[Oe List ...] {Spam?} Re: Nobel speech by Al Gore

[RICHARD HOWIE]

THANKS Janice.  I am studying Thomas Berry's OUR WAY TO THE FUTURE,  
which states the same points that Al Gore so beautifully notes.
Ellen
On Dec 10, 2007, at 11:50 AM, Janice Ulangca wrote:

> Seems he could be speaking to EI/ICA/O:E - and not just about  
> climate change.
> Janice Ulangca
>
> SPEECH BY AL GORE ON THE ACCEPTANCE
> OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
> DECEMBER 10, 2007
> OSLO, NORWAY
> Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Honorable members of the  
> Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen.
>
> I have a purpose here today. It is a purpose I have tried to serve  
> for many years. I have prayed that God would show me a way to  
> accomplish it.
>
> Sometimes, without warning, the future knocks on our door with a  
> precious and painful vision of what might be. One hundred and  
> nineteen years ago, a wealthy inventor read his own obituary,  
> mistakenly published years before his death. Wrongly believing the  
> inventor had just died, a newspaper printed a harsh judgment of his  
> life’s work, unfairly labeling him “The Merchant of Death” because  
> of his invention – dynamite. Shaken by this condemnation, the  
> inventor made a fateful choice to serve the cause of peace.
>
> Seven years later, Alfred Nobel created this prize and the others  
> that bear his name.
>
> Seven years ago tomorrow, I read my own political obituary in a  
> judgment that seemed to me harsh and mistaken – if not premature.  
> But that unwelcome verdict also brought a precious if painful gift:  
> an opportunity to search for fresh new ways to serve my purpose.
>
> Unexpectedly, that quest has brought me here. Even though I fear my  
> words cannot match this moment, I pray what I am feeling in my  
> heart will be communicated clearly enough that those who hear me  
> will say, “We must act.”
>
> The distinguished scientists with whom it is the greatest honor of  
> my life to share this award have laid before us a choice between  
> two different futures – a choice that to my ears echoes the words  
> of an ancient prophet: “Life or death, blessings or curses.  
> Therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.”
>
> We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency – a  
> threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering  
> ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here. But there  
> is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis  
> and avoid the worst – though not all – of its consequences, if we  
> act boldly, decisively and quickly.
>
> However, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many  
> of the world’s leaders are still best described in the words  
> Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler’s  
> threat: “They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be  
> undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for  
> fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.”
>
> So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming  
> pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet,  
> as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly  
> larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more  
> and more heat from the sun.
>
> As a result, the earth has a fever. And the fever is rising. The  
> experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal  
> by itself. We asked for a second opinion. And a third. And a  
> fourth. And the consistent conclusion, restated with increasing  
> alarm, is that something basic is wrong.
>
> We are what is wrong, and we must make it right.
>
> Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the  
> sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North  
> Polar ice cap is “falling off a cliff.” One study estimated that it  
> could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years.  
> Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later  
> this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years.
>
> Seven years from now.
>
> In the last few months, it has been harder and harder to  
> misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter.  
> Major cities in North and South America, Asia and Australia are  
> nearly out of water due to massive droughts and melting glaciers.  
> Desperate farmers are losing their livelihoods. Peoples in the  
> frozen Arctic and on low-lying Pacific islands are planning  
> evacuations of places they have long called home. Unprecedented  
> wildfires have forced a half million people from their homes in one  
> country and caused a national emergency that almost brought down  
> the government in another. Climate refugees have migrated into  
> areas already inhabited by people with different cultures,  
> religions, and traditions, increasing the potential for conflict.  
> Stronger storms in the Pacific and Atlantic have threatened whole  
> cities. Millions have been displaced by massive flooding in South  
> Asia, Mexico, and 18 countries in Africa. As temperature extremes  
> have increased, tens of thousands have lost their lives. We are  
> recklessly burning and clearing our forests and driving more and  
> more species into extinction. The very web of life on which we  
> depend is being ripped and frayed.
>
> We never intended to cause all this destruction, just as Alfred  
> Nobel never intended that dynamite be used for waging war. He had  
> hoped his invention would promote human progress. We shared that  
> same worthy goal when we began burning massive quantities of coal,  
> then oil and methane.
>
> Even in Nobel’s time, there were a few warnings of the likely  
> consequences. One of the very first winners of the Prize in  
> chemistry worried that, “We are evaporating our coal mines into the  
> air.” After performing 10,000 equations by hand, Svante Arrhenius  
> calculated that the earth’s average temperature would increase by  
> many degrees if we doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
>
> Seventy years later, my teacher, Roger Revelle, and his colleague,  
> Dave Keeling, began to precisely document the increasing CO2 levels  
> day by day.
