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“But it is the awareness itself that will drive the change and one of the ways it will drive the change is through global governance and global agreements.” (Editor's Note: Gore makes the “global governance” comment at the 1min. 10 sec. mark in this UK Times video.)
Gore's call for “global governance” echoes former French President Jacques Chirac's call in 2000.
On November 20, 2000, then French President Chirac said during a speech at The Hague that the UN's Kyoto Protocol represented "the first component of an authentic global governance."
“For the first time, humanity is instituting a genuine instrument of global governance,” Chirac explained. “From the very earliest age, we should make environmental awareness a major theme of education and a major theme of political debate, until respect for the environment comes to be as fundamental as safeguarding our rights and freedoms. By acting together, by building this unprecedented instrument, the first component of an authentic global governance, we are working for dialogue and peace,” Chirac added.
Why do you think most countries won't go along with it... they aren't that stupid... speaks volumes about the country and the people who just "go along with it"... there is a term for it... sheep
Enough with the rampant paranoia. What is meant by "global governance" is global awareness and structural change--the way we do business and craft policy-- that acknowledges the imperative of environmental awareness on all levels and that works to ensure a healthy planet for future generations. There is no secret and nefarious super-plot among all governments to . . . what exactly? Dominate the world by environmental action?
This obsession with Al Gore is beyond ridiculous. The guy makes a movie and those who are ignorant about climate change think he's behind it. Talk about partisan neurosis.
Wealth redistribution? You mean stopping the wealthy and powerful from trashing the planet by putting restraints on their plundering activities?
Wealth redistribution? You mean stopping the wealthy and powerful from trashing the planet by putting restraints on their plundering activities?
Get real.
Well would a global carbon tax on top of our cap & trade be fair ?
We are no longer the worlds #1 polluter; China took that title a few years ago.
I've got nothing against Gore. In fact I've given up on warming,cooling, whatever. If the government wants to control temperature by taxing me then so be it; there's not much I can do except go along with it.
Well would a global carbon tax on top of our cap & trade be fair ?
We are no longer the worlds #1 polluter; China took that title a few years ago.
I've got nothing against Gore. In fact I've given up on warming,cooling, whatever. If the government wants to control temperature by taxing me then so be it; there's not much I can do except go along with it.
Personally, I think cap & trade is a waste of time--it's far too little, too late.
We still are a major polluter. This isn't a competition. China, India and the U.S. have EACH got to stop this forward march into danger. How to make that happen is the immediate challenge. Acting like children--"I'm not gonna change if you're not gonna change"--would probably not be the best course of action.
The real reason people are so resistant to the realities of climate change--preferring to bury their head in nutty conspiracy theories--is that the reality of the damage we have done, and continue to do, to this planet is difficult to digest. Because the acknowledgment of that would be the acknowledgment of our vulnerability and culpability. And it would require a complete paradigm shift:
1) No, the planet wasn't "given to us" by some otherworldly deity for us to do with it as we wish;
2) No, the "cycle of life" is not a hierarchy: it's an interdependent pyramid of life. What affects one level affects all levels. Every single member of every ecosystem works--in perfect balance--to sustain that ecosystem. Polar bears go extinct=other species overpopulate and die of starvation=ecosystem imbalance=serious degradation of the environment and the climate. People don't "get" this because people have no ecological education. For most people, Nature is "over there"--something else, something separate--just "stuff" to be used, when needed. Which is, of course, absurd. The planet is a living organism, not some inert sphere hanging in space. All of our systems of thought, however, proceed with this idea. For example, some suggested solutions to the CO2 problem--such as injecting excess CO2 underground--reflect this massive epistemological blindness. As David Suzuki said, the whole idea is insane: we have very little knowledge about the intricacies of below-surface ecosystems, and have absolutely no idea what such an activity could do to those ecosystems, and thus the health of the planet and safety of other living organisms, including humans. Yet, our whole thought system is completely oblivious to the very real extent to which our lives are biologically interdependent with other species and how they function in the biosphere. This is why Kurt Vonnegut said that human beings were the most vicious virus to ever infect the planet. And I think he was speaking only partly metaphorically. As part of Nature, human beings have a role to play in its integrity. As with any species, if we go "rogue," threatening the health of the larger organism--in this case, Earth--that organism will work towards viability, and will eventually destroy the threatening element.
This is not news to many so-called "primitive" cultures--in North America as well as elsewhere. The Indian writer Leslie Marmon Silko, in her novel "Ceremony," as well as in her famous essay, "Landscape, History and the Pueblo Imagination," tried to explain this. The Navajo and the Hopi, too, have been warning of the dangers to come from capitalism's diseased relationship with Nature. Our culture's story of what it means to be "human" is a story that is completely separate from Nature--a story based on hierarchy, with a deity in control of all, and humans a type of god above everyone and everything else. And that's a false story. In the final analysis, we can elevate ourselves all we want--but Nature bats last. Always has and always will.
3) Yes, it is perfectly possible for humankind to destroy the planet. The chemical revolution of the 1950s was a turning point. You can't pour trillions of tons of toxins into the land and the oceans for 60 years and not expect for there to be widespread destruction. Nature is fully capable of withstanding plows, but it cannot withstand tons of "round-up" washed-off into the oceans; DDT (see Rachel Carson and "Silent Spring"); repeated and incessant uranium poisoning; drilling; mine run-offs that poison the land and water; mountain-top removal for coal (my god: cutting off the tops of mountains???); etc. It's simple common sense. The list is depressingly long. Nature has reached a tipping point.
