getting him to address a credible platform of ideas. I say to him while impeachment is necessary, it is unlikely. There is not enough time and the issues most pressing are again avoided, like the environment and those really important issues before the congress now like kids health care! The issue of this election will affect the environment, economy and the future of the USA as no others. Yet if more than 50% of eligible voters cast their votes it will be a miracle because of regressive US election laws. It is compulsory for every one to vote in Australia. None of the candidates are really talking on the major points of the environment in association with the economy or health care and reform laws for elections.

The environmental news coming out is not new but it is very grave and keeps being pushed to more urgency as new research comes to light. If any one reading this comment cares to look at the website of NASA, the research papers of James Hansen in particular that were published long before Gore was on the scene and many since, they would understand that we really can not deal with much more than one degree to two and half degrees Fahrenheit of warming at its maximum to ward off the most serious effects of industrial societies pollution and to offset this growing catastrophe.

At about two and half degrees warming which is presently in the pipeline we will be dealing with about 550 ppm of carbon in the atmosphere, a rate actually above the tipping point of one and half degrees warming. This is the absolute figure to avoid the major positive feedback loops that are starting and scheduled to kick in by 2020 or earlier if nothing is done quickly. Positive feedback are starting now with Methane now being released on the tundra into the atmosphere a four times addition to greenhouse gasses and causing the poles and glaciers to melt more rapidly, or has no one noticed?

The below scenario excerpted from the climate articles here on commondreams tell us clearly without rapid change runaway climate change and their feedback loops are in reach within 10 to 30 years if nothing is done rapidly. The positive feedback loops will melt the remainder of the glaciers and perhaps dump Greenland into the sea as well. Also, the melting of additional ice-shelf's at the poles. That means perhaps a 3 to 30 foot ocean rise by the end of this century, but the process is beginning now and in 20 years or less without rapid change in economic direction the human race will reach a point of no return. The so called news and other media continue to bend the information toward the global economic agenda thus minimizing its importance. India for example is less concerned about climate change than they are about economic production thanks to the G8, although their neighbor Bangladesh is slipping into the sea . Still in India, there are several moves in the direction of smaller is better concepts of reality.

There will be sufficient human displacement of people on this planet to bring American citizens into a nightmare scenario that makes the present Mexican border problem a walk in the park. What about the transfer of health risks as a result of this problem? Not to mention water and food related issues and the economy, always the economy.

Yet is seems the political discussion rests on the complete list of talking points in isolation, such as Clinton's health package and its cost, rather than what is really at stake which is human survival. These folks on the stage wanting to be president rarely talk to the complete interrelated package of all these issues and more. The media reduces the public debate to its most simplistic level and all here are arguing about one issue or another rather than the entire package which a true leader must address. The media keeps the public dumbed down for obvious reasons they represent the money people. As a result we become unable to talk about moving radically to deal with climate change the first and major issue which affects all other issues and is completely related to economic change.

The world does not have (much later) before a more aggressive approach to all the issues beginning with climate change now! Remember New Orleans? Within next 10 to 20 years is where it all hangs. If nothing is done very soon it will mark the beginning of the end for the human race. Those appear to be the facts and no technology will stop runaway climate change once it begins, indeed if we look at the melting poles the worst case is much more apparent than formerly believed . . .it has already begun!!

Perhaps it might be too late now, according to James Lovelock, in his view it has begun. James Hansen at NASA makes a very compelling case for the time frame for action within the time in office of the next president of the USA and so does the UN. I think anyone who really wishes to be informed should go to the websites of these people mentioned here or the IPCC. It is technical information but worth taking the time to inform yourself. The answer is to start working quickly for change and vote for those candidates who speak of change and another direction and who represent ideas rather than special interests. For example the best work would be to defeat the pro-business Clintons and elect Kucinich or Obama or possibly a joint ticket while we know they have an outside chance they are the best possibility for change.

But we all know business interests will prevail with Clinton capturing the vote and a pro-business vote is a vote against the environment. No one running on the democratic side could be worse than Bush. But anyone who can think understands that the business interests control the environmental agenda and most candidates. The republicans will continue the work of burying the planet as will pro-business democratic candidates most of whom have been bought, whether by health interests or anything else concerning big money.

The facts concerning climate science is what is important. What the environmental facts really suggest is economic depression in the West in the near term. But if we are really serious about saving the planet (no one wants to hear that if they are connected to big money) it means voting for economic and environmental legislation limiting pollution and green house gasses. . .in any event that is change!

But the environment, water, energy production these are the real issues of this election campaign but no one would dare mention them in association with change in economic direction for fear of defeat. A redirection and a retooling of the global economy and of America is in order and that is not a popular issue on Wall street or people invested in Wall street. . .most everyone in one way or another.

We have to change rapidly and move to a none-stop production of environmental invention and energy alternatives for the western world and developing nations rapidly. It also means rapid technology transfer for the developing world without delay, this may save us some time. A cut of 80% of the carbon emissions within the next 10 years is in order and it must be done beginning now and well on the way before 2012 the next date for Kyoto. Kyoto is a western world fabrication to tell us we can keep polluting while where figuring a way to deal with this crisis economically.

A change of the present direction of economic production and fast move in a different direction economically is required by anyone that can think and put simple figures in context of this crisis. The world is waiting for this move by the Americans and watch the dollar rise rapidly against other currencies once this plan would be announced if ever. This is why this upcoming election is so critical and the results of it will determine whether the human race survives. . . . It is that critical!

