SPIEGEL Interview with Al Gore: 'I Am Optimistic'

[kpete]

Source: Der Spiegel

SPIEGEL Interview with Al Gore
'I Am Optimistic'

In a SPIEGEL interview, former US vice president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore, 61, discusses Barack Obama's environmental policies, the endless push by lobbyists to derail reforms and his hopes for a global deal at the climate change summit in Copenhagen next month.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Vice President, you write in your new book, "Our Choice," (to be published in German translation on Nov. 23 as "Wir Haben Die Wahl") that we have at our fingertips all of the tools that we need to solve the climate crisis. The only missing ingredient would be collective will. What makes it so hard for governments to implement change even though most people know what needs to be done?

Gore: As human beings, we are vulnerable to confusing the unprecedented with the improbable. In our everyday experience, if something has never happened before, we are generally safe in assuming it is not going to happen in the future, but the exceptions can kill you and climate change is one of those exceptions. Neuroscientists point out that we are inherently better able to respond quickly to the kinds of threats that our evolutionary ancestors survived -- like other humans with weapons, snakes and spiders or fire. Also, there is a real-time lag between the causes of the climate crisis and its full manifestation. That makes it seem less urgent to many people.

SPIEGEL: But America always took pride in being faster and more flexible than other nations. Does that no longer apply?

Gore: America 's political system has evolved over the last 50 years in ways that have enhanced the power of business lobbies. The power of television and of money has grown exponentially. Eighty percent of the campaign contributions that candidates and officials running for re-election raise and spend go to TV ads, so they are required to raise enormous amounts of money, mainly from business lobbies. In a way, that has "re-feudalized" the political power and it gave much more power to established interests. When Obama was elected, I said: "What an exciting moment in our history." But his election did not cure all of the problems in the American system.

SPIEGEL: Seventeen years ago you, a young Senator from Tennessee, and Bill Clinton, a young governor from Arkansas, moved into the White House on the promise of change. Clinton played the saxophone and there was a feeling of spring in the air. Why has it been so much tougher for Barack Obama?

Gore: It was hard for us, too. Just remember the resistance to our health care reform bill. Obama's progress on health care has already surpassed what we were able to do on health care. He will get a climate change bill adopted. So I am optimistic. These are still the early days of the Obama presidency. He had a bad summer, but he is having a good fall.



Read more: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,658673,00.html

[elocs]

1. I can't say that I'm optimistic at all.

As far as global warming (that really should have been called climate change) is concerned I think we're schtupped with not even any preparation for its consequences.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[karynnj]

3. Human Events???? This is a RW link

The Senate sponsors of the bill have said that they will include in the bill things that make speculation less possible. Gore has been an advocate of dealing with climate change since the 1980s, as has Kerry, who is the author of the bill.

[YvonneCa]

5. Hi, karynnj. I sense some confusion ...

...here. ;) :hi:

[YvonneCa]

4. You may be lost. Are you sure...

...you are in the right place? :7

[tinrobot]

10. If he was in it for the money, he'd be a Republican.

[bananas]

13. "Headquarters of the Conservative Underground"

:rofl:

[NickB79]

6. Whatever Gore is smoking, I need some of that pronto

Even if the Copenhagen summit works and major climate deals are made AND FOLLOWED/ENFORCED, we are still looking at 2C or more of warming by the end of the century. That alone is enough to cause massive disruption to our way of life. Collapsed ocean food chains due to acidification, the loss of the Arctic ice cap, sea level rises, droughts, etc. And, it also makes it more likely that the methane hydrates trapped in the tundra and on the seabeds will still warm enough to be released. When that happens, it's game over for civilization.

[Uncle Joe]

8. Don't mistake any Copenhagen Treaty to be static as Al Gore stated.

"SPIEGEL: What are your expectations for Copenhagen ?

"Gore: I think it is realistic to expect a treaty. It will not be as strong as I would like it to be. But it will put a price on carbon and change the forward planning of businesses and cities and states, provinces and nations. In 1986, when the first crisis of the global atmosphere emerged with the discovery of the ozone hole above Antarctica, one year later the nations of the world passed the Montreal Protocol. It was bitterly criticized by environmentalists as being too weak and insufficient. But then it was toughened and toughened, and it is working quite well, and we are on our way to solving that crisis. I am expecting a similar process for Copenhagen. We will produce a treaty that launches the beginning of a huge transformation process."

I believe the keyword in this statement by Al Gore is beginning, Copenhagen is not the end or be all.

[Uncle Joe]

7. "SPIEGEL: Isn't it getting harder and harder to remain an optimist?"

"Gore: I think there is a realistic basis for optimism. The Internet empowers individuals to play a more active role in the political process, as Obama's campaign has manifested. They felt shut out of the conversation of democracy during the television age, but they are coming back. It is not an accident that virtually every progressive reform movement in the world is now based on the internet. There are more than 1 million, perhaps as many as 2 million grass-roots organizations that have been established worldwide on the issue of the climate crisis, most of them on the Internet."

Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[blm]

9. KandR

.

[optimator]

11. wealthy are always optimistic

its not like he is ever going to suffer

[tinrobot]

12. I loathe these right-wing memes

"Al Gore is rich!"
"He's making money off of global warming!"
"He's scaring people!"

Who gives a shit. I don't care how much money he has or makes. The fact remains that the global climate crisis exists, and it's a scientific fact. Doing nothing because you hate Al Gore is rather stupid. Kind of like not getting in a lifeboat on the Titanic because a rich person is also in the boat.