Al Gore: 对气候危机的新思维

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http://dotsub.com/view/d046e360-e30d-4895-846d-59d97a2680b8
Al Gore: 对气候危机的新思维
两年前我在此做了一次幻灯片演讲，后来我将同样内容的演讲作了大约2000次。 今天上午，我要做的简短的演讲内容 是我破天荒的第一次，所以—— 呵呵， 我并非要提高演讲水平 实际上我在试图去降低标准。 因为我只是拼凑这些材料 来完成这个讲座。
我想起了卡伦•阿姆斯特朗的精彩演讲， 他提到真正被理解的宗教， 并非关于教义，而是关系行为。 对于乐观主义，也许我们应有同样的说法。 我们怎敢乐观？ 乐观主义有时被描绘为一种信念，一种智识上的心境。 但是像圣雄甘地的名言所说的， “你必须成为你愿意看到的变化。” 所以，我们试图以乐观心境期待的结果 并非由信念本身就能创造出来， 除非这种信念， 能带来新的行为模式。但是“行为”这个词， 我想，在这个语境下也经常被误解。 我大力提倡更换 灯泡以及购买混合动力汽车， 我和妻子Tipper也在家里的房子上安装了33个太阳能电板， 并建造地热能井和做所有其他的类似事情。 但是，就像和换灯泡一样， 更重要的是修订法律 当我们改变我们日常生活的行为模式的时候， 我们间或忘记了“公民” 和“民主”这些部分。为了能真的乐观， 我们必须在我们的民主体制中以公民的身份积极行动。 为了解决气候危机， 我们必须先解决民主危机。 我这里有一个故事。
很久以来我就想讲这个故事。 最近我被一个女士提醒， 当她经过我就坐的桌子的时候， 一直盯着我看，直到她走过。她已经70多岁了， 看起来很和蔼。我对此也没多想， 直到我从眼角的余光中看到， 她竟然从相反的方向返回， 并一直瞪着我。我只好说，“你好！” 她随即说，“你知道吗，如果你把你的头发染黑， 你就会和阿尔•戈尔长得一模一样。”（笑声）
很多年前，当我还是个年轻的国会议员的时候， 我花费了大量的时间来处理 核武器控制和核军备竞赛带来的挑战。 那时军事历史学家告诉我， 经过研究，典型的军事冲突 可以分为三种类型：局部战斗， 地区或战区战争，以及罕见的但极重要的 全球性的世界大战，即战略冲突。 每种级别冲突需要不同的资源配置， 一种不同的途径， 和一种不同的组织模式。 环境危机也可以被划分为类似的三种类型， 大部分我们经常想到的危机 都是局部的地方环境问题：空气污染、水污染 垃圾排放。但同时也有 区域性的环境为题，比如酸雨， 从中西部地区到东北部地区，从西欧 到北极，从密西西比以外 的中西部到墨西哥湾的死亡地带。 还有很多此类的问题。但是具有以下特征的气候危机： 是罕见、极为重要、 全球性、或战略性的冲突， 将会影响所有的事物。所以我们必须相应地组织应对。 我们需要一个世界性的、全球大动员， 来推进可再生能源、节能、效率 和全球地向低碳经济的过度。 我们要做这些工作。我们可以整合人力、财力资源 和政治意愿。但是，政治意愿 必须先行动起来，才能调动资源。
我给大家展示一些幻灯片。 我想我将从这个标志开始。这里少了什么呢， 当然，是北极的冰盖。 格陵兰岛还在。28年前，这是那时 的极地——北极的冰盖的形状， 时间是夏末的秋分节气。 上个秋季，我去了“雪冰数据中心”， 它设在卡拉尔多的Boulder市；我并和在本地Monterey市的 海军研究实验室的研究人员做了交谈。 这就是在过去28年里所发生的。 从整体趋势来看，设定2005年为记录点。 这是上个秋季发生的变化， 这些变化真的让研究人员们感到焦虑。 北极冰盖的地理面积 虽然看起来不太吻合， 但实际上正好等于美国本土的面积 减去亚利桑那州的大小。 在2005年冰盖消失的面积， 和密西西比以东的所有州面积总和一样大。 去年秋季冰盖消失的面积 大约和这个同量。冰盖在冬季恢复了一些， 但此时形成的不是永久型冰盖，而是薄的冰层， 非常脆弱。剩下的冰盖可能在至少五年内 的夏季全部消失。 这给格陵兰岛带来很大的压力。 在北极圈地区， 这是一个很有名的村庄。这是一个小镇， 在纽芬兰。下面让我们看南极。NASA最新的研究表明， 中度和重度的冰雪融化的面积， 相当于整个加利福尼亚洲。
“ 这是最好的时代， 也是最坏的时代，”在英国文学中最著名的 开场词。我想简单地和大家分享一下 “双星记。”地球和金星 大小一样。地球的直径 比金星长约400千米，但是在实质上二者还是一致的。 两个星球有恰好同等数量的碳含量。 但是区别在于，在地球上，大多数的碳元素 已被从空气中吸取， 储存在地下，以煤、石油、 天然气等形式。而在金星上，大多数碳 都在大气中。不同的结果是我们的温度 是平均59度。在金星上， 是855度。而与此相关的，我们现在的活动是， 从地表中尽快提取越来越多的碳元素， 并排放到大气中。 并非因为进行金星离太阳更近一些， 它可是比水星还要热三倍， 而水星是紧挨着太阳的。现在，简短的， 这是你看到的旧图像之一， 我展示它是因为我想给大家简短地展示 犯罪现场调查之：气候。