4) In response to that tipping point, people hit an epistemological wall. A culture that has existed for 2,000 years, built on the assumption that Nature is somehow untouchable (because it belongs to God or whatever) is simply not equipped, intellectually or emotionally, to know how to deal with the realities of something called "anthropogenic climate change." And this is why there is such insistent, relentless, and even vicious resistance to those crazy "environazis." Because only somebody who's "crazy" can believe that any of this is true, right?
I highly recommend "Ishmael," by Daniel Quinn, which offers a rather entertaining deconstruction of our culture's dangerous thinking.
For a more "professional" view, see James Gustave Speth's "The Bridge at the Edge of the World."
For a "popular" version of the challenges we face, see Thomas Friedman's "Hot, Flat and Crowded." I'm not personally a Friedman fan, but folks seem to like him.
Personally, I think cap & trade is a waste of time--it's far too little, too late.
We still are a major polluter. This isn't a competition. China, India and the U.S. have EACH got to stop this forward march into danger. How to make that happen is the immediate challenge. Acting like children--"I'm not gonna change if you're not gonna change"--would probably not be the best course of action.
The real reason people are so resistant to the realities of climate change--preferring to bury their head in nutty conspiracy theories--is that the reality of the damage we have done, and continue to do, to this planet is difficult to digest. Because the acknowledgment of that would be the acknowledgment of our vulnerability and culpability. And it would require a complete paradigm shift:
1) No, the planet wasn't "given to us" by some otherworldly deity for us to do with it as we wish;
2) No, the "cycle of life" is not a hierarchy: it's an interdependent pyramid of life. What affects one level affects all levels. Every single member of every ecosystem works--in perfect balance--to sustain that ecosystem. Polar bears go extinct=other species overpopulate and die of starvation=ecosystem imbalance=serious degradation of the environment and the climate. People don't "get" this because people have no ecological education. For most people, Nature is "over there"--something else, something separate--just "stuff" to be used, when needed. Which is, of course, absurd. The planet is a living organism, not some inert sphere hanging in space. All of our systems of thought, however, proceed with this idea. For example, some suggested solutions to the CO2 problem--such as injecting excess CO2 underground--reflect this massive epistemological blindness. As David Suzuki said, the whole idea is insane: we have very little knowledge about the intricacies of below-surface ecosystems, and have absolutely no idea what such an activity could do to those ecosystems, and thus the health of the planet and safety of other living organisms, including humans. Yet, our whole thought system is completely oblivious to the very real extent to which our lives are biologically interdependent with other species and how they function in the biosphere. This is why Kurt Vonnegut said that human beings were the most vicious virus to ever infect the planet. And I think he was speaking only partly metaphorically. As part of Nature, human beings have a role to play in its integrity. As with any species, if we go "rogue," threatening the health of the larger organism--in this case, Earth--that organism will work towards viability, and will eventually destroy the threatening element.
This is not news to many so-called "primitive" cultures--in North America as well as elsewhere. The Indian writer Leslie Marmon Silko, in her novel "Ceremony," as well as in her famous essay, "Landscape, History and the Pueblo Imagination," tried to explain this. The Navajo and the Hopi, too, have been warning of the dangers to come from capitalism's diseased relationship with Nature. Our culture's story of what it means to be "human" is a story that is completely separate from Nature--a story based on hierarchy, with a deity in control of all, and humans a type of god above everyone and everything else. And that's a false story. In the final analysis, we can elevate ourselves all we want--but Nature bats last. Always has and always will.
3) Yes, it is perfectly possible for humankind to destroy the planet. The chemical revolution of the 1950s was a turning point. You can't pour trillions of tons of toxins into the land and the oceans for 60 years and not expect for there to be widespread destruction. Nature is fully capable of withstanding plows, but it cannot withstand tons of "round-up" washed-off into the oceans; DDT (see Rachel Carson and "Silent Spring"); repeated and incessant uranium poisoning; drilling; mine run-offs that poison the land and water; mountain-top removal for coal (my god: cutting off the tops of mountains???); etc. It's simple common sense. The list is depressingly long. Nature has reached a tipping point.
4) In response to that tipping point, people hit an epistemological wall. A culture that has existed for 2,000 years, built on the assumption that Nature is somehow untouchable (because it belongs to God or whatever) is simply not equipped, intellectually or emotionally, to know how to deal with the realities of something called "anthropogenic climate change." And this is why there is such insistent, relentless, and even vicious resistance to those crazy "environazis." Because only somebody who's "crazy" can believe that any of this is true, right?
I highly recommend "Ishmael," by Daniel Quinn, which offers a rather entertaining deconstruction of our culture's dangerous thinking.
Thank you,MF,well said. I personally can't understand why righties are so obsessed w/ & afraid of Al Gore,to the point of denying that our Earth is in danger. The selfish "ME ME ME" attitude has gotten us to that point. I cannot fathom why ANYONE would NOT want to get involved in preserving the earth for our children. As the mother of 4, that attitude totally ticks me off,to put it mildly.
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