Al Gore angered with possible actions by the U.S.

http://current.com/items/88318581_not_red_and_blue_states_red_and_green_planet

kyoto could be a start, but regardless of when this happens, the us is already last on the race

Shame can be a very powerful tool. Al Gore is trying to shame the Bush Admin into action. This is not unusual -- the muckrackers of the early 1900's also were forced resort to public shaming (as in writing damning articles exposing corrput practices of big business) in order to force change when appeals to reason failed. This was done with Child Labor laws, with exposing the horrid conditions in early mental health institutions, with the selling of rancid beef to the public (thank you Upton Sinclair!) The bottom line is we need to plan for the worst and hope for the best. Hoping without action is just wishful thinking - which is exactly what our strategy in Iraq was when we invaded.

Also, it's critical to keep in mind that the pollution Al and other activists are trying to curb also cause birth defects and cancer! It's not like these toxic industrial emissions are perfectly safe but we suspect they may be harmful to the climate. We KNOW they cause cancer and for that reason alone they need to be curbed and reduced as much as technologically possible. No, not as much as "politically possible" but as much as technologically possible.

Mr. Gore;

It is time to take the gloves off and mobilize people in cities and states around this country to work for legislation to be passed on those levels as was done in NJ and other states to go around these obstructors. It is time to show them that the American people mean business and that we do care. Waiting fot the Federal govt. regardless of who may get in in 2008 will have us running out of time. I and others have pushed our cities and states and seen results. It can be done and it is time people stopped just talking and started doing. It is time to show the bastards in this government on all sides who would dare obstruct our children's future that people in this country DO have the power to make change. I'm ready and like you, I'm angry.

caught a snippet of the Republican debate yesterday where Tom Tancredo said something to the effect of "the US should be environmentally responsible, but we shouldn't have to be the only country that is". For a second I thought I was in a weird parallel universe...

Why can't we go back to being the solution, rather than the problem? Oh yeah, I the Burning Bush! That's the reason. He's having someone else do the test for him again.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Thursday Gore was wrong in blaming the United States for holding up progress. "I think he is incorrect," she said.

"I think?" "I think?" How much is this air head paid to tell us what she thinks?

Never mind, I'll tell you what I think for free.

I think she's got a lollipop stuck in her butt.

Congratulations Al Gore! I do not mean for the Nobel Peace Prize you duly deserved, but for your boldness and attitude to confront your own politicians, of your own country. Democracy is great – it allows you to take that kind of action! However, what is even more relevant than prizes or systems of government is the fact that we all breathe the same air AND such air carries life all around the globe. What is the minimum each one of us ought to do? KEEP IT CLEAN. What is the maximum one can do?... Well, ask Al Gore.

Al Gore is an example of what politicians could and SHOULD be more like. Instead, we've got a bunch of idiots who will do anything to keep their posts, and continue to reap the benefits. They are SELL-OUTS, plain and simple. Gore is doing to right thing in calling the US out on it's hypocrisy and unwillingness to corporate. I only wish that this was the norm rather than the exception.

we either accept the terms of the treaty and risk a MAJOR economic downturn in the next 13 years fore something that is still, in a sense, a theory (that humans cause global warming) or we wait to do more research, examine different solutions, so that we don't risk near-recession levels for something al gore thinks he knows the most about

Why would stricter pollution controls result in a "major economic" down turn? Isn't this the identical arguement that was used when the government wanted to end Child Labor? The businesses screamed that it would "bankrupt the country!" And yet it did no such thing. True, some companies who were poorly managed and were only able to make a profit by using child labor DID go bankrupt. And that's a good thing! Over nintey-nine percent of companies in America can easily accomodate much, much stricter pollution controls. Those few companies that are so poorly managed that they cannot evolve to accept the new standards will fail -- and that's good! If a company cannot function without cutting corners and dumping unacceptable levels of cancer causing pollutants into our air, water and food -- then it's a good thing that they are removed from the field. Newer, stronger, more intelligently run companies that CAN adhere to the newer standards will rush into fill the vacuum the poorly run companies create. Lowering standards to accomodate the most incompetent CEO's is rewarding failure and is lowering the standard of living in the US. Raising standards on pollution forces the companies to evolve and eliminates dangerous and/or deeply inefficent companies from our national economy. We should embrace it and encourage it.

Lowflying: Procrastinate and maye be too late to do any good, and protect the economy at all cost before the planet?

In Bali, Al Gore quoted the famous lines from the Nazi era: "First they came for the Jews and I did not do anything; then they came for the gypsies and I did not do anything; then they came for the neighbours and I did not do anything; when they came for me there was nobody to do anything for me."

