al gore speaks :: we must listen

I often wonder how different our world would be if Al Gore had been able to assume the presidency as he was elected to do. Would we have caught Osama bin Laden? There definitely would not have been an Iraq war. But maybe no financial crisis either. Healthcare reform? But for sure, climate change would have been seriously dealt with.

Here are excerpts from an op-ed piece he wrote in Sunday's NY Times. The entire article is a must read.

We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change
By AL GORE
Published: February 27, 2010

It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The political paralysis that is now so painfully evident in Washington has thus far prevented action by the Senate — not only on climate and energy legislation, but also on health care reform, financial regulatory reform and a host of other pressing issues.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Simultaneously, changes in America’s political system — including the replacement of newspapers and magazines by television as the dominant medium of communication — conferred powerful advantages on wealthy advocates of unrestrained markets and weakened advocates of legal and regulatory reforms. Some news media organizations now present showmen masquerading as political thinkers who package hatred and divisiveness as entertainment. And as in times past, that has proved to be a potent drug in the veins of the body politic. Their most consistent theme is to label as “socialist” any proposal to reform exploitive behavior in the marketplace.

From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption. After all has been said and so little done, the truth about the climate crisis — inconvenient as ever — must still be faced.

Read the entire article here.

An article in Newsweek last October is worth reading as well:

The Evolution of an Eco-Prophet

Al Gore's views on climate change are advancing as rapidly as the phenomenon itself.
By Sharon Begley
Published Oct 31, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Nov 9, 2009