All language subtitles for An.Inconvenient.Truth.2006.WEBRip.x264-ION10

You look at that river,
gently flowing by.

You notice the leaves

rustling with the wind.

You hear the birds.

You hear the tree frogs.

In the distance,
you hear a cow.

You feel the grass.

The mud gives a little bit
on the river bank.

It's quiet. It's peaceful.

And all of a sudden,

it's a gear shift inside you.

And it's like taking
a deep breath and going,

"Oh, yeah, I forgot about this."

This is the first picture
of the earth from space

that any of us ever saw.

It was taken on, uh,
Christmas Eve 1968

during the Apollo 8 Mission.

...within relatively
comfortable boundaries.

But we are filling up that thin
shell of atmosphere with pollution.

Ladies and gentlemen,
Mr. Al Gore.

I am Al Gore.

I used to be the next president
of the United States Of America.

I don't find that
particularly funny.

I've been trying to tell
this story for a long time,

and I feel as if I've failed
to get the message across.

I was in politics for a long time
and I'm proud of my service.

You gotta be kidding me.
This is a national disaster.

Get every doggone Greyhound
bus line in the country,

and get their... moving to
New Orleans.

That's them thinking small, man,

and this is a major, major,
major deal.

What do you need right now?

There are good people,

who are in politics
in both parties

who hold this at arm's length

because if they acknowledge it
and recognize it,

then the moral imperative
to make a big change is

is--is inescapable.

...unless you fix the biggest damn
crisis in the history of this country.

...scouted out landing spots
and they lost radio contact

when they went around
the dark side of the moon.

And there was inevitably
some suspense.

Then when they came back
in radio contact,

they looked up

and they snapped this picture, and
it became known as Earth Rise.

And that one picture exploded

in the consciousness
of humankind.

It lead to dramatic changes.

Within 18 months
of this picture,

the modern environmental
movement had begun.

The next picture was taken on the
last of the Apollo missions,

Apollo 17.

This one was taken
on December 11, 1972,

and it is the most commonly published
photograph in all of history.

And it's the only picture of the
earth from space that we have

where the sun was
directly behind the spacecraft

so that the earth is fully lit
up and not partly in darkness.

The next image I'm gonna show
you has almost never been seen.

It was taken by a spacecraft
called The Galileo

that went out to explore
the solar system.

And as it was leaving Earth's
gravity, it turned its cameras around

and took a time lapse picture
of one day's worth of rotation,

here compressed into 24 seconds.

Isn't that beautiful?

This image is a magical
image in a way.

It was made by a friend
of mine, Tom Van Sant.

He took 3,000 separate
satellite pictures

taken over a three-year period,
digitally stitched together.

And he chose images that
would give a cloud-free view

of every square inch
of the earth's surface.

All of the land masses
accurately portrayed.

When that's all spread out,
it becomes an iconic image.

I show this because I--I wanna tell
you a story about two teachers I had.

One that I didn't like that much,
the other who is a real hero to me.

I had a grade school teacher
who taught geography

by pulling a map of the world
down in front of the blackboard.

I had a classmate in the sixth
grade who raised his hand

and he pointed to the outline of
the east coast of South America

and he pointed
to the west coast of Africa

and he asked,
"Did they ever fit together?"

And the teacher said,

"Of course not. That's the most
ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

That student went on to become a
drug addict and a ne'er-do-well.

The teacher went on to become
science advisor

in the current administration.

But, you know, the teacher
was actually reflecting

the conclusion of the scientific
establishment of that time.

Continents are so big,
obviously they don't move.

But, actually, as we now know,
they did move.

Uh, they moved apart
from one another.

But at one time they did,
in fact, fit together.

But that assumption
was a problem.

It reflected
the well-known wisdom

that what gets us into trouble
is not what we don't know,

it's what we know for sure
that just ain't so.

This is actually an important
point, believe it or not,

because there is another
such assumption

that a lot of people have in their
minds right now about global warming

that just ain't so.

The assumption is something like this.
The earth is so big

we can't possibly have
any lasting harmful impact

on the earth's environment.

And maybe that was true at one
time, but it's not anymore.

And one of the reasons
it's not true anymore

is that the most vulnerable part
of the earth's ecological system

is the atmosphere.

Vulnerable because it's so thin.

My friend, the late Carl
Sagan, used to say,

"If you had a big globe
with a coat of varnish on it,

"the thickness of that varnish
relative to that globe

"is pretty much the same

"as the thickness
of the earth's atmosphere

"compared to the earth itself."

And it's thin enough

that we are capable
of changing its composition.

That brings up the basic
science of global warming.

And I'm not gonna spend a lot of time
on this because, uh, you know it well.

The sun's radiation comes in
in the form of light waves

and that heats up the Earth.

And then some of the radiation that
is absorbed and warms the earth

is reradiated back into space

in the form
of infrared radiation.

And some of the outgoing
infrared radiation is trapped

by this layer of atmosphere and
held inside the atmosphere.

And that's a good thing because it
keeps the temperature of the earth

within certain boundaries,

keeps it relatively
constant and livable.

But the problem is this thin layer
of atmosphere is being thickened

by all of the global warming
pollution that's being put up there.

And what that does is it thickens
this layer of atmosphere,

more of the outgoing
infrared is trapped.

And so the atmosphere heats up worldwide.
That's global warming.

Now, that's the
traditional explanation.

Here's a... What I think
is a better explanation.

You're probably wondering
why your ice cream went away.

Well, Susie, the culprit
isn't foreigners.

It's global warming.

Global wha...
Yeah.

Meet Mr. Sunbeam.

He comes all the way
from the sun to visit Earth.

Hello, Earth. Just popping in
to brighten your day.

And now I'll be on my way.

Not so fast, Sunbeam.

We're greenhouse gases.
You ain't going nowhere.

Oh, God, it hurts.

Pretty soon, Earth is
chock-full of Sunbeams.

Their rotting corpses heating
our atmosphere.

How do we get rid
of the greenhouse grasses?

Fortunately,
our handsomest politicians

came up with a cheap, last-minute
way to combat global warming.

Ever since 2063,

we simply drop a giant ice cube
into the ocean every now and then.

Just like Daddy puts
in his drink every morning.

And then he gets mad.

Of course, since the greenhouse
gases are still building up,

it takes more and more ice
each time.

Thus, solving the problem
once and for all.

But... Once and for all!

This is, uh, the image
that started me

in my interest in this issue.

And I saw it
when I was a college student

because I had a professor
named Roger Revelle

who was the first person to
propose measuring carbon dioxide

in the earth's atmosphere.

He saw where
the story was going

after the first few chapters.

