ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Al Gore - Climate advocate
Nobel Laureate Al Gore focused the world’s attention on the global climate crisis. Now he’s showing us how we’re moving towards real solutions.

Why you should listen

Former Vice President Al Gore is co-founder and chairman of Generation Investment Management. While he’s is a senior partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and a member of Apple, Inc.’s board of directors, Gore spends the majority of his time as chair of The Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit devoted to solving the climate crisis.

He is the author of the bestsellers Earth in the Balance, An Inconvenient Truth, The Assault on Reason, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, and most recently, The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change. He is the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth and is the co-recipient, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 for “informing the world of the dangers posed by climate change.”

Gore was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1976, 1978, 1980 and 1982 and the U.S. Senate in 1984 and 1990. He was inaugurated as the 45th Vice President of the United States on January 20, 1993, and served eight years.

More profile about the speaker
Al Gore | Speaker | TED.com
TED2008

Al Gore: New thinking on the climate crisis

Filmed:
2,169,877 views

In this brand-new slideshow (premiering on TED.com), Al Gore presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists recently predicted. He challenges us to act.
- Climate advocate
Nobel Laureate Al Gore focused the world’s attention on the global climate crisis. Now he’s showing us how we’re moving towards real solutions. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:18
I have given the slide show that I gave here two years ago about 2,000 times.
0
0
7000
00:25
I'm giving a short slide show this morning
1
7000
5000
00:30
that I'm giving for the very first time, so --
2
12000
3000
00:33
well it's -- I don't want or need to raise the bar,
3
15000
5000
00:38
I'm actually trying to lower the bar.
4
20000
1000
00:39
Because I've cobbled this together
5
21000
5000
00:44
to try to meet the challenge of this session.
6
26000
5000
00:49
And I was reminded by Karen Armstrong's fantastic presentation
7
31000
5000
00:54
that religion really properly understood
8
36000
6000
01:00
is not about belief, but about behavior.
9
42000
3000
01:03
Perhaps we should say the same thing about optimism.
10
45000
4000
01:07
How dare we be optimistic?
11
49000
4000
01:11
Optimism is sometimes characterized as a belief, an intellectual posture.
12
53000
8000
01:19
As Mahatma Gandhi famously said,
13
61000
3000
01:22
"You must become the change you wish to see in the world."
14
64000
3000
01:25
And the outcome about which
15
67000
2000
01:27
we wish to be optimistic is not going to be created
16
69000
5000
01:32
by the belief alone, except to the extent that the belief
17
74000
5000
01:37
brings about new behavior. But the word "behavior"
18
79000
6000
01:43
is also, I think, sometimes misunderstood in this context.
19
85000
4000
01:47
I'm a big advocate of changing
20
89000
3000
01:50
the lightbulbs and buying hybrids,
21
92000
3000
01:53
and Tipper and I put 33 solar panels on our house,
22
95000
4000
01:57
and dug the geothermal wells, and did all of that other stuff.
23
99000
5000
02:02
But, as important as it is to change the lightbulbs,
24
104000
4000
02:06
it is more important to change the laws.
25
108000
2000
02:08
And when we change our behavior in our daily lives,
26
110000
6000
02:14
we sometimes leave out the citizenship part
27
116000
3000
02:17
and the democracy part. In order to be optimistic about this,
28
119000
7000
02:24
we have to become incredibly active as citizens in our democracy.
29
126000
6000
02:30
In order to solve the climate crisis,
30
132000
2000
02:32
we have to solve the democracy crisis.
31
134000
3000
02:35
And we have one.
32
137000
2000
02:37
I have been trying to tell this story for a long time.
33
139000
5000
02:42