>
> But unlike most other forms of pollution, CO2 is invisible,  
> tasteless, and odorless -- which has helped keep the truth about  
> what it is doing to our climate out of sight and out of mind.  
> Moreover, the catastrophe now threatening us is unprecedented – and  
> we often confuse the unprecedented with the improbable.
>
> We also find it hard to imagine making the massive changes that are  
> now necessary to solve the crisis. And when large truths are  
> genuinely inconvenient, whole societies can, at least for a time,  
> ignore them. Yet as George Orwell reminds us: “Sooner or later a  
> false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a  
> battlefield.”
>
> In the years since this prize was first awarded, the entire  
> relationship between humankind and the earth has been radically  
> transformed. And still, we have remained largely oblivious to the  
> impact of our cumulative actions.
>
> Indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the  
> earth itself. Now, we and the earth's climate are locked in a  
> relationship familiar to war planners: "Mutually assured destruction."
>
> More than two decades ago, scientists calculated that nuclear war  
> could throw so much debris and smoke into the air that it would  
> block life-giving sunlight from our atmosphere, causing a "nuclear  
> winter." Their eloquent warnings here in Oslo helped galvanize the  
> world’s resolve to halt the nuclear arms race.
>
> Now science is warning us that if we do not quickly reduce the  
> global warming pollution that is trapping so much of the heat our  
> planet normally radiates back out of the atmosphere, we are in  
> danger of creating a permanent “carbon summer.”
>
> As the American poet Robert Frost wrote, “Some say the world will  
> end in fire; some say in ice.” Either, he notes, “would suffice.”
>
> But neither need be our fate. It is time to make peace with the  
> planet.
>
> We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and  
> resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized  
> for war. These prior struggles for survival were won when leaders  
> found words at the 11th hour that released a mighty surge of  
> courage, hope and readiness to sacrifice for a protracted and  
> mortal challenge.
>
> These were not comforting and misleading assurances that the threat  
> was not real or imminent; that it would affect others but not  
> ourselves; that ordinary life might be lived even in the presence  
> of extraordinary threat; that Providence could be trusted to do for  
> us what we would not do for ourselves.
>
> No, these were calls to come to the defense of the common future.  
> They were calls upon the courage, generosity and strength of entire  
> peoples, citizens of every class and condition who were ready to  
> stand against the threat once asked to do so. Our enemies in those  
> times calculated that free people would not rise to the challenge;  
> they were, of course, catastrophically wrong.
>
> Now comes the threat of climate crisis – a threat that is real,  
> rising, imminent, and universal. Once again, it is the 11th hour.  
> The penalties for ignoring this challenge are immense and growing,  
> and at some near point would be unsustainable and unrecoverable.  
> For now we still have the power to choose our fate, and the  
> remaining question is only this: Have we the will to act vigorously  
> and in time, or will we remain imprisoned by a dangerous illusion?
>
> Mahatma Gandhi awakened the largest democracy on earth and forged a  
> shared resolve with what he called “Satyagraha” – or “truth force.”
>
> In every land, the truth – once known – has the power to set us free.
>
> Truth also has the power to unite us and bridge the distance  
> between “me” and “we,” creating the basis for common effort and  
> shared responsibility.
>
> There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go quickly,  
> go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” We need to go far,  
> quickly.
>
> We must abandon the conceit that individual, isolated, private  
> actions are the answer. They can and do help. But they will not  
> take us far enough without collective action. At the same time, we  
> must ensure that in mobilizing globally, we do not invite the  
> establishment of ideological conformity and a new lock-step “ism.”
>
> That means adopting principles, values, laws, and treaties that  
> release creativity and initiative at every level of society in  
> multifold responses originating concurrently and spontaneously.
>
> This new consciousness requires expanding the possibilities  
> inherent in all humanity. The innovators who will devise a new way  
> to harness the sun’s energy for pennies or invent an engine that’s  
> carbon negative may live in Lagos or Mumbai or Montevideo. We must  
> ensure that entrepreneurs and inventors everywhere on the globe  
> have the chance to change the world.
>
> When we unite for a moral purpose that is manifestly good and true,  
> the spiritual energy unleashed can transform us. The generation  
> that defeated fascism throughout the world in the 1940s found, in  
> rising to meet their awesome challenge, that they had gained the  
> moral authority and long-term vision to launch the Marshall Plan,  
> the United Nations, and a new level of global cooperation and  
> foresight that unified Europe and facilitated the emergence of  
> democracy and prosperity in Germany, Japan, Italy and much of the  
> world. One of their visionary leaders said, “It is time we steered  
> by the stars and not by the lights of every passing ship.”