全球科学界说， 人为温室气体的排放，在大气积聚， 变厚，堵住了更多被地表反射出去的红外线。 大家都知道这些。在上一个 政府间气候变化专门委员会（IPCC）的总结中，科学家们想问， “你们有多确定？”委员会的官员们想回答说“百分之九十九地确定。” 中国代表反对，最后的妥协是 “大于百分之九十地确定。” 现在，怀疑论者们会说，“啊，等一下， 另外一个可能因素可能是——能量 从太阳而来。"如果这说法是正确的， 那么平流层也会变得更热，和底层大气一样， 假设更多红外线照射到地球上。 如果红外线是在被发射逃逸的过程中被阻拦，理论上 底层大气将会更热而平流层会更冷。这里是底层大气。 而这里是平流层：更冷了。 犯罪现场调查之气候篇
现在，好消息是，百分之六十八的美国人相信 人类活动应该为全球变暖负责。 百分之六十九的人相信，地球正在显著地 变暖。进步已经在发生了， 但要点是，当做一个清单来列举 要面临的挑战时，全球变暖仍然是在接近清单的最低端。 缺少的是——紧迫感。 如果你认同事实方面的分析， 却没有感觉到紧迫感， 那你在想什么呢？ 我领导的“气候保护联盟” 与CurrentTV合作做了一个公益活动， 我们主办了世界性的广告大赛，主题是如何宣传紧迫感。 这是获奖作品。
在此我将展示所有电视网络公司——NBC的资深记者 在2007年问了956个问题， ——给总统候选人的问题：其中两个是关于 气候危机。ABC：844个问题，两个关于气候危机。 FOX：两个；CNN：两个；CBS：零个。 从笑声到眼泪。这是一个旧时的 香烟广告。 这是我们在做的事情。 这是所有这些国家的石油消耗量，以及，我们美国。 但是不只是发达国家， 发展中国家也在追随我们 并加快了排放的步伐。并且，事实上 发展中国家今年的排放量相等于 我们1965年的排放量。但是他们在 急速赶上。结果是， 到2025年的时候，发展中国家会和我们在1985年的排放水平一致。 即使将富裕国家整个地从地图上 抹去，我们仍然要面临气候危机。 但是我们已经给予了发展中国家 技术和思维方式， 这些东西导致了气候危机。这里是玻利维亚， 时间幅度为三十年。
这个几秒钟图示是关于捕鱼的高峰期。六十年代， 七十年代，八十年代，九十年代。我们必须停止。好消息是，我们可以做到。 我们已有必要的科技， 我们所需要有的是关于如何行动的统一的观点： 世界上对贫困的抗争 还有富裕国家的减排所面临的挑战 都有单一的、非常简单的解决方案。
人们问，“什么是解决方案？”这就是， 给碳排放标价。我们需要二氧化碳税，收入中性型的， 来取代对雇佣的征税；这是由Bismark发明的理论—— 其中有些部分自19世纪以来 已经被改变。 在贫穷国家，我们应将解决贫困问题 和应对气候危机的措施统一起来。 解决乌干达贫困问题的计划 将会是毫无意义的，如果我们不解决气候变化问题。
但是对应措施实际上可以在贫穷国家 引发出重大的改变。 这是一个 在欧洲被广泛讨论的提议。 这是取自《自然》杂志。这些是 可再生太阳能收集站，连接起来形成超级网络， 来供应电力， 大部分从发展中国家向欧洲，高压直流电。 这不是“天上掉馅饼”的事，而是切实可行的。
为了我们自己的经济，我们也应去做。 最新的数据显示旧的模式 已不再有效。大家可以选择其他 重要投资。如果你正在投资焦油砂 或页岩油，那么你的资产组合 充满了“次贷碳资产”。 这种组合是以旧的模式为基础的。 瘾君子们在他们的脚趾上找静脉血管，当胳膊 和腿部的静脉委痿陷时。发展焦油砂 和页岩油就和瘾君子们一样。这里是一些投资， 我个人认为有意义的投资。 我在这些投资中有股份，所以在此要发表一下免责声明。 比如地热能，太阳能收集技术， 高级光电转换技术，（这些技术）（提高了）能源利用效率和能量转换率。
大家以前看过这幅幻灯片，但是其中有一个变化。 仅有的两个没有批准京都议定书的国家 ——现在只有一个。不久前澳大利亚举行了选举， 也有了一场运动， 电视、互联网和广播广告都参与进来 来提高澳洲民众对气候变化的紧迫感的认识。 我们培训了250人来做这个幻灯片演讲， 传播到了澳大利亚的每一个小镇、村庄和城市。 很多其它的因素也有贡献， 新首相宣布 他的首要措施是改变澳大利亚对京都议定书的 立场，他的确做到了。澳洲清醒了， 部分是因为他们经历的恐怖的干旱。 这是拉尼尔湖。我的朋友Heidi Cullins说 如果如果我们像命名飓风一样来命名干旱， 我们将称呼现在东南部的干旱为“卡特琳娜”， 而且我们还会说，它正在超亚特兰大方向移动。 我们不能等到美国发生像澳大利亚一样的干旱 才改变我们的政治认识。 这里有更多的好消息。美国城市中支持京都议定书的 已经有780个——我想我看到了一个名字闪过了， 就是它！这的确是好消息。