I was reminded of that recently, by a woman
34
144000
4000
02:46
who walked past the table I was sitting at,
35
148000
3000
02:49
just staring at me as she walked past. She was in her 70s,
36
151000
4000
02:53
looked like she had a kind face. I thought nothing of it
37
155000
4000
02:57
until I saw from the corner of my eye
38
159000
3000
03:00
she was walking from the opposite direction,
39
162000
2000
03:02
also just staring at me. And so I said, "How do you do?"
40
164000
4000
03:06
And she said, "You know, if you dyed your hair black,
41
168000
3000
03:09
you would look just like Al Gore." (Laughter)
42
171000
5000
03:19
Many years ago, when I was a young congressman,
43
181000
2000
03:21
I spent an awful lot of time dealing with the challenge
44
183000
4000
03:25
of nuclear arms control -- the nuclear arms race.
45
187000
3000
03:28
And the military historians taught me,
46
190000
3000
03:31
during that quest, that military conflicts are typically
47
193000
5000
03:36
put into three categories: local battles,
48
198000
5000
03:41
regional or theater wars, and the rare but all-important
49
203000
5000
03:46
global, world war -- strategic conflicts.
50
208000
5000
03:51
And each level of conflict requires a different allocation of resources,
51
213000
5000
03:56
a different approach,
52
218000
2000
03:58
a different organizational model.
53
220000
4000
04:02
Environmental challenges fall into the same three categories,
54
224000
4000
04:06
and most of what we think about
55
228000
1000
04:07
are local environmental problems: air pollution, water pollution,
56
229000
3000
04:10
hazardous waste dumps. But there are also
57
232000
4000
04:14
regional environmental problems, like acid rain
58
236000
3000
04:17
from the Midwest to the Northeast, and from Western Europe
59
239000
4000
04:21
to the Arctic, and from the Midwest
60
243000
4000
04:25
out the Mississippi into the dead zone of the Gulf of Mexico.
61
247000
3000
04:28
And there are lots of those. But the climate crisis
62
250000
2000
04:30
is the rare but all-important
63
252000
2000
04:32
global, or strategic, conflict.
64
254000
3000
04:35
Everything is affected. And we have to organize our response
65
257000
5000
04:40
appropriately. We need a worldwide, global mobilization
66
262000
6000
04:46
for renewable energy, conservation, efficiency
67
268000
3000
04:49
and a global transition to a low-carbon economy.
68
271000
3000
04:52
We have work to do. And we can mobilize resources
69
274000
4000
04:56
and political will. But the political will
70
278000
4000
05:00
has to be mobilized, in order to mobilize the resources.
71
282000
3000
05:03
Let me show you these slides here.
72
285000
5000
05:08
I thought I would start with the logo. What's missing here,
73
290000
7000
05:15
of course, is the North Polar ice cap.
74
297000
2000
05:17
Greenland remains. Twenty-eight years ago, this is what the
75
299000
7000
05:24
polar ice cap -- the North Polar ice cap -- looked like
76
306000
4000
05:28
at the end of the summer, at the fall equinox.
77
310000
4000
05:32
This last fall, I went to the Snow and Ice Data Center
78
314000
4000
05:36
in Boulder, Colorado, and talked to the researchers
79
318000
3000
05:39
here in Monterey at the Naval Postgraduate Laboratory.
80
321000
4000
05:43
This is what's happened in the last 28 years.
81
325000
4000
05:47
To put it in perspective, 2005 was the previous record.
82
329000
5000
05:52
Here's what happened last fall
83
334000
3000
05:55
that has really unnerved the researchers.
84
337000
3000
05:58
The North Polar ice cap is the same size geographically --
85
340000
12000
06:10
doesn't look quite the same size --
86
352000
1000
06:11
but it is exactly the same size as the United States,
87
353000
4000
06:15
minus an area roughly equal to the state of Arizona.
88
357000
3000
06:18
The amount that disappeared in 2005
89
360000
3000
06:21
was equivalent to everything east of the Mississippi.
90
363000
4000
06:25
The extra amount that disappeared last fall
91
367000
4000
06:29
was equivalent to this much. It comes back in the winter,
92
371000
3000
06:32
but not as permanent ice, as thin ice --
93
374000
4000
06:36