After the first few years
of data,

he intuited what it meant

for what w-was yet to come.

They designed the experiment
in 1957.

He hired Charles David Keeling

who was very faithful
and precise

in making these measurements
for decades.

They started sending these
weather balloons up every day

and they chose
the middle of the Pacific

because it was the area
that was most remote.

And he was a very
hard-nosed scientist.

He really emphasized
the hard data.

It was a wonderful time for me

because, like a lot
of young people,

I came into contact
with intellectual ferment,

ideas that I'd never considered

in my wildest dreams before.

And he showed our class

the results of his measurements
after only a few years.

It was startling to me.

Now he was startled

and made it clear to our class

what he felt
the significance of it was.

And I just soaked it up
like a sponge.

He drew the connections

between the larger changes
in our civilization

and this pattern
that was now visible

in the atmosphere
of the entire planet.

And then he projected into the
future where this was headed

unless we made some adjustments.

And it was just as clear as day.

After the first seven,
eight, nine years,

you could see the pattern
that was developing.

But I asked a question.

Why is it that it goes
up and down once each year?

And he explained that if you look
at the land mass of the earth,

very little of it
is south of the equator.

The vast majority of it
is north of the equator,

and most of the vegetation
is north of the equator.

And so, when the Northern Hemisphere
is tilted toward the sun,

as it is in our spring
and summer,

the leaves come out and they
breathe in carbon dioxide,

and the amount
in the atmosphere goes down.

But when the Northern Hemisphere
is tilted away from the sun,

as it is in our fall and winter,

the leaves fall
and exhale carbon dioxide,

and the amount in the
atmosphere goes back up again.

And so, it's as if
the entire earth

once each year
breaths in and out.

So we started measuring
carbon dioxide in 1958.

And you can see

that by the middle '60s, when
he showed my class this image,

it was already clear
that it was going up.

I respected him and learned from
him so much, I followed this.

And when I went to the
Congress in the middle 1970s,

I helped to organize the first
hearings on global warming

and asked my professor to come
and be the leadoff witness.

And I thought that would have
such a big impact,

we'd be on the way to solving this
problem, but it didn't work that way.

But I kept having hearings. And
in 1984 I went to the Senate

and really dug deeply
into this issue

with science roundtables
and the like.

I wrote a book, uh, about it,
ran for President in 1988,

partly to try to gain some
visibility for that issue.

And in 1992 went to the White House.
We passed a version of a carbon tax

and some other measures
to try to address this.

Went to Kyoto in 1997
to help get a treaty

that's so controversial,
in the US at least.

In 2000,

my opponent pledged
to regulate CO2 and then...

T-That--That was not
a pledge that was kept.

But the point of this is

all this time you can see

what I have seen
all these years.

It just keeps going up.
It is relentless.

And now we're beginning to see
the impact in the real world.

This is Mount Kilimanjaro
more than 30 years ago

and more recently.

And a friend of mine just
came back from Kilimanjaro

with a picture he took
a couple of months ago.

Another friend, Lonnie
Thompson, studies glaciers.

Here's Lonnie with a last sliver of
one of the once mighty glaciers.

Within the decade there will be
no more snows of Kilimanjaro.

This is happening
in Glacier National Park.

I climbed to the top of this in
1998 with one of my daughters.

Within 15 years, this will be the
park formerly known as Glacier.

Here is what's been happening year
by year to the Columbia Glacier.

It just retreats
every single year.

And it's a shame 'cause these
glaciers are so beautiful.

But those who go up to see them,

here's what they're seeing
every day, now.

In the Himalayas, uh,
there's a particular problem

because 40 percent of all
the people in the world

get their drinking water
from rivers and spring systems

that are fed more than half
by the melt water

coming off the glaciers.

And within this next half century those
40 percent o-of the people on Earth

are gonna face
a very serious shortage

because o-of this melting.

Italy, the Italian Alps.

Same sight today.

An old postcard
from Switzerland.

Throughout the Alps,
we're seeing the same story.

It's also true in South America.

This is Peru 15 years ago.

And the same glacier today.

This is Argentina 20 years ago.
Same glacier today.

Seventy-five years ago in Patagonia
on the tip of South America.

This vast expanse
of ice is now gone.

There's a message in this.

It is worldwide.

And the ice has stories
to tell us.

My friend, Lonnie Thompson,
digs core drills in the ice.

They dig down

and they bring the core drills
back up and they look at the ice

and they study it.

When the snow falls, it traps
little bubbles of atmosphere

and they can go in and measure

how much CO2 is in the atmosphere
the year that that snow fell.

What's even more interesting,
I think, is

they can measure the different
isotopes of oxygen

and figure out
a very precise thermometer

and tell you what
the temperature was

the year that, uh, that bubble was
trapped in the snow as it fell.

When I was in Antarctica,
I saw cores like this.

And a guy looked at it.
He said,

"Right here is where the US
Congress passed the Clean Air Act."

And I couldn't believe it.

But you can see the difference
with the naked eye.

Just a couple of years
after that law was passed,

it's very clearly
distinguishable.

They can count back year by year

the same way a forester reads
tree rings.

And you can see each annual layer
from the melting and re-freezing,

so they can go back in a lot of these
mountain glaciers 1,000 years.

And they constructed a
thermometer of the temperature.

The blue is cold
and the red is warm.

Now, uh, I show this
for a couple of reasons.

Number one, the so-called
skeptics will sometimes say,

"Oh, this whole thing,
this is a cyclical phenomenon.

"There was a medieval
warming period, after all."

Well, yeah, there--there was.
There--There it is, right there.

There are two others.

But compared to
what's going on now,

there's just no comparison.

So if you look at 1,000 years'
worth of temperature

and compare it to
1,000 years of CO2,

you can see how closely
they fit together.

Now, 1,000 years of CO2
in the mountain glaciers,

that's one thing.

But in Antarctica, they can
go back 650,000 years.

This incidentally, uh,
is the first time

anybody outside of a small group
of scientists has seen this image.

This is the present day,
uh, era,

and that's the last ice age.

Then it goes up. That... We're going
back in time now 650,000 years.

That's the period of warming
between the last two ice ages.

That's the second
and third ice age back.

Fourth, fifth, sixth

and seventh ice age back.

Now, an important point.

In all of this time,
650,000 years,

the CO2 level
has never gone above

300 parts per million.

Now, as I said, they can
also measure temperature.

Here's what the temperature
has been on our earth.

Now, one thing that kind
of jumps out at you is...

Well, let me put it this way. If
my classmate from the sixth grade

that talked about Africa
and South America were here,

he would say, "Did--did--did--
did they ever fit together?"

"Most ridiculous thing
I've ever heard."