作为结束语，多日以前，我们听说 太多的制造个人英雄主义的故事 以至于它们变得陈腐或公式化。 我们需要的是另外一个英雄年代。我们， 今天生活在美国的我们， 还有世界上的其他人， 必须或多或少明白，历史 给了我们一个抉择——就像Jill Bolte Taylor选择去 如何拯救她的生命，在她被自己所经历的 惊人的体验所困扰的时候。 我们有困扰的文化， 但是我们面临星球危机。 我们必须找到一个途径来培养 在世的这一代人代际使命的责任感。 我希望我能找到传达这些理念的词语。 过去曾有英雄一代， 他们给地球带来了民主 另外一代结束了奴隶制；还有一代给予了妇女投票权。 我们能做到这些。不要告诉我我们没有能力去做。 如果我们有我们在伊拉克战争中一周消耗的金钱， 我们就足以着手解决气候危机了。 我们有能力去做！
最后一点。我很乐观，因为我相信 在面临重大挑战时，我们有能力 排除其他因素的干扰并应对 历史给我们带来的危机。 有时候我听到人们对气候危机的让人烦恼的事实回应， 他们说，“哦，太恐怖了， 我们的责任太大了吧！”我会让你 重新表达你的看法。在人类历史上 有多少代人有过机会 来解决我们现在要极力应对的挑战？ 一个促使我们 做比我们知道我们可以做的比我们想到的更多的挑战？我想我们应当开始对付 这个挑战，怀着全然的快乐感 和感激——我们是这一代！ 一千年后， 慈善交响乐团、诗人和歌唱家将庆祝， 说，他们是那些通过他们自己 解决了这个危机并为光明 和乐观的人类未来奠下根基。
让我们行动吧！非常感谢。
克里斯•安德尔逊：对于参与TED的很多人来说， 在今天快要结束的时候，大家都有一个问题， 一个关于选举制度的问题， 差的选举制度意味着您的意见不能被采纳。 就像您以前在位的八年时间内， 您本来是可以实现这些事情的。 这种结果的伤害很大啊。
但你也不知道。（笑）
当你看到那么你自己党的主要的候选人 他们在做的事情，——我的意思是—— 你对他们在全球变暖上的计划感到兴奋吗？
戈尔：这个问题对我来说很难回答， 因为，在一方面，我想 我们应对现在的竞选态势感觉不错， 共和党的提名人， 麦克•凯恩，还有两位 民主党提名人，他们三位都有一份非常不同的 和前瞻性的立场 来应对气候危机。三位都承诺在此事项的领导力， 并且三位都和现任政府采取的途径 有所不同。我想 三位都曾负责 提出前瞻性的计划和提议。但是竞选宣言—— 就像问题所展示的—— 是被“保守选民联盟” 组合在一起的；还有对问题的分析也是—— 再者，顺便说一下，这些辩论本身 在举办是就已被贴上一种奥威尔标签， “清洁煤炭。”有人注意到了没有？ 其中任何一场辩论都是由“清洁煤炭”主办的。 “现在，更低量的排放！”
对话的深度和广度 在我们的民主体制下没有为真正需要的 大手笔计划打下基础。 所以他们在说正确的事情而且他们可能—— 无论谁当选——可能做正确的事情， 但是让我告诉你：当我从京都回来时， 那是在1997年，我满怀喜悦， 觉得我们已经在那里取得突破性的进展； 但后来提交合众国参议院审议时， 100名参议员中只有一人愿意投票赞成 确认和批准那个公约。无论竞选人说的是什么， 都必须和人民说什么放在一起看。
这种挑战是组成我们整个文明的 基本构造的一部分。 不夸张地说， 二氧化碳是我们文明散发的呼吸。 现在我们把整个过程机械化了，改变了模式； 这样就需要一种全新的角度、尺寸和速度的变化， 一个超越了我们在过去所做过的任何事情的变化。 这就是为什么我在开始说， 对你所做的要乐观，但是要成为一个积极的公民。 要求——不只是改变灯泡 而是改变法律，改变全球性条约。 我们必须站起来发出声音，我们必须解决这个民主的问题—— 我们的民主机制存在僵化现象，我们必须改变这种僵化。 利用互联网，挂到网上， 联系人们，作为公民而积极活跃。 要中止——我们不应当再有 任何新的煤动力火电站， 这种火电站不能留存二氧化碳。这意味着我们必须 快速建造利用可再生能源。 现在没有人在这个层次上讨论。但是我相信， 从现在开始到十月份，这是可能的。 气候保护联盟 将发起一个全国性的运动—— 从草根阶层的动员、电视广告、互联网广告， 到广播台、报社——与每一个人合作 从女童子军到猎人和渔夫。
我们需要协助助，我们需要协助。
关于你个人在以后的角色， 阿尔，有其他想法吗？除了 你想要做的？
阿尔•戈尔：我祈祷我能够找到答案 来回答这个问题。我能做什么呢？ 巴克敏斯特•富勒写道，“如果 人类文明的未来都依赖我了，我要做什么？ 我将成为什么？”未来的确依赖于我们大家， 但是再说一遍，并非仅指望换个电灯泡。 我们，在做诸位的多数，是美国人。我们有民主制度。 我们能改变，但是我们必须积极地去行动。 所需要的只是更高水平的认识。 这种认识很难—— 很难去创造——但是它即将到来。 大家有些人可能知道一句古老的非洲谚语， 谚语说，“如果你想走得快，要独行； 如果你想走得远，结伙而行。”我们必须走得快而远， 所以我们必须改变我们的意识， 改变我们的信奉。一种新的危机感， 和新认识——我们具有殊荣 来应对这个挑战！
安德尔逊：阿尔•戈尔，非常感谢您来到TED！
戈尔：谢谢！非常感谢！