@VoyagerFilms

Rather, he is angered by virtually certain inaction by the Bush administration.

"Thursday Gore was wrong in blaming the United States for holding up progress. "I think he is incorrect," she said"

Not the US just you guys over there in the White House and the Congress.
The US has 300 million people and only a handful of them has the authority to make any difference in Bali.
What does she think? Exactly who is holding up progress? Because no progress has been made so far for sure.

@LowFlyingJets

"we either accept the terms of the treaty and risk a MAJOR economic downturn in the next 13 years fore something that is still, i"

You know if we are so lame that we cannot cut CO2 emission by 40% within 20 years without a major
economic downturn then we damn deserve it.

Electric power generation in the US today emits approximately 3 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) every year. Solar thermal power plants can augment and replace our fossil fired power plants and lead to a “zero carbon” grid within a few decades. Using Ausra’s
CLFR technology, power plants occupying a total area of land 92 miles on a side could provide all US electric power – the entire US grid – day and night. This amount of land is readily available without significant impact; it corresponds to less than 10% of the
Federal land in the state of Nevada.

http://www.ausra.com/pdfs/SolarThermal101_final.pdf

If we just keep whining that we can't do it we can't do it, all we can do is burn oil and coal then such lame
creatures do not deserve a high flying economy.

But it doesn't have to be that way. If you think a low-carbon economy is inherently a disfunctional economy then modern civilization is doomed to collapse as we don't have unlimited sources of oil, gas and coal.

At some point we will have to stop burning fossil fuels regardless of what happens to the climate.
And why should that point be 100 or 150 years from now? Why not start now? What makes you think that people 100 years from now will be smart enough to
find some way to run their economy without coal and oil
but we today simply cannot?

"in a sense, a theory (that humans cause global warming)"

That's no longer just a theory. Except to those who want to believe it's just a theory. But they will believe it no matter what happens.

And you know it was just a theory that Saddam would nuke New York City (a theory based on falsehoods) but most Americans became so afraid so quickly they supported an invasion to change a regime without asking questions about what would happen after that regime falls if we had acted with similar urgency 10 or 15 years ago to get rid of our dependence on oil and coal Gore should have been looking for a different topic to impress the Nobel Committee.

Nevertheless, I'd like to know what kind of study or studies and data would you accept as evidence that this is indeed true:

Most of the observed increase in globally-averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations. It is likely there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent (except Antarctica) (Figure SPM.4). {2.4}

IPCC AR4 SYR Summary for Policymakers
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/
ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf

Or you think this is a theory that cannot possibly be proven? Regardless of what,when and where we observe and measure?

We rose to the occassion in World War II. We sent a man to the moon. We've accomplished so many astounding feats....and yet, when it comes to lowering the amount of cancer causing industrial pollution within our borders suddenly we're the most incompetent and backward country on earth! Let's just be realistic: we're not asking for something impossible. We're simply asking that our government raise industrial pollution standards (and invest in renewable energy). That's it! It's not the simplest thing we've ever done, but it's a helluva lot easier than what the Conservatives are making it out to be. Simply replace the outdated 1950 emission scrubber you currently have in your industrial plant with a more efficent (albeit more expensive) one made in the last few years. Yeah, it'll cost a few bucks -- but's it's not going to bankrupt the country as some hysterical, er, i mean "passionate" Conservatives are suggesting.

Ok. Great. Now the important question is: "What can can I as a US citizen do to make the US authorities at Bali act?"

""What can can I as a US citizen do to make the US authorities at Bali act?""

Nothing.

An interesting debate indeed; on all parts we should exercise a healthy dose of skepticism for the competence of our politicians and the theory behind 'Global Warming'. After all, looking at the geological record it can be argued that given mankind's limited scope of weather trends over time and the climatological resiliance suggested by the geological record, the current warming trend may very well be part of a much larger global climate shift that our very species has never experienced before; only time will tell.

nrvllrgrs, You can as an individual lobby your city council to start a street tree planting program. You can see where the summer afternoon sun hits your house ands plant deciduous trees to block the summer sun and cut down on cooling costs. We built an arbor across the entire back of our house and planted wisteria vines next to it. I also planted a grape vine which was killing one of my willow trees and the wisteria vines. When we tore out the grape vine and exposed the house the power bill went up 200.00 a month and the comfort level was down. In the winter when I need the sun to help heat the house the leaves are off the trees and vines giving me free heat. It is passive and almost free, plus besides being pretty the vines and trees help clean the air.