But they did, of course.

And the--the relationship
is actually very complicated.

But there is one relationship
that is far more powerful

than all the others
and it is this.

When there is more carbon dioxide,
the temperature gets warmer

because it traps more heat
from the sun inside.

In the parts of the United States
that contain the modern cities

of Cleveland, Detroit, New
York, in the northern tier,

this is the difference
between a nice day

and having a mile
of ice over your head.

Keep that in mind
when you look at this fact.

Carbon dioxide,

having never gone above
300 parts per million,

here is where CO2 is now.

Way above where it's ever been

as far back as this record
will measure.

Now, if you'll bear with me, I
wanna really emphasize this point.

The--The crew here

has tried to teach me how to
use this contraption here.

So, if I don't
kill myself, I'll...

It's already right here.

Look how far above
the natural cycle this is,

and we've done that.

But, ladies and gentlemen,
in the next 50 years,

really, in less than 50 years,

it's gonna continue to go up.

When some of these children
who are here are my age,

here is what it's going to be
in less than 50 years.

You've heard of off the charts.

Within less than 50 years,
it'll be here.

There's not a single fact
or date or number

that's been used to make this
up that's in any controversy.

The so-called skeptics
look at this and they say,

"So? That seems perfectly okay."

Well,

again, if on the
temperature side,

if this much on the cold side is
a mile of ice over our heads,

what would that much
on the warm side be?

Ultimately this is really
not a political issue

so much as a--a moral issue.

If we allow that to happen,

it is deeply unethical.

I had such faith
in our democratic system,

our self-government.

I actually thought and believed

that the story would be compelling
enough to cause a real sea change

in the way the Congress
reacted to that issue.

I thought they would
be startled, too.

And they weren't.

The struggles,

the victories that aren't really victories,
the defeats that aren't really defeats.

They can serve to magnify
the significance

of some trivial step forward,

exaggerate the seeming
importance

of some massive setback.

April 3, 1989.

My son pulled loose from my hand

and chased his friend
across the street.

He was six years old.

The machine
was breathing for him.

We were possibly
going to lose him.

He finally, uh, took a breath.

We stayed in the hospital
for a month.

It was almost as if, uh,

you could look at that
calendar and just go...

And everything just flew off.

Seemed trivial, insignificant.

He was so brave.
He was such...

Uh, he was such a--a brave guy.

It just turned my whole world
upside down

and then shook it
until everything fell out.

My way of being in the world, it
just changed everything for me.

How should I spend my time
on this earth?

I really dug in,

trying to learn about it
much more deeply.

I went to Antarctica.

Went to the South Pole,
the North Pole, the Amazon.

Went to places where scientists
could help me understand

parts of the issue that

I didn't really understand
in depth.

The possibility of losing
what was most precious to me.

I gained a-an ability

that maybe I didn't have before.

But when I felt it,

I felt that we could
really lose it,

that what we take for granted might
not be here for our children.

These are actual measurements
of atmospheric temperatures

since our Civil War.

In any given year, it might
look like it's going down,

but the overall trend
is extremely clear.

And in recent years,

it's uninterrupted
and it is intensifying.

In fact, if you look at the 10
hottest years ever measured

in this atmospheric record,

they've all occurred
in the last 14 years.

And the hottest of all was 2005.

We have already seen
some of the heat waves

that are similar
to what scientists are saying

are gonna be a lot more common.

Couple of years ago in Europe

they had that massive heat wave

that killed 35,000 people.

India didn't get
as much attention,

but the same year
the temperature there went

to 122 degrees Fahrenheit.

This past summer
in the American West,

there were a lot of cities that broke
all-time records for high temperatures

and number of consecutive days with
100 degree temperature or more.

Two hundred cities and towns in
the west set all-time records.

And in the east there were a lot
of cities that did the same thing.

Including, incidentally,
New Orleans.

So the temperature increases are
taking place all over the world,

including in the oceans.

This is the natural range of variability
for temperature in the oceans.

You know, people say,
"Oh, it's just natural.

"It goes up and down,
so don't worry about it."

This is the range that would be
expected over the last 60 years,

but the scientists who specialize in
global warming have computer models

that long ago predicted this
range of temperature increase.

Now I'm gonna show you,
recently released,

the actual ocean temperatures.

And, of course, when the oceans get
warmer, that causes stronger storms.

We have seen
in the last couple of years

a lot of big hurricanes.

Hurricane Jeanne and Frances
and Ivan were among them.

And the same year that we had
that string of big hurricanes,

we also set an all-time record for
tornadoes in the United States.

Japan again didn't get as much
attention in our news media,

but they set an
all-time record for typhoons.

Previous record was seven.

Here are all 10 of the ones
they had in 2004.

The science textbooks have had
to be rewritten

because they say that it's impossible to
have a hurricane in the South Atlantic.

But the same year
the first one ever hit Brazil.

Summer of 2005 has been
one for the books.

The first one was Emily
that socked into Yucatan.

Then Hurricane Dennis came along
and it did a lot of damage,

including to the oil industry.

This is the largest oil platform in
the world after Dennis went through.

This one was driven
into the bridge at Mobile.

And then, of course,
came Katrina.

It's worth remembering that when it
hit Florida, it was a Category One.

But it killed a lot of people and caused
billions of dollars' worth of damage.

And then what happened?

Before it hit New Orleans,

it went over warmer waters.

As the water temperature
increases,

the wind velocity increases

and the moisture content
increases.

And you'll see Hurricane
Katrina form over Florida.

And then as it comes into the
gulf over that warm water,

it picks up that energy and gets
stronger and stronger and stronger.

Look at that hurricane's eye.

And, of course, the--the
consequences were so horrendous,

there are no words,
uh, to describe it.

Yeah, we're getting reports
and calls that are just breaking my heart.

From people saying, "I've been in my attic.
I can't take it anymore.

"The water is up to my-- up to my neck.
I don't think I can hold out."

And that's happening
as we speak.

We told-- We told everybody the importance
of the 17th Street Canal issue.

We said, "Please, please,
take care of this.

"We don't care what you do.
Figure it out."

Something new for America.

But how in God's name
could that happen here?

There had been warnings that
hurricanes would get stronger.

There were warnings
that this hurricane,

days before it hit,
would breach the levees,

would cause the kind of damage
that it ultimately did cause.

And one question
we as a people need to decide

is how we react
when we hear warnings

from the leading scientists
in the world.

There was another storm in the
1930s of a different kind.

A horrible, unprecedented
storm in continental Europe,

and Winston Churchill warned
the people of England

that it was different from anything
that had ever happened before

and they had to
get ready for it.

And he... A-And--And a lot of
people did not want to believe it.