The economic change in direction could possibly reemploy a lot of people who have lost their work in the polluting industries. This is the challenge to America to remake itself after eight years of the Bush/Cheney regime. It is equivalent to a fight for survival that required the retooling of America at the outbreak of WW 2. It requires change in the so-called war on terror, a Bush fabrication advanced by the media which is a money centered mind conditioning creation and finally, it means leaving Iraq, and using those resources to fight the real enemy to survival, the western consumer, hydro carbon based, societies of the western world.

Who knows that might mean less of an investment in China and more of an investment the western world for a healthier environment? And the Chinese might follow that example as well.

Which candidate will say this to America? Which candidate will really tell the truth? If they did they wouldn't have a chance in this election because Americans don't want to hear that! Any one having the courage to really tell the truth would find themselves on the next train to Siberia; they would be shouted down by the crowds of people on the stump and many on this blog. saying what the hell do you know anyway? "This is too scary for me!"

But the economy is the issues and that is determined by the war in Iraq. The illegal Bush-war that Kucinich wants to impeach Bush/Cheney for creating but takes us into another direction and one not well thought out. He is focused on the lies of Bush rather than the future of the world.

The production of alternative energy will soak up the idle job market, indeed it is doing so now! With a shift to the priority of economic production and development directed at saving this world and its equilibrium, means in simple terms a crash economic change which is vitally necessary, without that we are done. If any one thinks that we can continue with an oil economy and business as usual with a consumer based society, they are living in the world of denial which so much of the western world occupies. The below is a light message compared with what the truth really is: from UN sources of information!

"The world needs to spend 1.6 percent of global economic output annually through 2030 to stabilize the carbon stock and meet the 3.6-degree Fahrenheit temperature target. Rich countries, the biggest carbon emitters, should lead the way and cut emissions at least 30 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. Developing nations should cut emissions 20 percent by 2050, the UNDP says."

The above is letting you down lightly is really not what the actual projections are. The world crisis will crash in on its regional global populations is what the information below is saying. There really is no place in this discussion for a 5.4 to 7.2 Fahrenheit degree rise in temperature. . . .this scenario painted with the these numbers below is a different planet closer to Mars not Earth. The news media play with numbers like the lottery. We can tolerate one degree and perhaps two and half degrees warming at the outside, . . .in the next 50 to 90 years. . .that's it!!!!! An additional 3 degrees to four degrees Fahrenheit is three more degrees greater than this climate and its creatures can sustain or endure without collapse!! This quoted from the recent UN assertions here in commondreams and from the real information by scientists not political organization:

"a temperature rise of between 5.4 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (3 and 4 degrees Celsius) would displace 340 million people through flooding, droughts would diminish farm output, and retreating glaciers would cut off drinking water from as many as 1.8 billion people, the report says." this is an understatement and conservative.

The above report is economically associated and conservative as well as misleading!!! Forget this idea of 5.4 to 7.2 Fahrenheit of warming that is the Martian landscape because it allows for the runaway positive feedbacks to take hold. Whomever believes this world can sustain this degree of warming is either working for the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank or is gathering this information from the laboratory at XXON/Mobile or its publicists!!??????

Meanwhile the group here is discussing who will give us better health care on a dying planet and impeachment of Bush a good way to avoid dealing with the truth. We can be suspect of anyone who says they have the truth. The need for understanding this current cast of characters wanting to be president is important. None of this group has the faintest idea of what we are really dealing with in terms of global warming numbers concerning the environment, and if they did they would not tell the public. They know it's bad and their advisers are telling them they can't deal with this issue to get elected by the masses.

The masses? Unless you have not heard, these are the people above who are worrying where their next bag of groceries comes from and the money to pay the rent! They really don't give a damn about the environmental issues. . And have no time for thinking about 10 to 20 years from today that has no realty attached to it for most Americans or the rest of the four and half billion people on this Earth in the same situation. . . .

Or, for the rest of the population working for and controlled by big business and big money. . .that is what this election is really about and if one thinks about the complexity of all these interrelated issues we know that we can not beat the odds business will win. That means the future for humanity is limited even for the one percent that has everything.

Sure elect Edwards, Obama, or Kucinich or any combination of most of the Democrats that are not funded by big business for this election. This is the reality of this time we still live, on this, still beautiful planet.

al gore is in no small way a corporate contibuter to global warming.now he is setting another stage to further fuel hatred of america....algore is a devil,an ogre and a traitor.he is a rich nabob,descended from a long line of earth-rapists.. it is not 'americans'opposing green treaties it is the 'bush administration'that opposes the green treaties....why are all you commonfolk so eager to shoulder all the blame ????algore wants to tax 'carbon emississions'people breathing in and out emit carbon emissions......the only way for people to emit zero carbon emissions,is if we are all dead and no longer breathing.i believe that is what algore is really saying...........on the short list of candidates most likely to be anti-christ,i would place him right at the top,along with barbara and george bush sr.

Other than (maybe) France with its scary number of nuclear reactors, no Kyoto signatory has made much progress in reducing emissions. The Brits are expanding Heathrow so it can handle more tourists and overnight packages. At least the US position is honest: We may be really effing stupid, but we aren't going to do anything right now.

We're all hypocrites, including Al and his buddy RFK, Jr. But they are modern day Jeremiahs and its almost too late to heed them.

Funhaus:
Are you still in the Corridor? [Could we meet at the Bronx, for instance?]