http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=23942&Cr=c... Joint attack on climate change and poverty needed, Al Gore tells audience at UN
24 September 2007 – A new Marshall Plan is needed to simultaneously tackle global warming and poverty, the environmental activist and former United States Vice-President Al Gore told an audience at United Nations Headquarters in New York today.
“We now face a global crisis that makes it abundantly clear that increased carbon dioxide emissions anywhere are a threat to the integrity of this planet’s climate everywhere,” Mr. Gore told a luncheon event called “Global Voices on Climate Change.”
The event, hosted by Denmark, Indonesia, Kenya and Poland, was held on the sidelines of the largest-ever gathering of world leaders on climate change.
Increased emissions are responsible for rising temperatures and rising sea levels,
which combine to elevate both food and water insecurity worldwide, Mr. Gore said.
“The old divide between North and South, between developed and developing, is now obsolete,” he told the event’s participants, who included 40 heads of State or government, nine deputy prime ministers and vice presidents and 70 cabinet ministers from all over the world.
“We must link poverty reduction with the sharp reduction of carbon dioxide emissions,” he noted, calling for a plan of attack like that of the Marshall Plan, the post-World War II European reconstruction initiative of the US – to tie the struggles against climate change and poverty.
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This is the reason why his work now is being rewarded, because he can now state what he could not state as a "candidate" in this system that rewards nothing but kowtowing to the corporate masters. Though, Mr. Gore, I hope when you made that statement you realized that it is the World Bank through their strings attached loan schemes that have bankrupted many countries with the promise of aid, especially regarding their bribery of countries in order to have their water systems privatized.
Privitization is not taking people out of poverty either, it is exacerbating it on the whole. We need to see micro loans and other types of opportunities made available to the poor along with the tools necessary, ESPECIALLY education and information to teach them how to meet this challenge without relying on organizatioins like the World Bank, the IMF, and other new world order type organizations seeking to keep the poor down in order to make themselves richer.
We have to recognize that water is a human right and hold corporations and governments accountable for using it as a weapon and exploiting its scarcity for their own gain like I believe John Howard of Australia has done. We also have to bring small communities around the world into the alternate energy market to keep it local and to keep it out of the hands of conglomerates such as Archer Midland Daniels that are taking advantage of this water and food insecurity for their own benefit. Ethanol is not the answer.
Bringing parity to the market, rewarding those companies that understand their moral and ethical responsibilities now, and introducing more to that process will spark innovations, jobs, and hope. Keeping it in the hands of the same groups will do nothing but continue the viscious cycle we are in now. I know you understand that, and that is why through your Climate Project I hope to see the seeds of hope planted globally. You are doing a great thing here, and I for one thank you for these words. I sincerely hope those you spoke them too understand this as well and begin to act on them now. We cannot save ourselves without ourselves.
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