vulnerable. The amount remaining could be completely gone
94
378000
6000
06:42
in summer in as little as five years.
95
384000
1000
06:43
That puts a lot of pressure on Greenland.
96
385000
5000
06:49
Already, around the Arctic Circle --
97
391000
6000
06:57
this is a famous village in Alaska. This is a town
98
399000
4000
07:01
in Newfoundland. Antarctica. Latest studies from NASA.
99
403000
9000
07:10
The amount of a moderate-to-severe snow melting
100
412000
3000
07:13
of an area equivalent to the size of California.
101
415000
4000
07:17
"They were the best of times,
102
419000
3000
07:20
they were the worst of times": the most famous opening sentence
103
422000
3000
07:23
in English literature. I want to share briefly
104
425000
3000
07:26
a tale of two planets. Earth and Venus
105
428000
3000
07:29
are exactly the same size. Earth's diameter
106
431000
3000
07:32
is about 400 kilometers larger, but essentially the same size.
107
434000
5000
07:37
They have exactly the same amount of carbon.
108
439000
2000
07:39
But the difference is, on Earth, most of the carbon
109
441000
5000
07:44
has been leeched over time out of the atmosphere,
110
446000
3000
07:47
deposited in the ground as coal, oil,
111
449000
4000
07:51
natural gas, etc. On Venus, most of it
112
453000
3000
07:54
is in the atmosphere. The difference is that our temperature
113
456000
5000
07:59
is 59 degrees on average. On Venus,
114
461000
3000
08:02
it's 855. This is relevant to our current strategy
115
464000
4000
08:06
of taking as much carbon out of the ground as quickly as possible,
116
468000
2000
08:08
and putting it into the atmosphere.
117
470000
1000
08:12
It's not because Venus is slightly closer to the Sun.
118
474000
3000
08:15
It's three times hotter than Mercury,
119
477000
2000
08:17
which is right next to the Sun. Now, briefly,
120
479000
3000
08:20
here's an image you've seen, as one of the only old images,
121
482000
2000
08:22
but I show it because I want to briefly give you CSI: Climate.
122
484000
4000
08:26
The global scientific community says:
123
488000
6000
08:32
man-made global warming pollution, put into the atmosphere,
124
494000
4000
08:36
thickening this, is trapping more of the outgoing infrared.
125
498000
2000
08:38
You all know that. At the last
126
500000
1000
08:39
IPCC summary, the scientists wanted to say,
127
501000
4000
08:43
"How certain are you?" They wanted to answer that "99 percent."
128
505000
3000
08:46
The Chinese objected, and so the compromise was
129
508000
2000
08:48
"more than 90 percent."
130
510000
2000
08:50
Now, the skeptics say, "Oh, wait a minute,
131
512000
3000
08:53
this could be variations in this energy
132
515000
4000
08:57
coming in from the sun." If that were true,
133
519000
3000
09:00
the stratosphere would be heated as well as the
134
522000
4000
09:04
lower atmosphere, if it's more coming in.
135
526000
3000
09:07
If it's more being trapped on the way out, then you would
136
529000
3000
09:10
expect it to be warmer here and cooler here. Here is the lower atmosphere.
137
532000
6000
09:16
Here's the stratosphere: cooler.
138
538000
3000
09:19
CSI: Climate.
139
541000
1000
09:20
Now, here's the good news. Sixty-eight percent of Americans now believe
140
542000
7000
09:27
that human activity is responsible
141
549000
3000
09:30
for global warming. Sixty-nine percent believe that the Earth is heating up
142
552000
5000
09:35
in a significant way. There has been progress,
143
557000
3000
09:38
but here is the key: when given a list
144
560000
7000
09:45
of challenges to confront, global warming is still listed at near the bottom.
145
567000
9000
09:54
What is missing is a sense of urgency.
146
576000
3000
09:57
If you agree with the factual analysis,
147
579000
5000
10:02
but you don't feel the sense of urgency,
148
584000
3000
10:05
where does that leave you?
149
587000
1000
10:06
Well, the Alliance for Climate Protection, which I head
150
588000
3000
10:09
in conjunction with Current TV -- who did this pro bono --
151
591000
4000
10:13
did a worldwide contest to do commercials on how to communicate this.
152
595000
4000
10:17
This is the winner.
