Al's latest
In today's NYT, Al Gore says:
Our home — Earth — is in danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings.
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If we don’t stop doing this pretty quickly, the average temperature will increase to levels humans have never known and put an end to the favorable climate balance on which our civilization depends.
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This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue, one that affects the survival of human civilization. It is not a question of left versus right; it is a question of right versus wrong. Put simply, it is wrong to destroy the habitability of our planet and ruin the prospects of every generation that follows ours.
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To this end, we should demand that the United States join an international treaty within the next two years that cuts global warming pollution by 90 percent in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy Earth.
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There are some who will try to pervert this precedent and use xenophobia or nativist arguments to say that every country should be held to the same standard. But should countries with one-fifth our gross domestic product — countries that contributed almost nothing in the past to the creation of this crisis — really carry the same load as the United States? Are we so scared of this challenge that we cannot lead?
Our children have a right to hold us to a higher standard when their future — indeed, the future of all human civilization — is hanging in the balance. They deserve better than a government that censors the best scientific evidence and harasses honest scientists who try to warn us about looming catastrophe. They deserve better than politicians who sit on their hands and do nothing to confront the greatest challenge that humankind has ever faced — even as the danger bears down on us.
This is mighty powerful stuff, but to me, this does not sound like a man who is considering a run for the presidency. If Gore were running, he would have avoided advocating a 90 percent reduction in the US's CO2 emissions, he would not have attempted to shoulder the burden of CO2 reduction on developed countries, and he would have avoided anything the Right could label (predictably) as "alarmist."
This is not a man running for office; it is a man with clarity of purpose and a deep understanding of the crisis we now face. We need to stop wishing he'll run and instead begin listening to him; we need to lend an ear to this lonely voice crying in the wilderness. If he did run, I'd vote for him in a heartbeat, but it just ain't gonna happen. Something bolder must take place: we must start paying attention to the voice of reason and act on it.
That's something we've seldom done in our nation's history. I'm not optimistic we'll suddenly awaken from our long slumber and begin listening to truth.