Future generations may well have occasion to ask themselves, "What were our parents thinking? Why didn't they wake up when they had a chance?" We have to hear that question from them, now.
An Inconvenient Truth quotes
Page 1 of 2I am Al Gore, and I used to be the next president of the United States of America.
[laughter] I don't find that particularly funny.
I guess the thing I've spent more time on than anything else in this slide show is trying to identify all those things in people's minds that serve as obstacles to them understanding this. And whenever I feel like I've identified an obstacle I try to take it apart, roll it away, move it, demolish it, blow it up. I've set myself a goal: communicate this real clearly. The only way I know to do it is city by city, person by person, family by family, and I have faith that pretty soon that enough minds are changed that we cross a threshold.
I've been trying to tell this story for a long time, and I feel as I've failed to make the message across.
It takes a sudden jolt sometimes for us to become aware of a danger. If it seems gradual, even if it really is happening quickly, we're capable of just sitting there and not responding, and not reacting.
It's just human nature to take time to connect the dots. I know that. But I also know there can be a day of reckoning, when you wish you had connected the dots more quickly.
Making mistakes in centuries and generations past would have consequences that we could overcome. We don't have that luxury anymore.
Old Habits plus Old Technology have predictable consequences. Old Habits, that are hard to change, plus New Technology can have dramatically altered consequences.
The struggles, the victories that aren't really victories, the defeats that aren't really defeats, they can serve to magnify the significance of some trivial step forward, exaggerate the seeming importance of some massive setback.
There are good people, who are in politics — in both parties — who hold this at arm's length, because if they acknowledge it and recognize it, then the moral imperative to make big changes is inescapable.
There are good people, who are in politics, in both major parties, who hold this at arms' length, because if they acknowledge it, if they recognize it, then the moral imperative to do big changes would be unescapable.
There are three misconceptions in particular that bedevil our thinking. The first: isn't there a disagreement among scientists as to whether the problem is real or not? Actually... not really.
They looked up and they snapped this picture, and it became known as "Earthrise" And that one picture exploded in the consciousness of humankind. It led to dramatic changes. Within 18 months of this picture being taken the modern environmental movement had begun.
Ultimately, this is really not a political issue so much as a moral issue. If we allow that to happen, it'd be deeply unethical.
We have everything we need, save perhaps, political will. But, you know what ... political will is a renewable resource. ... The solutions are in our hands. We just have to have the determination to make them happen.