153
599000
2000
11:06
NBC -- I'll show all of the networks here -- the top journalists
154
648000
7000
11:13
for NBC asked 956 questions in 2007
155
655000
4000
11:17
of the presidential candidates: two of them were about
156
659000
3000
11:20
the climate crisis. ABC: 844 questions, two about the climate crisis.
157
662000
7000
11:27
Fox: two. CNN: two. CBS: zero.
158
669000
10000
11:37
From laughs to tears -- this is one of the older
159
679000
4000
11:41
tobacco commercials.
160
683000
1000
11:43
So here's what we're doing.
161
685000
2000
11:45
This is gasoline consumption in all of these countries. And us.
162
687000
10000
11:55
But it's not just the developed nations.
163
697000
6000
12:01
The developing countries are now following us
164
703000
4000
12:05
and accelerating their pace. And actually,
165
707000
2000
12:07
their cumulative emissions this year are the equivalent
166
709000
3000
12:10
to where we were in 1965. And they're catching up
167
712000
3000
12:13
very dramatically. The total concentrations:
168
715000
4000
12:17
by 2025, they will be essentially where we were in 1985.
169
719000
6000
12:23
If the wealthy countries were completely missing
170
725000
5000
12:28
from the picture, we would still have this crisis.
171
730000
3000
12:31
But we have given to the developing countries
172
733000
4000
12:35
the technologies and the ways of thinking
173
737000
2000
12:37
that are creating the crisis. This is in Bolivia --
174
739000
6000
12:43
over thirty years.
175
745000
3000
13:05
This is peak fishing in a few seconds. The '60s.
176
767000
4000
13:09
'70s. '80s. '90s. We have to stop this. And the good news is that we can.
177
771000
9000
13:18
We have the technologies.
178
780000
4000
13:22
We have to have a unified view of how to go about this:
179
784000
5000
13:27
the struggle against poverty in the world
180
789000
4000
13:31
and the challenge of cutting wealthy country emissions,
181
793000
4000
13:35
all has a single, very simple solution.
182
797000
4000
13:39
People say, "What's the solution?" Here it is.
183
801000
4000
13:43
Put a price on carbon. We need a CO2 tax, revenue neutral,
184
805000
6000
13:49
to replace taxation on employment, which was invented by Bismarck --
185
811000
8000
13:57
and some things have changed
186
819000
1000
13:58
since the 19th century.
187
820000
1000
13:59
In the poor world, we have to integrate the responses
188
821000
7000
14:06
to poverty with the solutions to the climate crisis.
189
828000
4000
14:10
Plans to fight poverty in Uganda
190
832000
3000
14:13
are mooted, if we do not solve the climate crisis.
191
835000
4000
14:17
But responses can actually make a huge difference
192
839000
8000
14:25
in the poor countries. This is a proposal
193
847000
5000
14:30
that has been talked about a lot in Europe.
194
852000
4000
14:34
This was from Nature magazine. These are concentrating
195
856000
4000
14:38
solar, renewable energy plants, linked in a so-called "supergrid"
196
860000
7000
14:45
to supply all of the electrical power
197
867000
3000
14:48
to Europe, largely from developing countries -- high-voltage DC currents.
198
870000
8000
14:56
This is not pie in the sky; this can be done.
199
878000
3000
14:59
We need to do it for our own economy.
200
881000
3000
15:02
The latest figures show that the old model
201
884000
3000
15:05
is not working. There are a lot of great investments
202
887000
4000
15:09
that you can make. If you are investing in tar sands
203
891000
4000
15:13
or shale oil, then you have a portfolio
204
895000
6000
15:19
that is crammed with sub-prime carbon assets.
205
901000
4000
15:23
And it is based on an old model.
206
905000
4000
15:27
Junkies find veins in their toes when the ones
207
909000
3000
15:30
in their arms and their legs collapse. Developing tar sands
208
912000
5000
15:35
and coal shale is the equivalent. Here are just a few of the investments
209
917000
6000
15:41
that I personally think make sense.
210
923000
3000
15:44
I have a stake in these, so I'll have a disclaimer there.
211
926000
3000
15:47
But geothermal, concentrating solar,
212
929000
3000
15:50
