Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Al Gore: Moving Beyond Kyoto

By AL GORE
Published: July 1, 2007
Nashville

WE -- the human species -- have arrived at a moment of decision. It is unprecedented and even laughable for us to imagine that we could actually make a conscious choice as a species, but that is nevertheless the challenge that is before us.

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.

Without realizing the consequences of our actions, we have begun to put so much carbon dioxide into the thin shell of air surrounding our world that we have literally changed the heat balance between Earth and the Sun. 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.

In the last 150 years, in an accelerating frenzy, we have been removing increasing quantities of carbon from the ground -- mainly in the form of coal and oil -- and burning it in ways that dump 70 million tons of CO2 every 24 hours into the Earth's atmosphere.

The concentrations of CO2 -- having never risen above 300 parts per million for at least a million years -- have been driven from 280 parts per million at the beginning of the coal boom to 383 parts per million this year.

As a direct result, many scientists are now warning that we are moving closer to several "tipping points" that could -- within 10 years -- make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable damage to the planet's habitability for human civilization.

Just in the last few months, new studies have shown that the north polar ice cap -- which helps the planet cool itself -- is melting nearly three times faster than the most pessimistic computer models predicted. Unless we take action, summer ice could be completely gone in as little as 35 years. Similarly, at the other end of the planet, near the South Pole, scientists have found new evidence of snow melting in West Antarctica across an area as large as California.

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.

On Sept. 21, 1987, President Ronald Reagan said, "In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world."

We -- all of us -- now face a universal threat. Though it is not from outside this world, it is nevertheless cosmic in scale.

Consider this tale of two planets. Earth and Venus are almost exactly the same size, and have almost exactly the same amount of carbon. The difference is that most of the carbon on Earth is in the ground -- having been deposited there by various forms of life over the last 600 million years -- and most of the carbon on Venus is in the atmosphere.

As a result, while the average temperature on Earth is a pleasant 59 degrees, the average temperature on Venus is 867 degrees. True, Venus is closer to the Sun than we are, but the fault is not in our star; Venus is three times hotter on average than Mercury, which is right next to the Sun. It's the carbon dioxide.

This threat also requires us, in Reagan's phrase, to unite in recognition of our common bond.

Next Saturday, on all seven continents, the Live Earth concert will ask for the attention of humankind to begin a three-year campaign to make everyone on our planet aware of how we can solve the climate crisis in time to avoid catastrophe. Individuals must be a part of the solution. In the words of Buckminster Fuller, "If the success or failure of this planet, and of human beings, depended on how I am and what I do, how would I be? What would I do?"

Live Earth will offer an answer to this question by asking everyone who attends or listens to the concerts to sign a personal pledge to take specific steps to combat climate change. (More details about the pledge are available at algore.com.)

But individual action will also have to shape and drive government action. Here Americans have a special responsibility. Throughout most of our short history, the United States and the American people have provided moral leadership for the world. Establishing the Bill of Rights, framing democracy in the Constitution, defeating fascism in World War II, toppling Communism and landing on the moon -- all were the result of American leadership.

Once again, Americans must come together and direct our government to take on a global challenge. American leadership is a precondition for success.

End of excerpt. More at the link.
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Oh, to truly be able to do this, Mr. Gore. To see a global awakening that somehow enlightens the human spirit to see the moral imperative and to act on it. To see people actually giving a damn about their actions in regard to their effect not only on themselves but on the world. To see responsible governments globally that do not utilize resources for war and exacerbating the conditions that bring about war, poverty, disease, and hopelessness, but rather using them to really foster peace, prosperity, equality, and sustainability.

However, that would take one grand epiphany and one I only see coming about from a cataclysmic event, as that seems to be the only way people wake up. But even now I wonder, what effect if any would it really have? Hurricane Katrina was not only a national disaster, but a national disgrace in light of the response to it by this government as people there are still suffering from the effects of it with it being totally forgotten in our media and our consciousness on the whole.

Will GHG emissions have to reach 450ppm before we wake up? Will NYC and other points in Florida have to go under water? Will there have to be such a severe and prolonged drought in this country that our economy suffers to the point that food and water are scarce as to effect our daily lives? At this point I do think so, unless the moral compass of our people can be awakened on a massive scale to see that these events are likely and in many parts of this country and world are happening now and won't be stopped by any one presidential campaign in any country, but by THEIR participation in making it happen.

However, people need education and truth Mr. Gore as you well know and are providing, and once that truth is dessiminated it is then up to those people given that education and truth to take the action necessary to demand and implement changes to stop the endless beating we are giving to our only home that gives us life.

And it is not only human life that is at stake here, it is the lives of other species such as rocker penquins, polar bears, birds, insects, marine life all the way down to plankton and many other species that are feeling the brunt of the effects of this crisis. It is an environmental calamity that goes to the very core of the entire web of life.

Therefore, what event could possibly reach the global community simultaneously to give that education and truth in the hopes of inspiring that moral awakening from individual, to business, to government? Well, I believe it is coming this Saturday, 7/7/07, and that it must bring about that global summit that leads us beyond Kyoto to seeing political boundaries. Will we see it? At this point based on the past, we will have no choice but to see it.

So again, thank you Mr. Gore for giving the people of America and the world the chance to see this truth and say to them, you now have this knowledge, what are YOU going to do with it? It should be very interesting to see the responses, especially from those stuck in neutral and those consigned to thinking that they need not be a part of this themselves because they either think they don't have a part in making it or that someone else will save them from it. This truly is the moral challenge of our generation and especially the generation to come and we must now all be leaders.

So here's to 7/7/07, may it truly be the first day of the rest of our lives.