>
> In the last year of that war, you gave the Peace Prize to a man  
> from my hometown of 2000 people, Carthage, Tennessee. Cordell Hull  
> was described by Franklin Roosevelt as the “Father of the United  
> Nations.” He was an inspiration and hero to my own father, who  
> followed Hull in the Congress and the U.S. Senate and in his  
> commitment to world peace and global cooperation.
>
> My parents spoke often of Hull, always in tones of reverence and  
> admiration. Eight weeks ago, when you announced this prize, the  
> deepest emotion I felt was when I saw the headline in my hometown  
> paper that simply noted I had won the same prize that Cordell Hull  
> had won. In that moment, I knew what my father and mother would  
> have felt were they alive.
>
> Just as Hull’s generation found moral authority in rising to solve  
> the world crisis caused by fascism, so too can we find our greatest  
> opportunity in rising to solve the climate crisis. In the Kanji  
> characters used in both Chinese and Japanese, “crisis” is written  
> with two symbols, the first meaning “danger,” the second  
> “opportunity.” By facing and removing the danger of the climate  
> crisis, we have the opportunity to gain the moral authority and  
> vision to vastly increase our own capacity to solve other crises  
> that have been too long ignored.
>
> We must understand the connections between the climate crisis and  
> the afflictions of poverty, hunger, HIV-Aids and other pandemics.  
> As these problems are linked, so too must be their solutions. We  
> must begin by making the common rescue of the global environment  
> the central organizing principle of the world community.
>
> Fifteen years ago, I made that case at the “Earth Summit” in Rio de  
> Janeiro. Ten years ago, I presented it in Kyoto. This week, I will  
> urge the delegates in Bali to adopt a bold mandate for a treaty  
> that establishes a universal global cap on emissions and uses the  
> market in emissions trading to efficiently allocate resources to  
> the most effective opportunities for speedy reductions.
>
> This treaty should be ratified and brought into effect everywhere  
> in the world by the beginning of 2010 – two years sooner than  
> presently contemplated. The pace of our response must be  
> accelerated to match the accelerating pace of the crisis itself.
>
> Heads of state should meet early next year to review what was  
> accomplished in Bali and take personal responsibility for  
> addressing this crisis. It is not unreasonable to ask, given the  
> gravity of our circumstances, that these heads of state meet every  
> three months until the treaty is completed.
>
> We also need a moratorium on the construction of any new generating  
> facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and  
> store carbon dioxide.
>
> And most important of all, we need to put a price on carbon -- with  
> a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people, progressively,  
> according to the laws of each nation, in ways that shift the burden  
> of taxation from employment to pollution. This is by far the most  
> effective and simplest way to accelerate solutions to this crisis.
>
> The world needs an alliance – especially of those nations that  
> weigh heaviest in the scales where earth is in the balance. I  
> salute Europe and Japan for the steps they’ve taken in recent years  
> to meet the challenge, and the new government in Australia, which  
> has made solving the climate crisis its first priority.
>
> But the outcome will be decisively influenced by two nations that  
> are now failing to do enough: the United States and China. While  
> India is also growing fast in importance, it should be absolutely  
> clear that it is the two largest CO2 emitters — most of all, my own  
> country –– that will need to make the boldest moves, or stand  
> accountable before history for their failure to act.
>
> Both countries should stop using the other’s behavior as an excuse  
> for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in  
> a shared global environment.
>
> These are the last few years of decision, but they can be the first  
> years of a bright and hopeful future if we do what we must. No one  
> should believe a solution will be found without effort, without  
> cost, without change. Let us acknowledge that if we wish to redeem  
> squandered time and speak again with moral authority, then these  
> are the hard truths:
>
> The way ahead is difficult. The outer boundary of what we currently  
> believe is feasible is still far short of what we actually must do.  
> Moreover, between here and there, across the unknown, falls the  
> shadow.
>
> That is just another way of saying that we have to expand the  
> boundaries of what is possible. In the words of the Spanish poet,  
> Antonio Machado, “Pathwalker, there is no path. You must make the  
> path as you walk.”
>
> We are standing at the most fateful fork in that path. So I want to  
> end as I began, with a vision of two futures – each a palpable  
> possibility – and with a prayer that we will see with vivid clarity  
> the necessity of choosing between those two futures, and the  
> urgency of making the right choice now.
>
> The great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, wrote, “One of these  
> days, the younger generation will come knocking at my door.”
>
> The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the  
> next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will  
> ask: “What were you thinking; why didn’t you act?”
>
> Or they will ask instead: “How did you find the moral courage to  
> rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was  
> impossible to solve?”
>
> We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political  
> will, but political will is a renewable resource.
>
> So let us renew it, and say together: “We have a purpose. We are  
> many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will act.”
>
> **************************
> Janice Ulangca
> 3413 Stratford Drive
> Vestal, NY  13850
> 607-797-4595
> aulangca at stny.rr.com
> ***************************
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