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Al Gore: New thinking on the climate crisis
I have given the slide show that I gave here two years ago about 2,000 times. I'm giving a short slide show this morning that I'm giving for the very first time, so -- well it's -- I don't want or need to raise the bar; I'm actually trying to lower the bar. Because I've cobbled this together to try to meet the the challenge of this session.

And I was reminded by Karen Armstrong's fantastic presentation that religion really properly understood is not about belief, but about behavior. Perhaps we should say the same thing about optimism. How dare we be optimistic? Optimism is sometimes characterized as a belief, an intellectual posture. As Mahatma Gandhi famously said, "You must become the change you wish to see in the world." And the outcome about which we wish to be optimistic is not going to be created by the belief alone, except to the extent that the belief brings about new behavior. But the word "behavior" is also, I think, sometimes misunderstood in this context. I'm a big advocate of changing the light bulbs and buying hybrids, and Tipper and I put 33 solar panels on our house, and dug the geothermal wells, and did all of that other stuff. But, as important as it is to change the light bulbs, it is more important to change the laws. And when we change our behavior in our daily lives, we sometimes leave out the citizenship part and the democracy part. In order to be optimistic about this, we have to become incredibly active as citizens in our democracy. In order to solve the climate crisis, we have to solve the democracy crisis. And we have one.