And he got real impatient
with all the dithering.

And he said this,

Making mistakes in
generations and centuries past

would have consequences
that we could overcome.

We don't have
that luxury anymore.

We didn't ask for it,

but here it is.

Al Gore is the
winner of the national popular vote.

But the state of Florida, whomever
wins there wins the White House.

We call
Florida, in the Al Gore column...

MALE ANNOUNCER #2: Bulletin: Florida
pulled back into the undecided column.

George Bush is the president elect
of the United States. He is...

Florida goes Bush.
The presidency is Bush. That's it.

GORE: And at 2:18
this morning, we project...

All right, we're officially saying
that Florida is too close to call.

While I strongly disagree
with the court's decision,

I accept it.

I accept the finality
of this outcome.

...do solemnly swear...

I, George Walker Bush,
do solemnly swear...

...that I will faithfully
execute the office of...

Well, that was
a hard blow, but...

What do you do? You...

You make the best of it.

It brought into clear focus

the mission that
I had been pursuing

for all these years, and

I started, uh, giving
the slide show again.

One often unnoticed effect
of global warming

is it causes more precipitation,

but more of it coming
in one-time big storm events.

Because the evaporation off the oceans
puts all the moisture up there,

when storm conditions trigger the
downpour, more of it falls down.

The insurance industry has
actually noticed this.

Their recovered losses
are going up.

You see the damage from these
severe weather events?

And 2005 is not even
on this yet.

When it does,
it'll be off that chart.

Europe has just had a year very
similar to the one we've had

where they say
nature's been going crazy.

All kinds of unusual
catastrophes,

like a nature hike through
the Book of Revelations.

Flooding in Asia.

Mumbai, India this past July.

Thirty-seven inches
of rain in 24 hours.

By far, the largest downpour

that any city in India
has ever received.

Lot of flooding in China, also.

Global warming, paradoxically,
causes not only more flooding,

but also more drought.

This neighboring province
right next door

had a severe drought at the same
time these areas were flooding.

One of the reasons for this
has to do with the fact

that global warming not only
increases precipitation worldwide,

but it also relocates
the precipitation.

And focus most of all
on this part of Africa

just on the edge of the Sahara.

Unbelievable tragedies
have been unfolding there,

and there are a lot
of reasons for it.

But Darfur and Niger are
among those tragedies.

And one of the factors
that has been compounding them

is the lack of rainfall
and the increasing drought.

This is Lake Chad, once one of
the largest lakes in the world.

It has dried up over the last
few decades to almost nothing,

vastly complicating the other
problems that they also have.

The second reason

why this is a paradox.

Global warming creates more
evaporation off the oceans

to seed the clouds,

but it sucks moisture
out of the soil.

Soil evaporation
increases dramatically

with higher temperatures.

And that has consequences for us
in the United States, as well.

So this is the Carthage exit.

When I was 14 years old,
I totaled the family car

right there.

Went off that shoulder,
turned it over.

And see this Black Angus bull?

We raised Black Angus.

My father was named
Breeder of the Month.

He grew up on a farm.

All through his career
in the Senate,

he continued to come back here
and raise cattle.

Learning it from your dad
on the land,

that's really something special.

My, uh, childhood upbringing was a
little unusual in the sense that

I spent eight months of
each year in Washington DC

in a--a small little
hotel apartment.

And then the other four months were
spent here on this big, beautiful farm.

I had a dog here.

I had a pony here.

I could, uh,
shoot my rifle here.

I could-- I could go swimming
in the river here.

Go out and lay down
in the grass.

As a kid, it took me a while

to learn the difference
between fun and work.

The places where people live
were chosen

because of the climate pattern

that has been pretty much
the same on Earth

since the end of the last
ice age 11,000 years ago.

Here, on this farm,
the patterns are changing.

And it seems gradual in the
course of a human lifetime

but in the course of time,
as defined by this river,

it's happening
very, very quickly.

Two canaries in the coal mine.

First one is in the Arctic.

This, of course, is the Arctic
Ocean, the floating ice cap.

Greenland, on its side there.

I say canary in the coal mine

because the Arctic is one of
the two regions of the world

that, uh, is experiencing
faster impacts

from global warming.

This is the largest ice shelf
in the Arctic,

the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf.

It just cracked in half
three years ago.

The scientists were astonished.

These are called drunken trees
just going every which way.

This is not caused by wind
damage or alcohol consumption.

These trees put their roots
down in the permafrost,

and the permafrost is thawing.

And so they just go
every which way now.

This building was built
on the, uh, permafrost

and has collapsed
as the permafrost thaws.

This woman's house, uh,
has had to be abandoned.

The pipeline is suffering a great
deal of structural damage.

And incidentally, the oil that they
want to produce in that protected area

in Northern Alaska,
which I hope they don't,

they have to depend on trucks
to go in and out of there.

And the trucks go over
the frozen ground.

This shows the number of days
that the tundra in Alaska is

frozen enough to drive on it.

Thirty-five years ago,
225 days a year.

Now it's below 75 days a year

because the spring comes earlier
and the fall comes later

and the temperatures
just keep on going up.

I went up to the North Pole.

I went under that ice cap
in a nuclear submarine

that surfaced through the ice
like this.

Since they started
patrolling in 1957,

they have gone under the ice

and measured with their
radar looking upwards

to measure how thick it is

because they can
only surface in areas

where it's three and a half
feet thick or less.

So they have kept
a meticulous record

and they wouldn't release it
because it was national security.

I went up there in order to persuade
them to release it, and they did.

And here's what
that record shows.

Starting in 1970, there was
a precipitous drop-off

in the amount and extent and
thickness of the Arctic ice cap.

It has diminished
by 40 percent in 40 years.

And there are now
two major studies showing

that within the next
50 to 70 years,

in summertime
it will be completely gone.

Now, you might say,
"Why is that a problem?"

And "How could the Arctic ice
cap actually melt so quickly?"

When the sun's rays hit the ice,

more than 90 percent of it bounces off
right back into space like a mirror.

But when it hits the open ocean, more
than 90 percent of it is absorbed.

And so, as the surrounding
water gets warmer,

it speeds up
the melting of the ice.

Right now, the Arctic ice cap
acts like a giant mirror.

All the sun's rays bounce off,
more than 90 percent.

It keeps the earth cooler.

But as it melts

and the open ocean receives
that sun's energy instead,

more than 90 percent
is absorbed.

So there is a faster
buildup of heat here,

at the North Pole,
in the Arctic Ocean,

and the Arctic generally than
anywhere else on the planet.

That's not good for creatures like
polar bears who depend on the ice.

