Danger-Opportunity : Al Gore On An Inconvenient Truth

We were kindly invited by Wired to a talk by the makers of the new eco-warning film An Inconvenient Truth last night - just yards from the blaring lights of Times Square. Opening the talk, Al Gore told the audience that it is a challenge to our moral imagination to realize that we have seen a radical transformation of the human species and that has had an never-before known impact on the ecological system. Humans have become the most powerful force of nature on Earth.

Nothing has prepared us for this moment, he said - yet we still seem to be running the planet as if it’s a liquidation sale.

Gore argued throughout the night that the argument ‘Is there global warming?’ was over and compared the current debate to the scientific debate on tobacco many years ago when “scientific prostitutes” came out and spoke up for smoking. Gore said that 500,000 people a year for 40 years died through smoking related diseases because of the continued debate.

The first step for the rest of us, was to accept it. We need to empower ourselves with knowledge and understanding. We need to carbon-freeze. He emphasized that we needed to prioritize our concerns with ‘global’ pollution over ‘local pollution’.

Gore argued that the crisis gave us a real opportunity to share a common moral purpose - like the generation that had the power to create the Marshall Plan and the United Nations. “It is our Moral Imperative that we create moral authority,” Gore urged.

Joining Gore, Jim Hansen, the NASA scientist, told the audience that we have about ten years to change the situation, before the point of no return. “If you accept that - nothing else matters,” he said.

Go see An Inconvenient Truth at your movie theater tonight