I have been trying to tell this story for a long time. I was reminded of that recently by a woman who walked past the table I was sitting at, just staring at me as she walked past. She was in her '70s, looked like she had a kind face. I thought nothing of it until I saw from the corner of my eye she was walking from the opposite direction, also just staring at me. And so I said, "How do you do?" And she said, "You know, if you dyed your hair black, you would look just like Al Gore." (Laughter)

Many years ago, when I was a young congressman, I spent an awful lot of time dealing with the challenge of nuclear arms control -- the nuclear arms race. And the military historians taught me during that quest that military conflicts are typically put into three categories: local battles, regional or theater wars, and the rare but all-important global, world war. Strategic conflicts. And each level of conflict requires a different allocation of resources a different approach, a different organizational model. Environmental challenges fall into the same three categories, and most of what we think about are local environmental problems: air pollution, water pollution, hazardous waste dumps. But there are also regional environmental problems, like acid rain from the Midwest to the Northeast, and from Western Europe to the Arctic, and from the Midwest out the Mississippi into the dead zone of the Gulf of Mexico. And there are lots of those. But the climate crisis is the rare but all-important global, or strategic, conflict. Everything is affected. And we have to organize our response appropriately. We need a worldwide, global mobilization for renewable energy, conservation, efficiency and a global transition to a low-carbon economy. We have work to do. And we can mobilize resources and political will. But the political will has to be mobilized in order to mobilize the resources.

Let me show you these slides here. I thought I would start with the logo. What's missing here, of course, is the North Polar ice cap. Greenland remains. 28 years ago, this is what the polar ice cap -- the North Polar ice cap -- looked like at the end of the summer at the fall equinox. This last fall, I went to the Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, and talked to the researchers here in Monterey at the Naval Postgraduate Laboratory. This is what's happened in the last 28 years. To put it in perspective, 2005 was the previous record. Here's what happened last fall that has really unnerved the researchers. The North Polar ice cap is the same size geographically. Doesn't look quite the same size, but it is exactly the same size as the United States, minus an area roughly equal to the state of Arizona. The amount that disappeared in 2005 was equivalent to everything east of the Mississippi. The extra amount that disappeared last fall was equivalent to this much. It comes back in the winter, but not as permanent ice: as thin ice. Vulnerable. The amount remaining could be completely gone in summer in as little as five years. That puts a lot of pressure on Greenland. Already, around the Arctic circle -- this is a famous village in Alaska. This is a town in Newfoundland. Antarctica. Latest studies from NASA. The amount of a moderate-to-severe snow melting of an area equivalent to the size of California.

"They were the best of times, they were the worst of times": the most famous opening sentence in English literature. I want to share briefly a "Tale of Two Planets." Earth and Venus are exactly the same size. Earth's diameter is about 400 kilometers larger, but essentially the same size. They have exactly the same amount of carbon. But the difference is, on Earth, most of the carbon has been leeched over time out of the atmosphere, deposited in the ground as coal, oil, natural gas, etc. On Venus, most of it is in the atmosphere. The difference is that our temperature is 59 degrees on average. On Venus, it's 855. This is relevant to our current strategy of taking as much carbon out of the ground as quickly as possible and putting it into the atmosphere. It's not because Venus is slightly closer to the Sun. It's three times hotter than Mercury, which is right next to the sun. Now, briefly, here's an image you've seen as one of the only old images, but I show it because I want to briefly give you CSI: Climate.

The global scientific community says, man-made global warming pollution, put into the atmosphere, thickening this, is trapping more of the outgoing infrared. You all know that. At the last IPCC summary, the scientists wanted to say, "How certain are you?" They wanted to answer that "99 percent." The Chinese objected, and so the compromise was "more than 90 percent." Now, the skeptics say, "Oh, wait a minute, this could be variations in the -- in this energy coming in from the sun." If that were true, the stratosphere would be heated as well as the lower atmosphere, if it's more coming in. If it's more being trapped on the way out, then you would expect it to be warmer here and cooler here. Here is the lower atmosphere. Here's the stratosphere: cooler. CSI: Climate.