A new scientific study
shows that

for the first time they're finding polar
bears that have actually drowned,

swimming long distances, up
to 60 miles, to find the ice.

And they didn't
find that before.

But what does it mean to us?

To look at a vast expanse
of open water

at the top of our world that
used to be covered by ice.

We ought to care a lot

because it has
planetary effects.

The earth's climate is like a big
engine for redistributing heat

from the equator to the poles.

And it does that by means of ocean
currents and wind currents.

They tell us, the scientists do,

that the earth's climate
is a nonlinear system.

Just a fancy way
they have of saying

that the changes are not
all just gradual.

Some of them come suddenly,
in big jumps.

On a worldwide basis, the
annual average temperature is

about 58 degrees Fahrenheit.

If we have an increase
of five degrees,

which is on the low end
of the projections,

look at how that translates
globally.

That means an increase of only
one degree at the equator,

but more than 12 degrees
at the pole.

And so all those wind
and ocean current patterns

that have formed since the last ice
age and have been relatively stable,

they're all up in the air
and they change.

And one of the ones
they're most worried about,

where they've spent a lot of
time, uh, studying the problem,

is in the North Atlantic

where the Gulf Stream comes up
and meets the cold winds

coming off the Arctic
over Greenland.

And that evaporates so that the
heat out of the Gulf Stream

and the steam is carried over
to Western Europe

by the prevailing winds
and the earth's rotation.

But isn't it interesting that
the whole ocean current system

is all linked together
in this loop?

They call it the ocean conveyor.

And the red are
the warm surface currents.

The Gulf Stream is
the best known of them.

But the blue represent
the cold currents

running in the opposite
direction,

and we don't see them at all because
they run along the bottom of the ocean.

Up in the North Atlantic,
after that heat is pulled out,

what's left behind is
colder water and saltier water

because the salt
doesn't go anywhere.

And so that makes it
denser and heavier.

And so that cold, dense,
heavy water sinks

at the rate of five billion
gallons per second.

And then that pulls
that current back south.

At the end of the last ice age,

as the last glacier was
receding from North America,

the ice melted and a giant
pool of fresh water

formed in North America.

And the Great Lakes are the
remnants of that huge lake.

An ice dam on the eastern border
formed and one day it broke.

And all that fresh water
came rushing out,

ripping open
the St. Lawrence there,

and it diluted the salty,
dense, cold water,

made it fresher and lighter,
so it stopped sinking.

And that pump

shut off.

And the heat transfer stopped.

And Europe went back into an ice age
for another 900 to 1,000 years.

And the change from conditions
like we have here today

to an ice age

took place in perhaps
as little as 10 years' time.

So that's a sudden jump.

Now, of course that's
not gonna, uh, happen again

because the glaciers of North
America are not there, and...

Is there any other big chunk
of ice anywhere near there?

Oh, yeah.

We'll come back to that one.

It's extremely frustrating to me

to--to communicate over and over
again, as clearly as I can.

And we are still, by far,

the worst contributor
to the problem.

And I look around

and look for really
meaningful signs

that we're about
to really change.

I don't see it right now.

A number of very
reputable scientists have said

that one factor of air pollution

is oxides of nitrogen
from decaying vegetation.

This is what causes the haze that gave
the big Smoky Mountains their name.

Thank you very much, okay.

This guy is so far off
in the environmental extreme,

we'll be up to our neck in owls and
out of work for every American.

This guy is crazy.

Even if humans were causing global
warming, and--and we are not,

this could be maybe the
greatest hoax ever perpetrated

on the American people.

We're dealing with
something that's highly emotional.

If an issue is not

on the tips of their
constituents' tongues,

it's easy for them to ignore it.

To say, "Well, we'll deal
with that tomorrow."

So the same phenomena
of changing all these patterns

is also affecting the seasons.

Here is a study
from the Netherlands.

The peak arrival date
for migratory birds

25 years ago was April 25th,

and their chicks hatched
on June the 3rd.

Just at the time when the
caterpillars were coming out.

Nature's, uh, plan.

But 20 years of warming later,

the caterpillars peaked
two weeks earlier,

and the chicks tried to catch
up with it, but they couldn't.

And so, they're in trouble.

And there are millions
of ecological niches

that are affected by global
warming in just this way.

This is the number of days with
frost in Southern Switzerland

over the last 100 years.

It has gone down rapidly.
But now watch this.

This is the number
of invasive exotic species

that have rushed in to fill the new
ecological niches that are opening up.

That's happening here
in the United States, too.

You've heard
of the pine beetle problem?

Those pine beetles used to be
killed by the cold winters,

but there are fewer days
of frost,

and so the pine trees
are being devastated.

This is part of 14 million acres
of spruce trees in Alaska

that have been killed by bark beetles.
The exact same phenomenon.

There are cities
that were founded

because they were just above
the mosquito line.

Nairobi is one, Harare is another.
There are plenty of others.

Now the mosquitoes, with warming,
are climbing to higher altitudes.

There are a lot of vectors for infectious
diseases that are worrisome to us

that are also
expanding their range.

Not only mosquitoes, but all
of these others as well.

And we've had 30 so-called
new diseases

that have emerged just
in the last quarter century.

And a lot of them, like SARS,
have caused tremendous problems.

The resistant forms of tuberculosis.
There are others.

And there's been a
re-emergence of some diseases

that were once under control.

The avian flu, of course, quite
a serious matter, as you know.

West Nile Virus.

It came to the eastern shore
of Maryland in 1999.

Two years later,
it was across the Mississippi.

And two years after that, it had
spread across the continent.

But these are
very troubling signs.

Coral reefs all over the world,

because of global warming
and other factors,

are bleaching
and they end up like this.

And all the fish species
that depend on the coral reefs

are also in jeopardy
as a result.

Overall, species loss
is now occurring

at a rate 1,000 times greater
than the natural background rate.

This brings me to the second
canary in the coal mine.

Antarctica.

The largest mass of ice
on the planet by far.

A friend of mine said in 1978,

"If you see the breakup of ice shelves
along the Antarctic peninsula,

"watch out,

"because that should be seen as an
alarm bell for global warming."

And actually, if you look
at the peninsula up close,

every place where you see one
of these green blotches here

is an ice shelf larger
than the state of Rhode Island

that has broken up just
in the last 15 to 20 years.

I want to focus
on just one of them.

It's called Larsen B.

I want you to look
at these black pools here.

It makes it seem almost as if
we're looking through the ice

to the ocean beneath.
But that's an illusion.

This is melting water
that forms in pools,

and if you were flying over it
in a helicopter,

you'd see it's 700 feet tall.

They are so majestic,
so massive.

