Al Gore: Earth is in 'Full-Scale Planetary Emergency'

[YankeyMCC]

(snip)
LAS CRUCES, New Mexico—Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore has called for better use of the "space resource" to battle Earth's climate crisis, enlisting entrepreneurial muscle to help solve global issues that threaten the planet's habitability.
(snip)

(snip)
Gore called the newly issued Bush space policy "a move in the wrong direction" and "a very serious mistake," and urged Summit listeners to analyze the policy "very carefully."

"It has the potential, down the road, to create the kind of fuzzy thinking and chaos in our efforts to exploit the space resource as the fuzzy thinking and chaos that the Iraq policy has created for us in Iraq," Gore explained.
(snip)

(snip)
"We have a climate crisis," Gore said. Humans first became aware of this fact while in space, he said, pointing to the 1968 flight of Apollo 8, when astronaut snapped a photograph showing a distant Earth, in all its beauty and fragility, rising beyond the Moon's barren horizon. The image, one of the most famous in history, caused a dramatic change in the consciousness of humankind, Gore said.
(snip)

http://www.space.com/news/061026_gore_space.html

[bdamomma]

1. this topic still remains on the back burner, when will we take care

of our earth?

[Mabus]

2. When do we take care of anything?

When it is too late.

[Nihil]

3. Not until a senior politician wakes up.

Nothing happens in this world until a senior politician wakes up to the
real meaning of the "status quo".

Wilberforce. Lincoln. Kennedy. Lots of good politicians only became known
as "good" because they actually awoke from the contemporal dream and realised
what the hell was actually happening, realised what the true cost was of the
normal life that they enjoyed, understood the impact of their expectations.

These days, I despair of a politician with enough clout to do something actually
stepping off the gravy train and doing it. It is so easy to be convinced,
perverted, to the path of greed, selfishness and arrogance; so hard to stand
against this wrong being done to the citizens of the world.

[YankeyMCC]

5. I have to disagree

It is not the senior politicians that lead us it is the people that make the politicians act.

Lincoln didn't lead the nation towards abolition, rather he saw a way to align hi goals with those of the abolitionists at least in part. I don't mean this as a disrespect to the man I personally think may be our greatest president.

Kennedy, was a good leader not because of the programs and policies he implemented but because he recognized what programs and policies the people wanted and would support.

You can only lead people where they either want to be or are prepared to go.

We, every one of us, have to take responsibility, take action to change things and ensure the powers that be, the would be leaders, KNOW this is what we want...What We Demand.

Don't wait for some senior politician, take action now in whatever way you are able.

[FREEWILL56]

4. Do you think republicons care

about it at all? They just live for today and the hell with tomorrow. They figure they'll just put it down in some republicon history book that it was all Clinton's fault. Well hell, it is either that excuse or their priest took advantage of them when they were younger. Foley grabbed that excuse.:hurts:

[Gregorian]

6. So many people don't have a clue.

Take a stroll through logging country sometime.

I've been actively searching for property in northern California over the last ten years. You really get your finger on the pulse of what is going on when you do that. Even in California! Just yesterday I was looking at property that needs a couple of bridges put in to cross two creeks. I was discussing the option of splitting the cost with the person who owns logging property beyond it. I mentioned that perhaps they could not simply drive trucks through the creeks. And the conversation sounded something like- Yeah, with those environmentalists in California, they prolly can't drive through them.

And I've had many encounters not unlike that one.

It's as though nothing should stand between the dollar and the wallet. And to do so, for any reason, puts one at odds with these people. So we become adversaries, while the planet burns to death.

The love of money is the root of all evil.

However, what Gore is talking about is a combination of population and modern lifestyle. However, it is driving the destruction. More people equates to more power generation. Even solar. Solar cells and batteries don't just pop out of the ground. They have to be manufactured. That is a big pice of this equation. We aren't going to solve this problem with 6 going on 9 billion people. Of which a third are just turning on hot water and starting up cars. Ie. India and China.

It's hard to watch.

[Kurovski]

7. Kick.

Al Gore, please run for president.