Talks Al Gore: New thinking on the climate crisis

In Al Gore’s brand-new slideshow (premiering exclusively on TED.com), he presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting, and challenges us to act with a sense of “generational mission” — the kind of feeling that brought forth the civil rights movement — to set it right. Gore’s stirring presentation is followed by a brief Q&A in which he is asked for his verdict on the current political candidates’ climate policies and on what role he himself might play in future.

GORE LAUNCHES AMBITIOUS ADVOCACY CAMPAIGN ON CLIMATE

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post
Monday, March 31, 2008; A04

Former vice president Al Gore will launch a three-year, $300 million campaign Wednesday aimed at mobilizing Americans to push for aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, a move that ranks as one of the most ambitious and costly public advocacy campaigns in U.S. history.

The Alliance for Climate Protection’s “we” campaign will employ online organizing and television advertisements on shows ranging from “American Idol” to “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” It highlights the extent to which Americans’ growing awareness of global warming has yet to translate into national policy changes, Gore said in an hour-long phone interview last week. He said the campaign, which Gore is helping to fund, was undertaken in large part because of his fear that U.S. lawmakers are unwilling to curb the human-generated emissions linked to climate change.

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(Full Article: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/14357)

Open Letter to Al Gore, Jr. Redux – 10/15/07

PRG
Paradigm Research Group

Open Letter to Albert Gore, Jr. – Redux

This letter resides at:
www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Open_Letters_Gore.htm

October 15, 2007

Dear Mr. Gore,

On January 29 of this year PRG published an open letter to you in anticipation of your winning the “Best Documentary” Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth at the 79th Annual Academy Awards. That letter made two essential points: 1) your political career and areas of specialty as a senator and vice president were such you are aware of and/or have been briefed on some or all of the facts surrounding an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race for at least the past sixty years, and
2) propulsion and energy technologies associated with extraterrestrial vehicles obtained by the United States military and under development for decades must be brought out from behind the government imposed truth embargo and placed in the service of addressing the dire warnings you have raised concerning the near- and long-term effects of global warming.

Nine months has passed. You did not respond to this open letter, and none of the presidential candidates who wish to lead the most powerful nation in the world have dared in forum after forum to the address the extraterrestrial/truth embargo issues. Nevertheless, you have had quite a year culminating with your being awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. In between you picked up an Emmy.
In your post-Nobel Prize announcement remarks you repeatedly referred to the “consciousness raising” aspect of the global warming challenge. Your point is valid, but it is worth noting the motivation behind this potential increase in global consciousness would be fear-based in much the same way the threat of international terrorism alters human behavior. The environmental movement began in similar fashion, arising out of the dire and also controversial warnings from Rachel Carson in her landmark book, Silent Spring. But even Carson would have been impressed with the behavioral changes your message calls for.

The multiplicity of solutions to the global warming crisis you offer will require an unprecedented modification in collective worldview never before seen in human affairs within any time frame, let alone the one or two decades suggested. In short, you need all the help you can get – help that includes powerful, non-fear-based components.

With all due respect for global warming’s potency as a change agent, that and nothing else comes close to the formal disclosure of the presence of non-human, intelligent beings for getting the human race’s attention. It will and properly should be the most profound event in human history. If you wish for the human race to see itself as a singular species shepherd to its one and only home planet, helping to end the truth embargo will significantly improve that prospect.

But, as stated above, there is a significant bonus to this strategy. Behind the truth embargo is sequestered extraterrestrial technology which, if brought into the public arena, could completely alter the tipping point equations presently scaring many out of their wits. In fact, there is no issue impacting the human condition that this technology could not materially affect for the better.

Jimmy Carter knows this, Bill Clinton knows this, George H. W. Bush know this – they will not publicly speak to it. Will you speak for them?

Respectfully,

Stephen Bassett
Executive Director

‘Arnie,’ ‘Al’ Push Climate Action

By CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP Special Correspondent

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — “Arnie” and “Al,” Republican and Democrat, shared the world spotlight to press for climate action, adding a touch of star quality to the staid proceedings of a U.N. summit.