In the distance are the mountains
and just before the mountains

is the shelf
of the continent, there.

This is floating ice,

and there's land-based ice on the
down slope of those mountains.

From here to the mountains
is about 20 to 25 miles.

Now they thought this would be
stable for at least 100 years,

even with global warming.

The scientists who study
these ice shelves

were absolutely astonished

when they were looking
at these images.

Starting on January 31, 2002

in a period of 35 days,

this ice shelf
completely disappeared.

They could not figure out how in the
world this happened so rapidly.

And they went back to try to figure
out where they'd gone wrong.

And that's when they focused on
those pools of melting water.

But even before they could figure
out what had happened there,

something else
started going wrong.

When the floating
sea-based ice cracked up,

it no longer held back
the ice on the land,

and the land-based ice then
started falling into the ocean.

It was like letting the cork
out of a bottle.

And there's a difference between
floating ice and land-based ice.

That's like the difference between an
ice cube floating in a glass of water,

which when it melts doesn't raise
the level of water in the glass,

and a cube that's sitting atop
a stack of ice cubes

which melts and flows
over the edge.

That's why the citizens
of these Pacific nations

have all had to evacuate
to New Zealand.

But I want to focus
on West Antarctica

because it illustrates two factors about
land-based ice and sea-based ice.

It's a little of both. It's
propped up on tops of islands,

but the ocean comes up
underneath it.

So as the ocean gets warmer,
it has an impact on it.

If this were to--to go,

sea level worldwide
would go up 20 feet.

They've measured disturbing changes
on the underside of this ice sheet.

It's considered relatively
more stable, however,

than another big body of ice
that's roughly the same size.

Greenland would also raise
sea level almost 20 feet

if it went.

A friend of mine just
brought back some pictures

of what's going on
on Greenland right now.

Dramatic changes. These are
the same kinds of pools

that formed here, on this
ice shelf in Antarctica.

And the scientists thought

that when that water seeped back into
the ice, it would just refreeze.

But they found out
that actually what happens

is that it just keeps on going.
It tunnels to the bottom

and makes the ice
like Swiss cheese,

sort of like termites.

This shows what happens
to the crevasses,

and when lakes form, they
create what are called moulins.

The water goes down
to the bottom

and it lubricates where the
ice meets the bedrock.

See these people here for scale.

This is not on the edge
of Greenland,

this is in the middle
of the ice mass.

This is a massive
rushing torrent

of fresh melt water

tunneling straight down
through the Greenland ice

to the bedrock below.

Now, to some extent, there has
always been seasonal melting

and moulins have formed
in the past, but not like now.

In 1992, they measured this
amount of melting in Greenland.

Ten years later,
this is what happened.

And here is the melting
from 2005.

Tony Blair's scientific
advisor has said that

because of what's happening
in Greenland right now,

the maps of the world
will have to be redrawn.

If Greenland broke up
and melted,

or if half of Greenland
and half of West Antarctica

broke up and melted,

this is what would happen
to the sea level in Florida.

This is what would happen
to San Francisco Bay.

A lot of people
live in these areas.

The Netherlands,
one of the low countries.

Absolutely devastating.

The area around Beijing that's home
to tens of millions of people.

Even worse, in the area
around Shanghai,

there are 40 million people.

Worse still, Calcutta,
and to the east, Bangladesh,

the area covered includes
60 million people.

Think of the impact of a couple
hundred thousand refugees

when they're displaced
by an environmental event.

And then imagine the impact
of a hundred million or more.

Here's Manhattan.

This is the World Trade Center
memorial site.

And after the horrible
events of 9/11,

we said, "Never again."

But this is what would happen
to Manhattan.

They can measure this precisely,

just as the scientists could
predict precisely

how much water would breach
the levees in New Orleans.

The area where the World Trade
Center Memorial is to be located

would be underwater.

Is it possible that we should prepare
against other threats besides terrorists?

Maybe we should be concerned
about other problems as well.

1.3 billion people.

An economy that's surging.

More and more energy needs.

Massive coal reserves.

The coal belt in Northern China,

er, Inner Mongolia.
Right.

Then there's Shaanxi province.
Uh-huh.

And also biggest coal mine here.
Up here.

Yeah. Now, is that
an open pit mine?

Yes.
Yes.

Every time I've visited China,

I've learned from their scientists.
They're right on the cutting edge.

Give me some sense
of the numbers of

new coal fire generating plants.

Well, I have to say
that the number is enormous

because it's so profitable.

This issue is really the same
for China as it is for the US.

We are both using old technologies
that are dirty and polluting.

...more flooding
and more drought

and stronger storms is going up,

and global warming
is implicated in the pattern.

And if you were to give some
suggestions to everybody here

about, like, what we can do
for the, um, situation now.

Separating the truth
from the fiction

and the accurate connections
from the misunderstandings

is part of what you learn here.

But when the warnings are accurate
and based on sound science,

then we as human beings,
whatever country we live in,

have to find a way to make sure

that the warnings are heard
and responded to.

We both have a hard time shaking
loose the familiar patterns

that we've relied on
in the past.

We both face completely
unacceptable consequences.

And there are three factors that
are causing this collision,

and the first is population.

When my generation, the baby boom
generation, was born after World War II,

the population had just
crossed the two billion mark.

Now, I'm in my 50s,

and it's already gone to
almost six and a half billion.

And if I reach the demographic
expectation for the baby boomers,

it'll go over nine billion.

So if it takes 10,000 generations
to reach two billion

and then in one
human lifetime, ours,

it goes from two billion
to nine billion,

something profoundly different's
going on right now.

We're putting more pressure
on the earth.

Most of it's in the poorer
nations of the world.

This puts pressure
on food demand.

It puts pressure
on water demand.

It puts pressure on vulnerable
natural resources,

and this pressure's
one of the reasons

why we have seen all the
devastation of the forest,

not only tropical,
but elsewhere.

It is a political issue.

This is the border between Haiti
and the Dominican Republic.

One set of policies here,
another set of policies here.

Much of it comes not only because
of cutting, but--but also burning.

Almost 30 percent of all the CO2 that
goes up each year into the atmosphere

comes from forest burning.

This is a time-lapse picture of the
earth at night over a six-month period

showing the lights
of the cities in white

and the burning forests
and brush fires in red.

The yellow areas are the gas
flares, like these in Siberia.

And that brings me
to the second factor

that has transformed
our relationship to the earth.

The scientific and technological
revolution is a great blessing,

in that it has given us
tremendous benefits

in areas like medicine
and communications.

But this new power that we have
also brings a responsibility

to think about its consequences.

Here's a formula to think about.

Old habits plus old technology
have predictable consequences.

