I Support Al Gore In His Three Year Plan For Our Planet

[RestoreGore]

No ultimatums, no foot stomping, no looking for him to word his sentences a certain way in order to know that his heart is firmly set to doing what he has been trying to do for thirty years. This is what he went through the fire to get to. This is the result of him looking into the abyss and seeing his soul and finding his character. And this is what many of us will see when we look into our own abyss if we dare look... The challenge of a lifetime that requires a moral strength unlike anything we have ever seen before. A moral strength that far surpasses the daily political rhetoric, and a moral strength that is sustained like a slow burning fire every day for all our lives because it is kept alive by the search for truth.

That slow burning fire has been at the heart of Mr. Gore's endeavors for the last thirty years, and it is now time for the world to feel that moral strength in their own lives in order for us to be able to face the challenge of this generation and the next generation... the climate crisis. And it is not a crisis that will be solved by next year, or the year after, or the year after. However, it is one that we can and must solve, and in order to do that it will take men and women of conviction, passion, and dedication to see it through.

As a woman who loves my planet and sees the urgency of this cause, I then wholeheartedly pledge my support for Mr. Gore's three year plan to get this message out to change the hearts and minds of people globally in order for us to be able to create such a wave of demand for change that the political world on all ends will have no choice but to go along or be left behind.

Therefore:

I will continue to do all in my power to continue to demand changes in business, government, and in my own daily life that seek to limit GHG and bring about progress.

I will continue to do all in my power to live my life according to the Live Earth pledge and reduce my own footprint upon this world even further than I already have in order to leave it a better world for our children and those to come.

And I will continue to do all in my power to be a climate messenger to spread the word and to inspire others in doing what they can to be a part of the solution.

You see, in the last thirty years for Mr. Gore in the political world that was not something rewarded. As he stated on The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch on July 5th, "pre dawn" ideas in politics are not rewarded, they are mocked and discarded as undoable with the evidence and the reason to assess that evidence pushed aside in favor of only doing what politicians believe to be up to the minute sound bites that will get them the most mileage.

That is not now how this crisis must be approached, and I agree with Mr. Gore wholeheartedly that this way will be the best way to bring about a political mass not only in this country and abroad to force leaders globally to see that this is not something they have a choice in doing. This is now something that must be done in order to preserve the continued sustainability of our planet in order to be able to sustain the human species and all other species.

There is no more important cause than this. Without that sustainability we have nothing else.

Therefore, I look forward to participating in this three year plan with Mr. Gore, The Alliance for Climate Protection, and all those on board in an endeavor that will transfer into a lifetime of challenges that will be hard but nevertheless rewarding in preserving this precious blue dot we call our home.

And I thank Mr. Gore for being the catalyst and the leader of a movement that transcends the boundaries of our moral imaginations for I believe this is truly the greatest undertaking not only of his life, but mine.

Live Earth only two months ago was the start. Now as Mr. Gore has stated, OUR work begins.

[RestoreGore]

1. If you support his important work through these organizations, please don't be shy

Let him know! This is how I see it: This is the culmination of a lifetime spent being constrained by other influences. This is now Mr. Gore finally able to do that which he should have been able to do from inside that beltway thirty years ago. And yet, even to this day that beltway is STAGNANT on this crisis as each day we read another report of melting glaciers, declining species, deadly drought, floods, storms, invasive species, water shortages, and those with the power and money positioning themselves to take the spoils. Well, we as citizens don't have to sit and take it anymore and are running out of time regarding that window closing, so Mr. Gore has given us a true way to BEAT THE SYSTEM if only we see it and take it. To me this is bigger than any typical 'campaign' that only makes promises to get your vote. This is a moral awakening of the very spirit that really can move mountains without all of the stagnant partisan political bs attached to it.

[RestoreGore]

2. kick

[RestoreGore]

3. Shops Vie for Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection Biz

http://adage.com/article?article_id=120088

Madison Ave. Warms to Climate Change
Shops Vie for Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection Biz
By Matthew Creamer and Brooke Capps

Published: August 27, 2007

Not too long ago, a premier ad agency wouldn't touch a campaign warning about the effects of global warming, fearing backlash from the automakers and oil companies that keep Madison Avenue's lights on. But now one of the most hotly contended pitches out there is for the Alliance for Climate Protection, the organization formed last year by Al Gore. Al Gore has helped create a climate in which his business is hotly contested.

