[Net-Gold] The Climate for Change (Al Gore - The NY Times)
David P. Dillard
Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 13:42:26 EST
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Subject: [Net-Gold] The Climate for Change (Al Gore - The NY Times)
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The Climate for Change
(Al Gore - The NY Times)
The Climate for Change (Al Gore - The NY Times)
Op-Ed Contributor
The Climate for Change
By AL GORE
Published: November 9, 2008
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/opinion/09gore.html
THE inspiring and transformative
choice by the American people to
elect Barack Obama as our 44th
president lays the foundation for
another fateful choice that he —
and we — must make this January to
begin an emergency rescue of human
civilization from the imminent and
rapidly growing threat posed by the
climate crisis.
The electrifying redemption of
America’s revolutionary declaration
that all human beings are born equal
sets the stage for the renewal of
United States leadership in a world
that desperately needs to protect
its primary endowment: the integrity
and livability of the planet.
The world authority on the climate
crisis, the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change, after 20 years of
detailed study and four unanimous
reports, now says that the evidence
is “unequivocal.” To those who are
still tempted to dismiss the
increasingly urgent alarms from
scientists around the world, ignore
the melting of the north polar ice
cap and all of the other apocalyptic
warnings from the planet itself, and
who roll their eyes at the very
mention of this existential threat to
the future of the human species,
please wake up. Our children and
grandchildren need you to hear and
recognize the truth of our situation,
before it is too late.
Here is the good news: the bold steps
that are needed to solve the climate
crisis are exactly the same steps that
ought to be taken in order to solve the
economic crisis and the energy security
crisis.
Economists across the spectrum —
including Martin Feldstein and Lawrence
Summers — agree that large and rapid
investments in a jobs-intensive
infrastructure initiative is the best
way to revive our economy in a quick and
sustainable way. Many also agree that our
economy will fall behind if we continue
spending hundreds of billions of dollars
on foreign oil every year. Moreover,
national security experts in both parties
agree that we face a dangerous strategic
vulnerability if the world suddenly loses
access to Middle Eastern oil.
As Abraham Lincoln said during America’s
darkest hour, “The occasion is piled high
with difficulty, and we must rise with the
occasion. As our case is new, so we must
think anew, and act anew.” In our present
case, thinking anew requires discarding an
outdated and fatally flawed definition of
the problem we face.
The complete article may be read at the URL above.
Bonnie Bracey Sutton
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