Now, here's the good news. 68 percent of Americans now believe that human activity is responsible for global warming. 69 percent believe that the Earth is heating up in a significant way. There has been progress, but here is the key: when given a list of challenges to confront, global warming is still listed at near the bottom. What is missing is a sense of urgency. If you agree with the factual analysis, but you don't feel the sense of urgency, where does that leave you? Well, the Alliance for Climate Protection, which I head in conjunction with CurrentTV -- who did this pro-bono, did a worldwide contest to do commercials on how to communicate this. This is the winner.

NBC -- I'll show all of the networks here -- the top journalists for NBC asked 956 questions in 2007 of the presidential candidates: two of them were about the climate crisis. ABC: 844 questions, two about the climate crisis. Fox: two. CNN: two. CBS: zero. From laughs to tears. This is one of the older tobacco commercials. So here's what we're doing. This is gasoline consumption in all of these countries. And us. But it's not just the developed nations. The developing countries are now following us and accelerating their pace. And actually, their cumulative emissions this year are the equivalent to where we were in 1965. And they're catching up very dramatically. The total concentrations: by 2025, they will be essentially where where we were in 1985. If the wealthy countries were completely missing from the picture, we would still have this crisis. But we have given to the developing countries the technologies and the ways of thinking that are creating the crisis. This is in Bolivia. Over -- over thirty years.

This is peak fishing in a few seconds. The '60s. '70s. '80s. '90s. We have to stop this. And the good news is that we can. We have the technologies. We have to have a unified view of how to go about this: the struggle against poverty in the world and the challenge of cutting wealthy country emissions, all has a single, very simple solution.

People say, "What's the solution?" Here it is. Put a price on carbon. We need a CO2 tax, revenue-neutral, to replace taxation on employment, which was invented by Bismark -- and some things have changed since the 19th century. In the poor world, we have to integrate the responses to poverty with the solutions to the climate crisis. Plans to fight poverty in Uganda are mooted if we do not solve the climate crisis.

But responses can actually make a huge difference in the poor countries. This is a proposal that has been talked about a lot in Europe. This was from Nature Magazine. These are concentrating solar renewable-energy plants, linked in a so-called supergrid to supply all of the electrical power to Europe, largely from developing countries. High-voltage DC currents. This is not "pie in the sky;" this can be done.

We need to do it for our own economy. The latest figures show that the old model is not working. There are a lot of great investments that you can make. If you are investing in tar sands or shale oil, then you have a portfolio that is crammed with sub-prime carbon assets. And it is based on an old model. Junkies find veins in their toes when the ones in their arms and their legs collapse. Developing tar sands and coal shale is the equivalent. Here are just a few of the investments that I personally think make sense. I have a stake in these, so I'll have a disclaimer there. But geothermal, concentrating solar, advanced photovaltaics, efficiency and conservation.

You've seen this slide before, but there's a change. The only two countries that didn't ratify -- and now there's only one. Australia had an election. And there was a campaign in Australia that involved television and Internet and radio commercials to lift the sense of urgency for the people there. And we trained 250 people to give the slide show in every town and village and city in Australia. Lot of other things contributed to it, but the new Prime Minister announced that his very first priority would be to change Australia's position on Kyoto, and he has. Now, they came to an awareness partly because of the horrible drought that they had. This is Lake Lanier. My friend Heidi Cullins said that if we gave droughts names the way we give hurricanes names, we'd call the one in the southeast now Katrina, and we would say it's headed toward Atlanta. We can't wait for the kind of draught Australia had to change our political culture. Here's more good news. The cities supporting Kyoto in the U.S. are up to 780 -- and I thought I saw one go by there, just to localize this. Which is good news.

Now to close, we heard a couple of days ago about the value of making individual heroism so commonplace that it becomes banal or routine. What we need is another hero generation. Those of us who are alive in the United States of America today especially, but also the rest of the world, have to somehow understand that history has presented us with a choice -- just as Jill Bolte Taylor was figuring out how to save her life while she was distracted by the amazing experience that she was going through. We now have a culture of distraction. But we have a planetary emergency. And we have to find a way to create, in the generation of those alive today, a sense of generational mission. I wish I could find the words to convey this. This was another hero generation that brought democracy to the planet. Another that ended slavery. And that gave women the right to vote. We can do this. Don't tell me that we don't have the capacity to do it. If we had just one week's worth of what we spend on the Iraq war, we could be well on the way to solving this challenge. We have the capacity to do it.