Four elite agencies -- Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Bartle Bogle Hegarty, the Martin Agency and Y&R -- are squaring off for the business and are expected to present to the former vice president himself early next month, according to executives familiar with the review. The budget for the "historic, three-to-five-year, multimedia global campaign," as the request for proposals puts it, is contingent on how much money the alliance raises. Media spending will likely be more than $100 million a year.

That elite shops aren't scared off from crafting environmental messaging that could be tacitly critical of big business's sometimes unsustainable ways is yet another sign of the mainstreaming of green thinking within the corporate world at large. And within the ad community it points to newfound willingness to embrace hot-button social causes. The alliance account, some are saying, could even lend some luster to the winner's roster, given many major marketers' recent embrace of sustainability throughout their value chains, from product development to manufacturing to marketing communications.

snip

Doing something

The Alliance's RFP is, as you might expect, part inspirational -- quoting Gandhi, M. Scott Peck, Erik Erikson, and of course Mr. Gore -- and part detailed description of the task ahead for the winner. That will involve convincing people to making the climate issue, which already has high awareness, a more actionable priority.

"The world probably doesn't need much more meek communication on the issues of climate change," said David Hessekiel, founder and president of the Cause Marketing Forum. "Anybody with a pulse probably now knows that there are serious environmental issues facing us, but that doesn't mean there's been a huge sea change in consumption of energy."

A winner likely will be chosen shortly after the final pitches, given that the Alliance wants at least a soft launch online in September, with test-market advertising beginning later in the fall. A spokesman for the Alliance declined to comment, as did agency representatives.

Despite the big media budget attached, agencies eager to change the world shouldn't expect to get rich in the process. The winner won't be expected to work on a pro-bono basis, but the RFP cautions that most of the Alliance's partners are working "at below their regular market rates."

end of excerpt


These companies were to make personal pitches to Mr. Gore in NY at the beginning of this month.

[mopinko]

4. your posting would be of great service, IF

you would refrain from insisting that you know what is going on in his heart and soul. really.

[RestoreGore]

8. You don't know what I know or don't know...

And after supporting him for twenty years and observing his own actions and listening to his words, I think I can speak about where I believe his heart and soul is fairly well. And after meeting him, shaking his hand and seeing the passion for his work as he discussed it, it was fairly evident to me that this is his passion. So your criticism is duly noted, and discarded.

[mopinko]

11. well

they have pills for that.

[Turn CO Blue]

5. We have to save democracy before we can save the planet.

We need a real President who understands the TWO major catastrophic crises we are in the midst of -- the crisis of corporo-facism and the climate crisis!

That will be either Al Gore himself or Al Gore as consultant or Cabinet head to the next President.

[RestoreGore]

14. Well, you got the 'we' part right

We need a populace that understands the crises we are in the midst of... without that understanding, knowledge, and outcry for change with 'we' implementing it on all levels, it matters not who you put in that seat. And that has been proven very adequately in these past seven years.

[Pastiche423]

6. Run Al Run!

[SlowDownFast]

7. AL GORE FOR PREZ!!!

RUN, AL, RUN!!!

;-)

[RestoreGore]

9. Sept-Oct 2007/ Al Gore As #1 Alumni/2007 Speaks To Harvard

http://www.02138mag.com/magazine/article/1485.html

#1 - Al Gore
Man on a Mission
by Bom Kim
September / October 2007, Page 84

02138’s Bom Kim traveled to Los Angeles to ask the former vice president and environmental missionary about the earth’s lostbalance, the current inhabitants of the White House, his respect for Michael Moore, and how it feels to be Harvard’s most influential alum. Oh, and one other thing: Is he running for president or what?

Vice President Gore, we’re arguing that you are, at this moment, more influential than President Bush. Are we nuts?

Well, thank you for feeling that way, but yes.

We’ll have to agree to disagree then. But how influential do you think you’ve been since leaving the White House?

I’ve simply tried to have a positive impact. I actually feel that I have failed to reach my principal objective of moving the U.S. and the world past a tipping point on the climate crisis. It’s important to not confuse progress with success.

snip

A recent poll shows that if you entered the presidential race, you would handily win the New Hampshire primary. Isn’t that tempting?

Sure. But I am old enough and have been a candidate enough times to have a very high level of resistance to temptations of that sort. I trust my instincts, and it doesn’t feel like it’s the right thing for me.