The two headliners, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Vice President Al Gore, also highlighted by their presence President Bush’s absence from the eight hours of high-level speechmaking Monday on what to do about global warming.

Bush, who did take part later in a small, private U.N. dinner with key players on climate, rejects the idea of international treaty obligations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases” blamed for global warming – an idea central to U.N. climate negotiations.

The Republican Schwarzenegger, on the other hand, has taken the lead on emissions caps at the state level, signing legislation mandating such reductions in California.

“One responsibility we all have is action. Action, action, action,” the former Hollywood action star said as he helped open the summit, winning warm applause from the assembled presidents and premiers.

The Democrat Gore – a Hollywood figure himself as the lead in the Oscar-winning climate documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” – took his star turn at a summit luncheon, where he cited a lengthening list of global warming’s impacts, from the shrinking Arctic ice cap to disappearing lakes in Africa.

“The need to act is now,” Gore told delegates to the one-day summit, which drew more than 80 world leaders. “We need a mandate at Bali.”

He was referring the annual U.N. climate treaty conference, scheduled for December in Bali, Indonesia, where the Europeans and others hope to initiate talks for an emissions-reduction agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol in 2012.

The 175-nation Kyoto pact, which the U.S. rejects, requires 36 industrial nations to reduce the heat-trapping gases emitted by power plants and other industrial, agricultural and transportation sources. The 1997 agreement set relatively small target reductions averaging 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

The advocates of emissions caps say a breakthrough is needed at Bali to ensure an uninterrupted transition from the Kyoto deal to a new, deeper-cutting regime, something that almost certainly would require a change in the position of the U.S., long the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Bush objects that Kyoto-style mandates would damage the U.S. economy and says they should be imposed on fast-growing poorer countries such as China and India in addition to developed nations. He instead is urging industry to cut emissions voluntarily and is emphasizing research on clean-energy technology as one answer.

On Thursday and Friday, Bush will host his own Washington climate meeting, limited to 16 “major emitter” countries, including China and India, the first in a series of U.S.-led gatherings expected to focus on those themes.

“The Washington meeting is a distraction,” Hans Verolme, climate campaigner for the Worldwide Fund for Nature, told reporters here. The Bush administration needs “to show they are serious and implement domestic legislation to reduce emissions,” he said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking at the summit, put the Washington meetings in a different light, describing them as designed “to support and help advance the ongoing U.N. discussion.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiang Yu said Tuesday that Xie Zhenghua, the vice director of the National Development and Reform Commission, will represent China at the meeting. “We wish the meeting success in promoting better cooperation between major economic entities … to press ahead on the track of the U.N. (Framework Convention on Climate Change) and the Kyoto Protocol,” Jiang said at a briefing.

Late Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was asked by reporters about Bush’s position during the informal dinner discussions. “He made it quite clear that what he’s going to do is help the United Nations’ effort,” he replied. On Tuesday, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, emerged from a bilateral meeting with Bush saying the U.S. president told him he was ready to be more flexible on climate.

Japan’s envoy, former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, told the summit Tokyo believes the separate U.S. talks will “contribute to achieving consensus” in the U.N. process, in which all agree that China, India and others must eventually accept emission limits.

But Japan, the Europeans and others, to one degree or another, stressed that all nations – including the United States – must accept binding emissions targets, something Bush gives no sign of doing.

To try to spur global negotiations, the European Union, which must reduce emissions by 8 percent under Kyoto, has committed unilaterally to a further reduction of at least 20 percent by 2020.

Speaking for the EU, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Monday’s gathering that “all the developed countries and the largest emitters” must commit to a 50 percent reduction by 2050. In a comment clearly aimed at Washington, he also said the U.N. negotiations are the only “legitimate framework,” a point stressed repeatedly by Ban as well.

(Source: http://news.wired.com)

‘Arnie,’ ‘Al’ Push Climate Action

By CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP Special Correspondent

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — “Arnie” and “Al,” Republican and Democrat, shared the world spotlight to press for climate action, adding a touch of star quality to the staid proceedings of a U.N. summit.