One final point. I'm optimistic, because I believe we have the capacity, at moments of great challenge, to set aside the causes of distraction and rise to the challenge that history is presenting to us. Sometimes I hear people respond to the disturbing facts of the climate crisis by saying, "Oh, this is so terrible. What a burden we have." I would like to ask you to re-frame that. How many generations in all of human history have had the opportunity to rise to a challenge that is worthy of our best efforts? A challenge that can pull from us more than we knew we could do? I think we ought to approach this challenge with a sense of profound joy and gratitude that we are the generation about which, a thousand years from now, philharmonic orchestras and poets and singers will celebrate by saying, they were the ones that found it within themselves to solve this crisis and lay the basis for a bright and optimistic human future.

Let's do that. Thank you very much.

Chris Anderson: For so many people at TED, there is deep pain that basically a design issue -- at the end of the day, a design issue on a voting form -- one bad design issue meant that your voice wasn't being heard like that in the last eight years in a position where you could make these things come true. That hurts.

Al Gore: You have no idea. (Laughter)

CA: When you look at what the leading candidates in your own party are doing now -- I mean, there's -- are you excited by their plans on global warming?

AG: The answer to the question is hard for me because, on the one hand, I think that we should feel really great about the fact that the Republican nominee -- certain nominee -- John McCain, and both of the finalists for the Democratic nomination -- all three have a very different and forward-leaning position on the climate crisis. All three have offered leadership, and all three are very different from the approach taken by the current administration. And I think that all three have also been responsible in putting forward plans and proposals. But the campaign dialogue that -- as illustrated by the questions -- that was put together by the League of Conservation Voters, by the way, the analysis of all the questions -- and, by the way, the debates have all been sponsored by something that goes by the Orwellian label, "Clean Coal." Has anybody noticed that? Every single debate has been sponsored by "Clean Coal." "Now, even lower emissions!"

The richness and fullness of the dialogue in our democracy has not laid the basis for the kind of bold initiative that is really needed. So they're saying the right things and they may -- whichever of them is elected -- may do the right thing, but let me tell you: when I came back from Kyoto in 1997 with a feeling of great happiness that we'd gotten that breakthrough there, and then confronted the United States Senate, only one out of 100 senators was willing to vote to confirm, to ratify that treaty. Whatever the candidates say has to be laid alongside what the people say.

This challenge is part of the fabric of our whole civilization. CO2 is the exhaling breath of our civilization, literally. And now we mechanized that process. Changing that pattern requires a scope, a scale, a speed of change that is beyond what we have done in the past. So that's why I began by saying, be optimistic in what you do, but be an active citizen Demand -- change the light bulbs, but change the laws. Change the global treaties. We have to speak up. We have to solve this democracy -- this -- We have sclerosis in our democracy. And we have to change that. Use the Internet. Go on the Internet. Connect with people. Become very active as citizens. Have a moratorium -- we shouldn't have any new coal fire generating plants that aren't able to capture and store CO2. Which means we have to quickly build these renewable sources. Now, nobody is talking on that scale. But I do believe that between now and November, it is possible. This Alliance for Climate Protection is going to launch a nationwide campaign -- grassroots mobilization, television ads, Internet ads, radio, newspaper -- with partnerships with everybody from the Girl Scouts to the hunters and fishermen.

We need help. We need help.

CA: In terms of your own personal role going forward, Al, is there something more than that you would like to be doing?

AG: I have prayed that I would be able to find the answer to that question. What can I do? Buckminster Fuller once wrote, "If the future of all human civilization depended on me, what would I do? How would I be?" It does depend on all of us, but again, not just with the light bulbs. We, most of us here, are Americans. We have a democracy. We can change things, but we have to actively change. What's needed really is a higher level of consciousness. And that's hard to -- that's hard to create -- but it is coming. There's an old African proverb that some of you know that says, "If you want to go quickly, go alone; if you want to go far, go together." We have to go far quickly. So we have to have a change in consciousness. A change in commitment. A new sense of urgency. A new appreciation for the privilege that we have of undertaking this challenge.

CA: Al Gore, thank you so much for coming to TED.

AG: Thank you. Thank you very much.