Old habits that are hard to
change plus new technology

can have dramatically
altered consequences.

Warfare with spears
and bows and arrows

and rifles and machine guns,
that's one thing.

But then a new technology came.

We have to think
differently about war

because the new technologies
so completely transformed

the consequences
of that old habit

that we can't just mindlessly
continue the patterns of the past.

In the same way, we have always
exploited the earth for sustenance.

For most of our existence, we
used relatively simple tools.

The plow, the tractor.

But even tools like shovels
are different now.

Shovel used to be this.

Shovels have gotten bigger.

And every year,
they get more powerful.

So our ability to have an effect, in
this case on the surface of the earth,

is utterly transformed.

You can say, uh, the same thing about
irrigation, which is a great thing.

But when we divert rivers without
considering the consequences,

then sometimes rivers no
longer reach the sea.

There were two rivers
in Central Asia

that were used by the former Soviet Union
for irrigating cotton fields unwisely.

The Aral Sea was fed by them.

It used to be the fourth largest
inland sea in the world.

When I went there,
I saw this strange sight

of an enormous fishing fleet
resting in the sand.

This is the canal that the fishing
industry desperately tried to build

to get to the receding
shoreline.

Making mistakes in our
dealings with nature can have

bigger consequences now

because our technologies are often
bigger than the human scale.

When you put them all together,
they've made us a force of nature.

And this is also
a political issue.

This is a computer map
of the world

that distorts to show the relative
contributions to global warming.

In our country, we are responsible
for more than all of South America,

all of Africa,
all of the Middle East,

all of Asia, all combined.

The per capita average in Africa,
India, China, Japan, EU, Russia.

There's where we are.
Way, way above everyone else.

If you take population into account,
it's a little bit different.

China's playing a bigger role,
so is Europe.

But we are still by all odds
the largest contributor.

And so it is up to us to look
at how we think about it,

because our way of thinking
is the third and final factor

that transforms
our relationship to the earth.

If a frog jumps into,
uh, a pot of boiling water,

it jumps right out again
because it senses the danger.

But the very same frog,

if it jumps into a pot
of lukewarm water

that is slowly
brought to a boil,

will just sit there
and it won't move.

It'll just sit there, even as the
temperature continues to go up and up.

It'll stay there, until...
Until it's rescued.

It's important
to rescue the frog.

But the point is this.

Our collective nervous system is
like that frog's nervous system.

It takes a sudden jolt sometimes
before we become aware of a danger.

If it seems gradual, even if it
really is happening quickly,

we're capable of just sitting
there and not responding.

And not reacting.

I don't remember a time
when I was a kid

when summertime didn't mean
working with tobacco.

It was just... I used to love it.
It was during that period

when working with
the guys on the farm

seemed like fun to me.

Starting in 1964, with the
Surgeon General's report,

the evidence was laid out
on the connection

between smoking cigarettes
and lung cancer.

We kept growing tobacco.

Nancy was, uh, almost 10 years
older than me,

and there were only
the two of us.

She was my protector

and my friend at the same time.

She started smoking
when she was a teenager

and, uh, never stopped.

She died of lung cancer.

That's one of the ways
you don't want to die.

The idea that, uh, we had been

part of that economic pattern

that produced the cigarettes,

that produced the cancer,

it was so...

It was so painful
on so many levels.

My father, he had grown tobacco
all his life. He stopped.

Whatever explanation

had seemed to make sense in the
past, just didn't cut it anymore.

He stopped it.

It's just human nature to take time
to connect the dots. I know that.

But I also know that there
can be a day of reckoning

when you wish you had connected
the dots more quickly.

There are three misconceptions in
particular that bedevil our thinking.

First, isn't there a
disagreement among scientists

about whether the problem
is real or not?

Actually, not really.

There was a massive study
of every scientific article

in a peer-reviewed journal written on
global warming for the last 10 years.

And they took a big sample
of 10 percent, 928 articles.

And you know the number of those that
disagreed with the scientific consensus

that we're causing global warming
and that it's a serious problem?

Out of the 928, zero.

The misconception that there's
disagreement about the science

has been deliberately created by a
relatively small group of people.

One of their internal memos
leaked.

And here's, uh, what it said,
according to the press.

Their objective is to
reposition global warming

as theory rather than fact.

This has happened before.

After the Surgeon General's
report.

One of their memos leaked 40 years ago.
Here's what they said.

"Doubt is our product,

"since it is the best means of creating
a controversy in the public's mind."

But have they succeeded?

You'll remember that there were
928 peer-reviewed articles.

Zero percent disagreed
with the consensus.

There was another study of all the
articles in the popular press.

Over the last 14 years, they
looked at a sample of 636.

More than half of them said,

"Well, we're not sure. It could be
a problem, may not be a problem."

So no wonder
people are confused.

Hey.

What did you find out?

Working for who?

Chief of Staff?

I'm gonna...

That's the White House
environment office.

American Petroleum Institute.
It's fair to say that's oil and--

and the oil and gas lobby.

Is that fair?

Totally fair.

Do a little bit more and see,
uh, who his clients were?

So he was defending
the Exxon Valdez thing.

Mmm-hmm.

Uh, very. Thank you.

Scientists have
an independent obligation

to respect and present
the truth as they see it.

Why do you directly
contradict yourself

in the testimony you're giving
about this scientific question?

The last paragraph in that section
was not a paragraph which I wrote.

That was added to my testimony.

If they force you to change
a scientific conclusion,

it's a form of science fraud
by them.

You know, in the Soviet Union,
ordering scientists

to change their studies to
conform with the ideology...

I've seen scientists

who were persecuted,

ridiculed,

deprived of, uh, jobs, income,

simply because the facts
they discovered

led them to
an inconvenient truth

that they insisted on telling.

He worked for the
American Petroleum Institute.

And in January of 2001,

he was put by the president in
charge of environmental policy.

He received a memo from the EPA

that warned about global warming

and he edited. He has no
scientific training whatsoever.

But he took it upon himself
to overrule the scientist.

I said, "I want to see what this
guy's handwriting looks like."

This is the memo from the EPA.
These are his actual pen strokes.

He says, "No, you can't say this.
This is just speculation."

This was embarrassing
to the White House,

so this fellow resigned
a few days later.

And the day after he resigned,
he went to work for Exxon Mobil.

You know, more than 100 years
ago, Upton Sinclair wrote this.

That it's difficult to get a
man to understand something

if his salary depends upon
his not understanding it.

The second misconception.

Do we have to choose between the
economy and the environment?

This is a big one.

Lot of people say we do.

I was trying to convince, uh,
the previous administration,

the first Bush administration,
to go to the Earth Summit.

