Al Gore in Manila: "Earth is now at risk — let's save it."

[NYCGirl]

http://news.inq7.net/nation/index.php?index=1&story_id=65662

Warning that the world will reach the "tipping point" toward an ecological catastrophe within the next 10 years, former US Vice President Al Gore urged international and local leaders to focus their efforts toward halting the phenomenon of global warming.
Gore flew to Manila yesterday to address a group of several hundred political and business leaders as well as members of the diplomatic corps at the RCBC Plaza on Ayala Avenue in Makati City on the dangers of neglecting the environment.

"We should be worried about threats like terrorism, but we should also be worried about other more important threats like the destruction of the environment," he told the group which included former President Fidel V. Ramos and several senators and congressmen.

—snipped—

Gore's impassioned presentation was received with deafening applause and a standing ovation from the audience.

"I wish all our politicians were like him," former Education Secretary Florencio "Butch" Abad said when interviewed after the presentation. "Then this would be a much, much better country."

[Atman]

1. The earth doesn't need saving

The earth will survive anything we do to it. Anything. It has survived meteor strikes, ice ages, droughts, floods, you name it.

And it will survive man. It is the human race that needs saving...but does it deserve to be saved?

[Richard D]

3. You know . . .

. . . take a listen to Bach, Mozart, a good Raga, read a great book, watch a great movie, or look at any great work of art. Look in a babies eyes.

Yes, the human race does deserve saving. And it needs to change - dramatically.

[Atman]

6. You miss my point...

The earth has survived every known calamity, and will survive every one coming at it, short of actually blowing up and falling out of orbit. All one needs to do is look at the history of the planet to see that massive, total change WILL take place, as it has many times in her long, long past. The earth will keep on spinning, spinning, spinning.

All that said, you know one of the very first things I did as a graphic artists, when I was 18, back in 1977? I scraped together about $800 and bought an ad in Rolling Stone magazine and sold the original "SAVE THE HUMANS" t-shirt. Not that lame blue sticker with the whale...mine was much, much darker. I'll find the artwork and post it sometime.

I hear what you're saying, I do. Your post said "save the earth," and that is what I responded to...the earth will save itself, even if that means purging itself of parasites like us to survive.

[Richard D]

19. I did get your point.

I'll rephrase what I said: the human race is worth saving, if for nothing else than to preserve and spread the art and beauty it has created. That said, we have to have a full system reset on how we live and what our relationship to the earth is. To be stewards rather than consumers. Preservers and nurturers rather than users and destroyers. There really is so much that has been learned and created that is of value. It would be a shame to lose all of that forever.

As to what the earth would do without us? Well, in a few tens of thousands of years, things would be balanced out, with the exception of the radioactive stuff that has been created by us. And Styrofoam. I'd hate to see those two things being the only legacy of the human species.

[Atman]

20. Radioactive Dunkin' Donuts cups.

Is that what we've spent all this time on the planet for? I'm with you, Richard, except for one ironic point...being an atheist, I figure I "lose it forever" once they plant me under a tree someplace anyway. The truly ironic part is that even as an atheist, I feel a stronger stewardship than the so-called Christians do, who seem to think that they can do anything they want to the planet and "God" will sort it all out later.

I know "he" won't, so if I want my kids and grandkids to enjoy this wonderful hunk of dirt as much as I have, I'm going to have to rely on a lower power, not a higher one.

[Richard D]

21. I believe a higher power . . .

. . . has the potential to save us. Call it Love, Compassion, Consciousness, whatever. "God" doesn't work for me either. Too many weird associations there. Certainly no old guy up in heaven. The only thing we need to do is listen and act in acordance with it. That and take on the Native American philosophy of making decisions that will not harm and hopefully benefit the next (at least) 7 generations.

[Joe Fields]

8. What gives you this insight? Take a look around.

[Atman]

10. We, as a people, have a tremendous ego if we think we have so much power

over a gazillion years of natural history. My "insight" is just common sense. We weren't the first things to crawl from the primordial ooze, and we won't be the last ones at the party.

[Lorien]

25. Why are you even here?

if the destruction of MOST life on earth in the near future is a big "ho-hum" to you (and if you don't believe it, then take a gander at the articles in the "environment and energy" forum) then why bother coming to this site? Nothing that happens in the political realm should matter at all to someone who doesn't feel that he or anyone else is worth the effort.

Every species on the planet deserves better than we've given them.

[Atman]

26. the destruction of MOST life on earth in the near future is a big ho-hum

LOL! I'm sure you can point out where I ever stated such a thing. You're a prime example of the democratic circular firing squad. You don't comprehend what I wrote, so you feel the need to get snarky. Just please re-read what I said, and stop trying to put words in my mouth, and attribute context to my posts which simply aren't supported by the actual words I posted.

[blm]

2. Kofi Annan should appoint Gore as UN Environmental Czar. World can't wait.

NOW. The world can't wait.

[Joe Fields]

9. No, we need to elect him the next president!

[blm]

12. You want to wait 3yrs before the globe gets focused environmental care?

Do what can be done NOW. Not everything has to be political.

[leftstreet]

4. Thanks for the link

"He showed computer simulations of how major coastal cities around the world would be flooded by an average 5-meter rise in the sea level caused by melting polar ice.

