Al Gore on Global Warming

Al Gore delivers a scorcher of a speechOn Global Warming:

My friends, the truth is that our circumstances are not only new; they are completely different than they have ever been in all of human history. The relationship between humankind and the earth has been utterly transformed in the last hundred years. We have quadrupled the population of our planet. The population in many ways is a success story. The demographic transition has been occurring more quickly than was hoped for, but the reality of our new relationship with the planet brings with it a moral responsibility to accept our new circumstances and to deal with the consequences of the relationship we have with this planet. And it’s not just population. By any means, the power of the technologies now at our disposal vastly magnifies the average impact that individuals can have on the natural world. Multiply that by six and a half billion people, and then stir into that toxic mixture a mindset and an attitude that says its okay to ignore scientific evidence – that we don’t have to take responsibility for the future consequences of present actions – and you get a collision between our civilization and the earth. The refugees that we have seen – I don’t like that word when applied to American citizens in our own country, but the refugees that we have seen could well be the first sip of that bitter cup because sea-level rise in countries around the world will mobilize millions of environmental refugees. The other problems are known to you, but here is what I want to close with:

This is a moral moment. This is not ultimately about any scientific debate or political dialogue. Ultimately it is about who we are as human beings. It is about our capacity to transcend our own limitations. To rise to this new occasion.

What was this man doing during his run for president? Had he managed to deliver some consequential speeches like this, the world might have been spared a regime of brutal stupidity and enjoyed another ten to fifteen years of uninterrupted prosperity and world peace (regional conflict excepted)?

Al Gore is absolutely correct though – we have to act larger than our immediate interests – or we all perish/suffer. There are too many rats in the house now and we will soon be overwhelmed by our own droppings and our own diseases. The stench will become too much for even rats.

And still we have people inhabiting the White House denying this. On the other hand, I believe it has become legal to teach creationism as scientific doctrine again in American schools.