But if you believe global warming is such a crisis, wouldn’t you be more effective within the White House than outside it?

I’m under no illusion that there’s any position in the world as influential as that of president. But it doesn’t feel like the right thing for me to be a candidate at this point. I have had the experience of seeing how necessary it is to have adequate support among the people as a whole for the dramatic policy changes that are needed. It may well be that the best use of whatever skills and talents and experiences that I have gained is to concentrate on creating that sea change in mass opinion about this issue, so that whoever is elected will face a groundswell from the people themselves.

end of excerpt.

Good interview.

[flyarm]

10. hold me back..really hold me back...i am not kidding...hold hold hold...

nope can't...

RUN AL RUN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


FLY

[RestoreGore]

12. Interview: Al Gore-He's Hot

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article2032056.ece

Do you think it’s true that you seem far more engaged and passionate as an environmental campaigner than when you were running for President? “The perceptions of candidates are affected by the lens that we all use when we look at candidates – and when one is not a candidate there is a different lens,” he says. “But it’s true as well. Even though I was inspired when I was holding political office to address the climate crisis , there is a kind of luxury in being able to focus single-mindedly on one issue out of the entire panoply, and the opportunity to focus on it intensely might not be as possible for someone holding office.”

snip

America, soon to be overtaken by China, is the largest source of global-warming pollution in the world. What will it take to make Americans wake up and believe that global warming is real before it’s too late?

“Well, Sir Winston Churchill said – I’m sure you know the quote – ‘The American people generally do the right thing . . . after first exhausting every available alternative’. And I think we have exhausted the alternatives and we’re now just about ready to do the right thing on climate.”

Lest we feel smug about “those dumb Americans” – and in answer to Bob Geldof’s complaint that tomorrow’s event is just another enormous pop concert and “we’re all f*****g concious of global warming” – it turns out that we’re not as smart as we think we are. Gore points out: “Did you see this morning’s major new MORI poll which shows that in the UK, 56 per cent of the people are notaware that there is a scientific concensus that global warming is caused by human actitivities?” We know from the smoking ban that the unthinkable can become the thinkable overnight. But: “The first establishment of the national consensus on smoking was in 1964,” Gore points out, “and it’s taken that long to convince enough people, one by one, of the need for the new laws on smoking. But we don’t have 40 years left to make enough changes on this issue one by one – so that’s the reason for these mass events like Live Earth worldwide, to speed up that process.

“There’s an old African proverb that says ‘If you want to go quickly, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together’. We have to go far – quickly. And this is just the beginning of a three-year massive campaign.”

Gore doesn’t like to call himself an eco-warrior (“it sounds a bit hubristic and militaristic, doesn’t it?”) but he is gathering forces – Al’s army – in his battle to save the planet. He has already trained 1,300 people to give his slide show, attended by 200 people at an event in Cambridge University (including, rather surprisingly, Sir Alex Ferguson). Then there’s Australia, and India at the end of the year, China next, and Africa – “whatever it takes to persuade enough people to reach that critical mass, that’s what we have to do. So let’s get on with it, that’s my feeling.”

Our time is almost up. I have one final question. Gore has said that he has learnt a lot in the past six years. “Having been through some of the experiences I’ve been through, I can confirm the old cliché that we often learn the most from the most painful experiences.”

Could you be more specific? “It’s hard to be. But letting go of . . . Kris Kristofferson wrote a line that Janis Joplin sang: ‘Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose . . .’” Yes, I think I see. So do you feel free now? “Yes,” Al Gore says. “I do.”

[RestoreGore]

13. The Power Of Truth-Comments By Al Gore To The Sierra Club

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200705/gore.asp

The Power of Truth
{excerpted from Al Gore's comments at Sierra's climate forum}

May/June 2007

Former U.S. vice president Al Gore has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his work to bring attention to the threat of climate change. His 2006 documentary on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, recently won an Academy Award, and his book on the degradation of democracy, The Assault on Reason, will be released in May.

GLOBAL WARMING is, first and foremost, a challenge to the moral imagination. Nothing in our history or experience prepares us for contemplating, much less acting upon, our new relationship to a planet that has been utterly transformed in a short period of time.