"Two million people in Manila will have to be relocated," he said, as the simulation showed the northern and other low-lying areas of the metropolis being flooded as Manila Bay rushed inland."

I wish the US corporate media would just ONCE let him give his speech on the evening news.

[NYCGirl]

5. Great idea. NT

[SammyWinstonJack]

7. Hell will freeze over before that happens.

"I wish the US corporate media would just ONCE let him give his speech on the evening news."

Wait, you just might get your wish after all. :yoiks:

[leftstreet]

11. Yeah, really. n/t

[blindpig]

13. A question about Gore's environmentalism.

I remember skimming his book and one thing I found very disappointing was that he felt that we could act in an environmentally responsible manner and continue to have a growth economy. Did I get that right? I don't believe that to be possible.

Is it that he doesn't entirely get it or does he fear to utter blasphemy? I appreciate his efforts but we should be more honest/realistic in dealing with this ultimate issue.

[NYCGirl]

14. You can continue to have a growth economy with environmentally

responsible businesses. Correct?

[blindpig]

15. I don't believe so.

For one thing a growth economy implies a growing population. We're overpopulated already. A steady state economy is the only thing that works on a finite planet. It's doable, but would require dismantling our hierarchal system, something those on top of the heap would rather destroy the biosphere than do. Stupid monkeys!(all of us)

[pitohui]

18. well hell blindpig if there's no hope there is no hope

nobody here is going to volunteer to die to reduce the overpopulation of the earth

the rich and the elite who control the heirarchichal system are not going to voluntarily dismantle it

gore is proposing peaceful change, which is the only responsible avenue open to him

if you really think that the only hope to save the earth is population reduction and the end of hierarchy, this is not something that can be achieved peacefully, in my humble opinion there is no evidence that it is achievable at all, 44 million were killed in world war 2, the dent it made in the world's population growth was negligible

i think gore is right to focus on something that, however unlikely, may at least have some tiny probability of coming to pass

[blindpig]

23. Never said it would be easy,

or quick. Population reduction thru negative replacement is a tough row to hoe, it will take generations if we can stave off the doomsday scenarios but is the only way, morally speaking.

As for the elite, I agree, they'll not go away quietly. Nonetheless, if opposition can be generated to the degree that brought down the Soviet Union, then why not here? To me, that was one of the most enheartening events of the last 20 years. If they could do it why can't we? I do expect our elite to be more savage than that gang of old stalinist and it may in the end come to the barricades. If so, so be it.

A half cup may be acceptable in the very short term but the sooner policy catches up with reality the better. For me it's that slim hope or nihilism.

[donkeyotay]

16. President Gore has been consistent on this priority of global warming

I was thinking this morning of how all the outrages blur together. I was thinking of the quote from Ron Suskind's interview about how the neocons create reality and while we're reacting to it go on to create more reality. This has definitely been a strategy of theirs to avoid accountability.

What to do. Hold bush accountable for a crooked 2000 election, being on vacation on 9-11, being the Mother of All Partisans and bitterly dividing the country, making homeland security another crony giveaway, lying for war, botching the war he lied for, creating a deficit we may not recover from, making our democracy pay to play, not upholding and defending Constitutional government, authorizing torture and violating our laws, having his corporate donors write laws, using terror alerts for political purposes, spying... there's more, lots more.

But the point is that of all the outrages the American people and indeed the whole world have suffered under this maladministration, there may be none more important that the continued and apparently abrupt decline in the environment.

I am sure that if President Gore, a smart, educated and ethical man, continues to focus on this one issue it is because it is so important. I remember reading "Earth in the Balance" and thinking that they would never let this man be president. I'm going to read his new book, too.

[Lisa]

17. Gore saw this coming before many scientists did ...

Sure, it helped to have Roger Revelle as a prof (the guy who did some of the early CO2 monitoring work) -- but thumbs up to Gore for being able to pick out a significant issue early on, and stick with it.

Back in the 1970s, even a lot of climatologists were thinking about things like surface albedo and particulates (and a possible cooling trend). The guys I worked for didn't start looking at global warming, both the modelling and the impacts, until the mid-1980s.

I did a doctorate on climate change, and Gore has been studying this issue longer than all the professors who supervised me (who were great, and very experienced researchers -- but none of them helped broker the Kyoto Protocol, like the VP did!).

If Gore had gone into academia instead of politics, focusing on this issue, my guess is that he would likely be one of the top experts on global warming impacts (right up there with James Hansen, Robert Watson, and Stephen Schneider) -- not just in the US, but the world.

[MelissaB]

22. For all the Gore fans

here's a flash I saw on another site and I love it!

http://purpledonkeybray.joshpurple.com/algore08.swf

There's another here: http://purpledonkeybray.joshpurple.com/algore08.htm

[Lorien]

24. He needs to make this presentation to the DLC too

many, many dems simply "don't get it" when it comes to the massive threats our environment faces.Emphasis is placed on terrorism, bird flu, Iraq, the economy-but sadly, a collapsing environment could make everything else pale into insignificance. Where will those other battles be if we cannot breathe and have no place to live?

(And yes-oxygen depletion is a real concern in the near future because of deforestation and spreading ocean dead zones).