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Al Gore "An Inconvenient Truth"
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Article 33 from 37
:: Al Gore: An Inconvenient Truth
Al Gore published a new book: “An inconvenient truth – The planetary emergency of global warming and what we can do about it.”
Al Gore, the former Vice President of the USA and winner of the election in 1999, is today chairman of Current TV, an independently owned cable and satellite television nonfiction network for young people based on viewer-created content and citizen journalism.
The author writes 17 years after his first book “Earth in the balance”.
17 years ago after his son’s accident he made two enduring changes: He vowed always his family first and also vowed to make the climate change the top priority of his professional life.
In the intervening years, the global warming was going on. The pace of destruction has worsened and the urgent need for a response has grown more acute.
Al Gore writes in the introduction of his new book: “I have learned much more about this issue over the years. I have read and listened to the world's leading scientists, who have offered increasingly dire warnings. I have watched with growing concern as the crisis gathers strength even more rapidly than anyone expected.
In every corner of the globe-on land and in water, in melting ice and disappearing snow, during heat waves and droughts, in the eyes of hurricanes and in the tears of refugees-the world is witnessing mounting and undeniable evidence that nature's cycles are profoundly changing.
I have learned that, beyond death and taxes, there is at least one absolutely indisputable fact: Not only does human caused global warming exist, but it is also growing more and more dangerous, and at a pace that has now made it a planetary emergency.”
And how does Al Gore see the Bush-Administration today?
“In his very first week in office, President Bush reversed a campaign pledge to regulate CO2 emissions-a pledge that had helped persuade many voters that he was genuinely concerned about matters relating to the environment..
Soon after the election, it became clear that the Bush-Cheney administration was determined to block any policies designed to help limit global-warming pollution. They launched an all-out effort to roll back, weaken, and-wherever possible-completely eliminate existing laws and regulations. Indeed, they even abandoned Bush's pre-election rhetoric about global warming, announcing that, in the president's opinion, global warming wasn't a problem at all.”
What should or what could our answer be? Is it already too late?
After the terrible Second World War, the USA had gained the moral authority and vision to create the Marshall Plan. And the USA had gained the spiritual capacity and wisdom to rebuild Japan and Europe, mainly the destroyed Germany. And 60 years of peace and prosperity were following. Now we need a worldwide ecological Marshall Plan. Our children will ask us in the next decades:
“Why didn’t you care about our future?”
“Were you really so self-absorbed that you couldn’t or wouldn’t stop the destruction of Earth’s environment?”
Al Gore’s answers may be inconvenient for some people. But I am sure: For the most of us his answers and proposals are clear and realistic and payable.
The message of his book is both very simple and important too: A better world is possible. It´s up to us. We can still choose a future for which our children will thank us. We can answer our children’s questions by our actions.
Who – if not we? And when, if not now?
The author writes 17 years after his first book “Earth in the balance”.
17 years ago after his son’s accident he made two enduring changes: He vowed always his family first and also vowed to make the climate change the top priority of his professional life.
In the intervening years, the global warming was going on. The pace of destruction has worsened and the urgent need for a response has grown more acute.
Al Gore writes in the introduction of his new book: “I have learned much more about this issue over the years. I have read and listened to the world's leading scientists, who have offered increasingly dire warnings. I have watched with growing concern as the crisis gathers strength even more rapidly than anyone expected.
In every corner of the globe-on land and in water, in melting ice and disappearing snow, during heat waves and droughts, in the eyes of hurricanes and in the tears of refugees-the world is witnessing mounting and undeniable evidence that nature's cycles are profoundly changing.
I have learned that, beyond death and taxes, there is at least one absolutely indisputable fact: Not only does human caused global warming exist, but it is also growing more and more dangerous, and at a pace that has now made it a planetary emergency.”
And how does Al Gore see the Bush-Administration today?
“In his very first week in office, President Bush reversed a campaign pledge to regulate CO2 emissions-a pledge that had helped persuade many voters that he was genuinely concerned about matters relating to the environment..
Soon after the election, it became clear that the Bush-Cheney administration was determined to block any policies designed to help limit global-warming pollution. They launched an all-out effort to roll back, weaken, and-wherever possible-completely eliminate existing laws and regulations. Indeed, they even abandoned Bush's pre-election rhetoric about global warming, announcing that, in the president's opinion, global warming wasn't a problem at all.”
What should or what could our answer be? Is it already too late?
After the terrible Second World War, the USA had gained the moral authority and vision to create the Marshall Plan. And the USA had gained the spiritual capacity and wisdom to rebuild Japan and Europe, mainly the destroyed Germany. And 60 years of peace and prosperity were following. Now we need a worldwide ecological Marshall Plan. Our children will ask us in the next decades:
“Why didn’t you care about our future?”
“Were you really so self-absorbed that you couldn’t or wouldn’t stop the destruction of Earth’s environment?”
Al Gore’s answers may be inconvenient for some people. But I am sure: For the most of us his answers and proposals are clear and realistic and payable.
The message of his book is both very simple and important too: A better world is possible. It´s up to us. We can still choose a future for which our children will thank us. We can answer our children’s questions by our actions.
Who – if not we? And when, if not now?
Source:
Franz Alt 2006
Franz Alt 2006
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Article 33 from 37