advanced photovoltaics, efficiency and conservation.
213
932000
6000
15:57
You've seen this slide before, but there's a change.
214
939000
3000
16:00
The only two countries that didn't ratify
215
942000
4000
16:04
-- and now there's only one. Australia had an election.
216
946000
5000
16:09
And there was a campaign in Australia
217
951000
3000
16:12
that involved television and Internet and radio commercials
218
954000
5000
16:17
to lift the sense of urgency for the people there.
219
959000
2000
16:19
And we trained 250 people to give the slide show
220
961000
4000
16:23
in every town and village and city in Australia.
221
965000
5000
16:28
Lot of other things contributed to it,
222
970000
2000
16:30
but the new Prime Minister announced that
223
972000
3000
16:33
his very first priority would be to change Australia's position
224
975000
4000
16:37
on Kyoto, and he has. Now, they came to an awareness
225
979000
5000
16:42
partly because of the horrible drought that they have had.
226
984000
4000
16:46
This is Lake Lanier. My friend Heidi Cullen
227
988000
4000
16:50
said that if we gave droughts names the way we give hurricanes names,
228
992000
4000
16:54
we'd call the one in the southeast now Katrina,
229
996000
3000
16:57
and we would say it's headed toward Atlanta.
230
999000
2000
16:59
We can't wait for the kind of drought
231
1001000
4000
17:03
Australia had to change our political culture.
232
1005000
2000
17:05
Here's more good news. The cities supporting Kyoto in the U.S.
233
1007000
9000
17:14
are up to 780 -- and I thought I saw one go by there,
234
1016000
3000
17:17
just to localize this -- which is good news.
235
1019000
6000
17:23
Now, to close, we heard a couple of days ago
236
1025000
6000
17:29
about the value of making individual heroism so commonplace
237
1031000
9000
17:38
that it becomes banal or routine.
238
1040000
3000
17:41
What we need is another hero generation. Those of us who are alive
239
1043000
9000
17:50
in the United States of America
240
1052000
2000
17:52
today especially, but also the rest of the world,
241
1054000
2000
17:55
have to somehow understand that history
242
1057000
5000
18:00
has presented us with a choice -- just as Jill [Bolte] Taylor was figuring out
243
1062000
10000
18:10
how to save her life while she was distracted
244
1072000
5000
18:15
by the amazing experience that she was going through.
245
1077000
4000
18:19
We now have a culture of distraction.
246
1081000
3000
18:22
But we have a planetary emergency.
247
1084000
5000
18:27
And we have to find a way to create,
248
1089000
4000
18:31
in the generation of those alive today, a sense of generational mission.
249
1093000
6000
18:37
I wish I could find the words to convey this.
250
1099000
3000
18:43
This was another hero generation
251
1105000
2000
18:45
that brought democracy to the planet.
252
1107000
3000
18:48
Another that ended slavery. And that gave women the right to vote.
253
1110000
7000
18:55
We can do this. Don't tell me that we don't have the capacity to do it.
254
1117000
7000
19:02
If we had just one week's worth of what we spend on the Iraq War,
255
1124000
4000
19:06
we could be well on the way to solving this challenge.
256
1128000
3000
19:09
We have the capacity to do it.
257
1131000
4000
19:19
One final point: I'm optimistic, because I believe
258
1141000
13000
19:32
we have the capacity, at moments of great challenge,
259
1154000
4000
19:36
to set aside the causes of distraction and rise to the challenge
260
1158000
6000
19:42
that history is presenting to us.
261
1164000
3000
19:47
Sometimes I hear people respond to the disturbing facts of the climate crisis
262
1169000
12000
19:59
by saying, "Oh, this is so terrible.
263
1181000
2000
20:01
What a burden we have." I would like to ask you
264
1183000
6000
20:07
to reframe that. How many generations
265
1189000
4000
20:11
in all of human history have had the opportunity
266
1193000
5000
20:16
to rise to a challenge that is worthy of our best efforts?
267
1198000
9000
20:25
A challenge that can pull from us
268
1207000
6000
20:31
more than we knew we could do? I think we ought to approach
269
1213000
8000
20:39