The two headliners, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Vice President Al Gore, also highlighted by their presence President Bush’s absence from the eight hours of high-level speechmaking Monday on what to do about global warming.

Bush, who did take part later in a small, private U.N. dinner with key players on climate, rejects the idea of international treaty obligations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases” blamed for global warming – an idea central to U.N. climate negotiations.

The Republican Schwarzenegger, on the other hand, has taken the lead on emissions caps at the state level, signing legislation mandating such reductions in California.

“One responsibility we all have is action. Action, action, action,” the former Hollywood action star said as he helped open the summit, winning warm applause from the assembled presidents and premiers.

The Democrat Gore – a Hollywood figure himself as the lead in the Oscar-winning climate documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” – took his star turn at a summit luncheon, where he cited a lengthening list of global warming’s impacts, from the shrinking Arctic ice cap to disappearing lakes in Africa.

“The need to act is now,” Gore told delegates to the one-day summit, which drew more than 80 world leaders. “We need a mandate at Bali.”

He was referring the annual U.N. climate treaty conference, scheduled for December in Bali, Indonesia, where the Europeans and others hope to initiate talks for an emissions-reduction agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol in 2012.

The 175-nation Kyoto pact, which the U.S. rejects, requires 36 industrial nations to reduce the heat-trapping gases emitted by power plants and other industrial, agricultural and transportation sources. The 1997 agreement set relatively small target reductions averaging 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

The advocates of emissions caps say a breakthrough is needed at Bali to ensure an uninterrupted transition from the Kyoto deal to a new, deeper-cutting regime, something that almost certainly would require a change in the position of the U.S., long the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Bush objects that Kyoto-style mandates would damage the U.S. economy and says they should be imposed on fast-growing poorer countries such as China and India in addition to developed nations. He instead is urging industry to cut emissions voluntarily and is emphasizing research on clean-energy technology as one answer.

On Thursday and Friday, Bush will host his own Washington climate meeting, limited to 16 “major emitter” countries, including China and India, the first in a series of U.S.-led gatherings expected to focus on those themes.

“The Washington meeting is a distraction,” Hans Verolme, climate campaigner for the Worldwide Fund for Nature, told reporters here. The Bush administration needs “to show they are serious and implement domestic legislation to reduce emissions,” he said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking at the summit, put the Washington meetings in a different light, describing them as designed “to support and help advance the ongoing U.N. discussion.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiang Yu said Tuesday that Xie Zhenghua, the vice director of the National Development and Reform Commission, will represent China at the meeting. “We wish the meeting success in promoting better cooperation between major economic entities … to press ahead on the track of the U.N. (Framework Convention on Climate Change) and the Kyoto Protocol,” Jiang said at a briefing.

Late Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was asked by reporters about Bush’s position during the informal dinner discussions. “He made it quite clear that what he’s going to do is help the United Nations’ effort,” he replied. On Tuesday, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, emerged from a bilateral meeting with Bush saying the U.S. president told him he was ready to be more flexible on climate.

Japan’s envoy, former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, told the summit Tokyo believes the separate U.S. talks will “contribute to achieving consensus” in the U.N. process, in which all agree that China, India and others must eventually accept emission limits.

But Japan, the Europeans and others, to one degree or another, stressed that all nations – including the United States – must accept binding emissions targets, something Bush gives no sign of doing.

To try to spur global negotiations, the European Union, which must reduce emissions by 8 percent under Kyoto, has committed unilaterally to a further reduction of at least 20 percent by 2020.

Speaking for the EU, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Monday’s gathering that “all the developed countries and the largest emitters” must commit to a 50 percent reduction by 2050. In a comment clearly aimed at Washington, he also said the U.N. negotiations are the only “legitimate framework,” a point stressed repeatedly by Ban as well.

(Source: http://news.wired.com)

An Inconvenient Truth

Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world’s scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have …more