Though the population is stabilizing, it has had an effect on our footprint. We've nearly quadrupled the population in less than a hundred years, and that has set the stage for the introduction of technologies that are thousands of times more powerful than any our grandparents had. Along with this, we've had a curious change in philosophy. We think it's OK not to worry about the long-term consequences of our actions.

All the information flowing toward us may be one factor that foreshortens our time horizons, causing us to focus on the near term and instant gratification. So much so, in fact, that when one says, "This will hurt your grandchildren," it's hard to get a response. Recently I read about the newly emerging consensus with regard to the rate of melting of the North Polar ice cap. Under business-as-usual conditions, the ice cap will be completely gone in the summertime within 34 years. First they came for our grandchildren, then they came for our children, and now they're coming for us. This is playing out now.

To build a consensus for change, we have to effectively communicate the danger we face. Yet this is difficult. T. S. Eliot wrote, "Between the motion / And the act / Falls the shadow ... Between the conception / And the creation ... Falls the Shadow." We have to cross that shadow.

Three systems are involved: the value, market, and political systems. Our values are formed in different ways, by our culture, faith traditions, families, and communities. We have achieved a great deal of progress in building a consensus that important values are now at risk and we have to act.

Translating that into meaningful change in the market and political systems is the immediate challenge. We've heard from Paul Anderson and others about the importance of putting a price on carbon as a way of assisting the market to make intelligent decisions. That has to be done.

For 14 years, I've proposed that we ought to reduce employment-based taxes down to nearly zero and replace them dollar for dollar with pollution-based taxes, principally on CO2. Think about it: We live in an outsourcing world where competition with low-wage-based developing countries is fierce. We are handicapping ourselves by piling on top of our single biggest disadvantage--our high-wage structure--the full cost of our health, education, and welfare systems, which come in the form of employment-based taxes. These taxes are killing our ability to compete. Why not give employers and employees a break and encourage more jobs while discouraging the destruction of the planet?

With regard to our political system, it now devalues knowledge and facts. It didn't used to. What was special about the America we were born into was that it still embodied the highest values of the Enlightenment. We grew up in a world where truth mattered, and when new ideas came from people like Stephen Schneider, Dan Reicher, Paul Anderson, and Vinod Khosla, the merit of the ideas was judged against the rule of reason. Our political system, never perfect, nevertheless paid more attention to such things.

The political system doesn't act that way anymore. As in the feudal era, wealth and power now regularly trump knowledge, facts, and reason. The diminished role of reason in the public marketplace of ideas has an impact--from the auto industry to the upcoming presidential campaigns. The joke about the auto industry is that after the Clean Air Act was amended in 1970, every Japanese auto company hired 100 new engineers, and every U.S. company hired 100 new lawyers. It's not too far from the truth, unfortunately.

I have a political idea that is scalable, to use an important concept properly underscored and highlighted by the Sierra Club's roundtable. We ought to have a mass movement around a carbon freeze; it's scalable from the individual level to the company, community, state, and national level.

Gandhi used the word satyagraha, or "truth force." In American politics, there have been soaring moments throughout our history when the truth has swept aside entrenched power. In the darkest hours of our Civil War, Abraham Lincoln said, "We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country." We need once again to disenthrall ourselves.

ON THE WEB The San Francisco-based Alliance for Climate Protection is a new initiative from Al Gore. He calls it "an effort of mass persuasion" to motivate the public, develop political consensus, and implement solutions.

Visit: http://www.allianceforclimateprotection.org
~~~~
And Al Gore most certainly speaks truth. He speaks truth about the monumental global task ahead of us that transcends any challenge we have ever faced as a species. He speaks truth about the state of our political system that we have allowed to evolve to that which was before our American Revolution. A system that stifles ideas, truth, reason, and Democratic growth in search of a false choice.

In his words I do not see a double edged meaning as others wish to see to appease their own political desires. I see a sincere dedicated man who truly means what he is saying and believes that only a people informed and armed with knowledge can bring back the reason and truth that has been lost through our own neglect of the very systems that have sustained this nation for so long. And that can only happen if we join in this fight.

Only through mobilization of the masses to see the truth through facts and to once again be revived with the spirit that birthed this nation can we then see innovations that will light the way to a better future. Only through a moral awakening is there hope. This is Al Gore's vision and the vision of so many including myself, and one that is attainable if we but only get beyond those shadows. But as you can see from the lame responses in this thread, his words fall on deaf ears to those who only have their minds on only one thing.

[RestoreGore]

15. kick