this challenge with a sense of profound joy
270
1221000
4000
20:43
and gratitude that we are the generation
271
1225000
5000
20:48
about which, a thousand years from now,
272
1230000
4000
20:52
philharmonic orchestras and poets and singers will celebrate
273
1234000
9000
21:01
by saying, they were the ones that found it within themselves
274
1243000
7000
21:08
to solve this crisis and lay the basis
275
1250000
5000
21:13
for a bright and optimistic human future.
276
1255000
2000
21:15
Let's do that. Thank you very much.
277
1257000
3000
21:42
Chris Anderson: For so many people at TED, there is deep pain
278
1284000
6000
21:48
that basically a design issue
279
1290000
2000
21:50
on a voting form --
280
1292000
2000
21:52
one bad design issue meant that your voice wasn't being heard
281
1294000
4000
21:56
like that in the last eight years in a position
282
1298000
1000
21:57
where you could make these things come true.
283
1299000
2000
21:59
That hurts.
284
1301000
2000
22:01
Al Gore: You have no idea. (Laughter)
285
1303000
7000
22:11
CA: When you look at what the leading candidates
286
1313000
1000
22:12
in your own party are doing now -- I mean, there's --
287
1314000
2000
22:14
are you excited by their plans on global warming?
288
1316000
5000
22:28
AG: The answer to the question is hard for me
289
1330000
4000
22:32
because, on the one hand, I think that
290
1334000
4000
22:36
we should feel really great about the fact
291
1338000
4000
22:41
that the Republican nominee -- certain nominee --
292
1343000
6000
22:47
John McCain, and both of the finalists
293
1349000
4000
22:51
for the Democratic nomination -- all three have a very different
294
1353000
5000
22:56
and forward-leaning position
295
1358000
2000
22:58
on the climate crisis. All three have offered leadership,
296
1360000
5000
23:03
and all three are very different from the approach taken
297
1365000
4000
23:07
by the current administration. And I think
298
1369000
3000
23:10
that all three have also been responsible in
299
1372000
4000
23:14
putting forward plans and proposals. But the campaign dialogue that --
300
1376000
11000
23:25
as illustrated by the questions --
301
1387000
1000
23:26
that was put together by the
302
1388000
1000
23:27
League of Conservation Voters, by the way, the analysis of all the questions --
303
1389000
3000
23:30
and, by the way, the debates have all been
304
1392000
2000
23:34
sponsored by something that goes by the Orwellian label,
305
1396000
2000
23:36
"Clean Coal." Has anybody noticed that?
306
1398000
4000
23:40
Every single debate has been sponsored by "Clean Coal."
307
1402000
4000
23:44
"Now, even lower emissions!"
308
1406000
2000
23:46
The richness and fullness of the dialogue
309
1408000
4000
23:50
in our democracy has not laid the basis
310
1412000
3000
23:53
for the kind of bold initiative that is really needed.
311
1415000
4000
23:57
So they're saying the right things and they may --
312
1419000
3000
24:00
whichever of them is elected -- may do the right thing,
313
1422000
3000
24:03
but let me tell you: when I came back from Kyoto
314
1425000
4000
24:07
in 1997, with a feeling of great happiness
315
1429000
7000
24:14
that we'd gotten that breakthrough there,
316
1436000
2000
24:16
and then confronted the United States Senate,
317
1438000
2000
24:18
only one out of 100 senators was willing to vote
318
1440000
4000
24:22
to confirm, to ratify that treaty. Whatever the candidates say
319
1444000
7000
24:29
has to be laid alongside what the people say.
320
1451000
5000
24:34
This challenge is part of the fabric
321
1456000
4000
24:38
of our whole civilization.
322
1460000
2000
24:40
CO2 is the exhaling breath of our civilization, literally.
323
1462000
3000
24:44
And now we mechanized that process. Changing that pattern
324
1466000
3000
24:47
requires a scope, a scale, a speed of change
325
1469000
7000
24:54
that is beyond what we have done in the past.
326
1476000
3000
24:57
So that's why I began by saying,
327
1479000
2000
24:59
be optimistic in what you do, but be an active citizen.
328
1481000
6000
25:06
Demand -- change the light bulbs,
329
1488000
2000
25:08