And they organized
a big White House conference

to say,
"Oh, we're on top of this."

And one of these view graphs
caught my attention.

And I want to talk to you
about it for a minute.

Now here is, uh, the choice
that we have to make

according to this group.

We have here a--a scale that
balances two different things.

On one side,
we have gold bars.

Mmm. Mmm. Mmm.

Don't they look good?

I'd just like to have
some of those gold bars.

Mmm. Mmm.

On--On the other side of the
scales, uh, the entire planet.

Hmm. Hmm.

Hmm.

I think this is a false choice
for two reasons.

Number one,
if we don't have a planet...

The other reason is that
if we do the right thing,

then we're gonna create
a lot of wealth

- and we're gonna create a lot of jobs.
- Yes.

Because doing the right thing
moves us forward.

I've probably given this
slide show 1,000 times.

I would say,
at least 1,000 times.

Nashville to Knoxville
to Aspen and Sundance.

Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Portland, Minneapolis.

Boston, New Haven, London,
Brussels, Stockholm, Helsinki,

Vienna, Munich,
Italy and Spain

and China, South Korea, Japan.

Thank you.

I guess the thing I've spent more time
on than anything else in this slide show

is trying to identify

all those things
in people's minds

that serve as obstacles
to them understanding this.

A-And whenever I feel like
I've identified an obstacle,

I try to take it apart,
roll it away. Move it.

Demolish it, blow it up.

I set myself a goal.

Communicate this real clearly.

The only way I know to do it

is city by city,

person by person,

family by family.

- Bye-bye. Thank you again.
- Bye.

And I have faith
that pretty soon

enough minds are changed

that we cross a--a threshold.

Let me give you an example

of the wrong way to balance the
economy and the environment.

One part of this issue
involves automobiles.

Japan has mileage
standards up here.

Europe plans to pass Japan.

Our allies in Australia and
Canada are leaving us behind.

Here is where we are.

Now there's a reason for it.

They say that we can't protect
the environment too much

without threatening the economy
and threatening the automakers.

Because automakers in China might come
in and just steal all our markets.

Well, here is where China's
auto mileage standards are now.

Way above ours.

We can't sell our cars
in China today

because we don't meet the Chinese
environmental standards.

California has, uh,
taken an initiative

to have higher-mileage cars
sold in California.

Now the auto companies
have sued California

to prevent this law
from taking effect

because, as they point out,
11 years from now

this would mean that California
would have to have cars for sale

that are as efficient
11 years from now

as China's are today.

Clearly too onerous
a provision to comply with.

And is this helping
our companies succeed?

Well, actually, if you look at
who's doing well in the world,

it's the companies that are
building more-efficient cars.

And our companies
are in deep trouble.

Final misconception.

If we accept that
this problem is real,

maybe it's just too big
to do anything about.

And, you know, there are a lot of
people who go straight from denial

to despair

without pausing
on the intermediate step

of actually doing something
about the problem.

And that's what I'd like to finish with.
The fact that we already know

everything we need to know to
effectively address this problem.

We've got to do
a lot of things, not just one.

If we use more efficient

electricity appliances,

we can save this much off of
the global warming pollution

that would otherwise be
put into the atmosphere.

If we use other end-use
efficiency, this much.

If we have higher mileage
cars, this much.

And all these begin to add up.
Other transport efficiency,

renewable technology,

carbon capture and
sequestration.

A big solution that you're gonna
be hearing a lot more about.

They all add up,

and pretty soon we are below
our 1970 emissions.

We have everything we need,

save perhaps political will.

But you know what? In America, political
will is a renewable resource.

We have the ability to do this.

Each one of us is
a cause of global warming,

but each of us can make
choices to change that.

With the things we buy, the electricity
we use, the cars we drive,

we can make choices to bring our
individual carbon emissions to zero.

The solutions are in our hands.

We just have to have the
determination to make them happen.

Are we gonna be left behind as the
rest of the world moves forward?

All of these nations
have ratified Kyoto.

There are only two advanced nations in
the world that have not ratified Kyoto,

and we are one of them.
The other is Australia.

Luckily, several states
are taking the initiative.

The nine northeastern states
have banded together

on reducing CO2.

California and Oregon
are taking the initiative.

Pennsylvania's exercising leadership
on solar power and wind power.

And US cities are
stepping up to the plate.

One after the other,
we have seen

all of these cities pledge
to take on global warming.

So what about the rest of us?

Ultimately this question
comes down to this.

Are we, as Americans,

capable of doing great things

even though they are difficult?

Are we capable

of rising above ourselves
and above history?

Well, the record indicates
that we do have that capacity.

We formed a nation,
we fought a revolution

and brought something new
to this earth,

a free nation guaranteeing
individual liberty.

America made a moral decision.
Its slavery was wrong,

and that we could not be
half free and half slave.

We, as Americans, decided

that of course women should
have the right to vote.

We defeated totalitarianism
and won a war

in the Pacific and
the Atlantic simultaneously.

We desegregated our schools.

And we cured fearsome diseases
like polio.

We landed on the moon.

The very example of what's
possible when we are at our best.

We worked together
in a completely bipartisan way

to bring down communism.

We have even solved a global
environmental crisis before,

the hole in the stratospheric
ozone layer.

This was said to be
an impossible problem to solve

because it's a global
environmental challenge

requiring cooperation from
every nation in the world.

But we took it on.

And the United States took the
lead in phasing out the chemicals

that caused that problem.

So now we have to use our political
processes in our democracy,

and then decide to act together
to solve those problems.

But we have to have a different
perspective on this one.

It's different from any problem
we have ever faced before.

You remember that home movie of
the earth spinning in space?

One of those spacecraft continuing
on out into the universe,

when it got four billion miles
out in space,

Carl Sagan said, "Let's take
another picture of the earth."

You see that pale blue dot?

That's us.

Everything that has ever
happened in all of human history

has happened on that pixel.

All the triumphs
and all the tragedies.

All the wars, all the famines.

All the major advances.

It's our only home.

And that is what is at stake.

Our ability to live

on planet Earth,

to have a future
as a civilization.

I believe this is a moral issue.

It is your time
to seize this issue.

It is our time to rise again,
to secure our future.

There's nothing that unusual
about what I'm doing with this.

What is unusual is that I had
the privilege to be shown it

as a young man.

Ladies and gentlemen,
Mr. Al Gore.

It's almost as if a
window was opened through which

the future was
very clearly visible.

"See that?" he said,
"See that?

"That's the future in which you
are going to live your life."

Future generations

may well have occasion
to ask themselves,

"What were our parents thinking?

"Why didn't they wake up
when they had a chance?"

We have to hear that question
from them, now.