@mpsawchuck

"After all, looking at the geological record it can be argued that given mankind's limited scope of weather trends over time and the climatological resiliance suggested by the geological record, the current warming trend may very well be part of a much larger global climate shift that our very species has never experienced before; only time will tell."

Err, I think we should exercise a healthy dose of skepticism for the competence of mpsawchuck.
"Time" has already told. (I.e. at least 50 years of climate science)

It's not part of a "much larger global climate shift" -- i.e. merely an interglacial. Look at the rate of warming over the last 150 years (and the rate of warming since 1976 is even greater than the average rate over the late 19th and 20th centuries) The forces driving the glacial-interglacial cycle alone never produced such rapid warming.

The rate of warming during previous warmer interglacial periods is estimated from polar ice cores to 1.5 °C per millennium, without abrupt changes. Climate change expected for the 21st century should however be at least 10 times faster.

To cite this article: V. Masson-Delmotte et al., C. R. Geoscience 337 (2005).
http://tinyurl.com/2995pr

The study used temperatures around the world taken during the last century. Scientists concluded that these data showed the Earth has been warming at the remarkably rapid rate of approximately 0.36° Fahrenheit (0.2° Celsius) per decade for the past 30 years.

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20060925/

A different matter is the current rate of warming. Are more rapid global climate changes recorded in proxy data? The largest temperature changes of the past million years are the glacial cycles, during which the global mean temperature changed by 4°C to 7°C
between ice ages and warm interglacial periods (local changes were much larger, for example near the continental ice sheets). However, the data indicate that the global warming at the end of an ice age
was a gradual process taking about 5,000 years (see Section 6.3). It is thus clear that the current rate of global climate change is much more rapid and very unusual in the context of past changes. The
much-discussed abrupt climate shifts during glacial times (see Section 6.3) are not counter-examples, since they were probably due to changes in ocean heat transport, which would be unlikely to affect
the global mean temperature.

Further back in time, beyond ice core data, the time resolution of sediment cores and other archives does not resolve changes as rapid as the present warming. Hence, although large climate changes have occurred in the past, there is no evidence that these took place at a faster rate than present warming. If projections of approximately 5°C warming in this century (the upper end of the range) are realised, then the Earth will have experienced about the same amount of global mean warming as it did at the end of the last ice age; there is no evidence that this rate of possible future global change was matched by any comparable global temperature increase of the last 50 million years.

http://tinyurl.com/29lxve

"An interesting debate indeed; on all parts we should exercise a healthy dose of skepticism for the competence of our politicians and the theory behind 'Global Warming'."

Politicians? Who needs politicians when we have NASA, NOAA, the MET Office, the Royal Society, The British Antarctic Survey, the WMO, the IPCC etc?
Why don't you listen to them?

chique, wasting time and money on new energy alternatives that have not been properly researched and whose long term effects have not been thoroughly examined is not at ALL similar to hitler's persecution of the jews. how DARE al gore compare the theory of global warming to the persecution of the jews. and how dare you post it here. i could come up with 1000 examples of how procrastination was a great idea and ended up in a positive outcome... that doesn't mean they're appropriate to use in an argument. disgusting

LowFlying: You're missing the point here. The majority of the scientific community agrees that we need to take action now. The point here is that in this case, procrastination could easily make it too late to reverse the rapid pollution. Once the irreversible is set in motion there eventually won't be anyone around to save your children and grandchildren. So Al Gore's quote was in fact an excellent analogy. It's about apathy, not Hitler's persecution of the Jews. How dare I? Please, this is a worn out tactic to twist a message, and yes, I dare.

@LowFlyingJets

Just why are right wingers such binary thinkers who can be so easily outraged?
It's an analogy focusing on apathy and fingerpointing.
Your interpretation that Gore compared global warming to the persectution of Jews as if they were one and the same is sheer stupidity.
That's what Bush did with Osama and Saddam -- and I doubt that you asked 'how DARES he' -- even though his tactic led to the death and misery of tens of thousands in Iraq. Not that you care.

"wasting time and money on new energy alternatives that have not been properly researched "

That's a contradiction. One way to spend that money is to research new technologies -- which sooner or later have to replace current technologies if humans want to have a modern economy in the future. A fossil fuel-based economy cannot be sustained. And you know that.

Meanwhile according to Morgan Stanley global sales from clean energy sources could grow to as much as $1 trillion a year by 2030.

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN18449059

You should explain to all those investors, managers and workers that they are wasting their time and money.

If it was up to you we would just wait until we run out of coal, oil and gas and then watch the global economy collapse.
Now that would be actually much worse than the Holocaust.