but change the laws. Change the global treaties.
330
1490000
3000
25:11
We have to speak up. We have to solve this democracy -- this --
331
1493000
6000
25:18
We have sclerosis in our democracy. And we have to change that.
332
1500000
6000
25:25
Use the Internet. Go on the Internet.
333
1507000
1000
25:26
Connect with people. Become very active as citizens.
334
1508000
4000
25:30
Have a moratorium -- we shouldn't
335
1512000
2000
25:32
have any new coal-fired generating plants
336
1514000
2000
25:34
that aren't able to capture and store CO2, which means we have to
337
1516000
5000
25:39
quickly build these renewable sources.
338
1521000
2000
25:41
Now, nobody is talking on that scale. But I do believe
339
1523000
4000
25:45
that between now and November, it is possible.
340
1527000
4000
25:49
This Alliance for Climate Protection
341
1531000
1000
25:51
is going to launch a nationwide campaign --
342
1533000
3000
25:54
grassroots mobilization, television ads, Internet ads,
343
1536000
3000
25:57
radio, newspaper -- with partnerships with everybody
344
1539000
3000
26:00
from the Girl Scouts to the hunters and fishermen.
345
1542000
3000
26:03
We need help. We need help.
346
1545000
4000
26:07
CA: In terms of your own personal role going forward,
347
1549000
4000
26:11
Al, is there something more than that
348
1553000
2000
26:13
you would like to be doing?
349
1555000
1000
26:14
AG: I have prayed that I would be able to find the answer
350
1556000
8000
26:22
to that question. What can I do?
351
1564000
5000
26:27
Buckminster Fuller once wrote, "If the future
352
1569000
4000
26:31
of all human civilization depended on me, what would I do?
353
1573000
5000
26:36
How would I be?" It does depend on all of us,
354
1578000
5000
26:41
but again, not just with the light bulbs.
355
1583000
2000
26:43
We, most of us here, are Americans. We have a democracy.
356
1585000
8000
26:51
We can change things, but we have to actively change.
357
1593000
6000
26:57
What's needed really is a higher level of consciousness.
358
1599000
5000
27:02
And that's hard to --
359
1604000
2000
27:04
that's hard to create -- but it is coming.
360
1606000
4000
27:08
There's an old African proverb that some of you know
361
1610000
3000
27:11
that says, "If you want to go quickly, go alone;
362
1613000
4000
27:15
if you want to go far, go together." We have to go far, quickly.
363
1617000
8000
27:23
So we have to have a change in consciousness.
364
1625000
4000
27:27
A change in commitment. A new sense of urgency.
365
1629000
4000
27:31
A new appreciation for the privilege
366
1633000
3000
27:34
that we have of undertaking this challenge.
367
1636000
3000
27:37
CA: Al Gore, thank you so much for coming to TED.
368
1639000
4000
27:41
AG: Thank you. Thank you very much.
369
1643000
4000

▲Back to top

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Al Gore - Climate advocate
Nobel Laureate Al Gore focused the world’s attention on the global climate crisis. Now he’s showing us how we’re moving towards real solutions.

Why you should listen

Former Vice President Al Gore is co-founder and chairman of Generation Investment Management. While he’s is a senior partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and a member of Apple, Inc.’s board of directors, Gore spends the majority of his time as chair of The Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit devoted to solving the climate crisis.

He is the author of the bestsellers Earth in the Balance, An Inconvenient Truth, The Assault on Reason, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, and most recently, The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change. He is the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth and is the co-recipient, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 for “informing the world of the dangers posed by climate change.”

Gore was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1976, 1978, 1980 and 1982 and the U.S. Senate in 1984 and 1990. He was inaugurated as the 45th Vice President of the United States on January 20, 1993, and served eight years.

More profile about the speaker
Al Gore | Speaker | TED.com