collision preventable?

Whatever you think about Al Gore, the man is as environmentally astute as they come. He wrote a book back in 1993 called Earth in the Balance, which I read in high school. Even though he’s out of the political limelight these days, he’s still calling us to account for the ways we are triggering a collision between our civilization and the planet.

Below, excerpts from his recent piece on Salon.com:

“[T]he relationship between humankind and the Earth has been utterly transformed. To begin with, we have quadrupled the population of our planet in the past hundred years. And secondly, the power of the technologies now at our disposal vastly magnifies the impact each individual can have on the natural world. Multiply that by six and a half billion people, and then stir into that toxic mixture a mind-set and an attitude that say it's OK to ignore scientific evidence -- that we don't have to take responsibility for the future consequences of present actions -- and you get this violent and destructive collision between our civilization and the Earth.

But there is no time to wait. In the 1930s, Winston Churchill also wrote of those leaders who refused to acknowledge the clear and present danger: "They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent. The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place, we are entering a period of consequences."

This is a moral moment. This is not ultimately about any scientific debate or political dialogue. Ultimately it is about who we are as human beings.

We have everything we need to face this urgent challenge. All it takes is political will. And in our democracy, political will is a renewable resource.”

I hope it is.