Al Gore Explains How Call For Climate Change Action Is Similar To Civil Rights Movement (Video)

The push for government action on climate change is like the US civil rights movement, according to former Vice President Al Gore. Both causes depended on and depend on a grassroots call to change.

Gore talked about those similarities during webcast interview with Katie Couric about his new book Our Choice, his follow-up to the film about global warming An Inconvenient Truth.

Couric referred to Gore as the "Godfather of Green" before beginning the 32-minute interview. Gore touched on the the moral issues surrounding inaction on climate change as well as cap and trade legislation specifics.

Watch the interview:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Comments

[TxAggie]

You cannot mention that Al's Climate change thing is a fraud.

[TxAggie]

You cannot mention Al's hair plugs and get past the censor.

[TxAggie]

You can say nothing bad about Al and get past the censor.

[TxAggie]

This woman is a journalist? WHere were the hard questions>

[RTIII]

Nice interview - excepting, of course, how Katie blows it by substituting the word "silicone" for "silicon" - but Gore was gracious enough not to point out her error.
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[freshmind]

He's a good con artist.

[DocSkull]

Do you have some sort of a well-formed critique or are you yourself running some kind of con?

[QuanticoCat]

What is more likely...

1) That we are in the midst of some global climate catastrophe which will doom us all.

or

2) Al Gore is desperately trying to cling to some sort of relevance.

[Agentlady007]

Such a beautiful man. I think if we all encourage him, he will be our president again.

[Calinative]

I wouldn't vote for him again.

[jer9848]

If we took care of the earth better then we take care of our bodies,we will be heading in the right direction.

[Chic Bowdrie]

Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and a few million others are rolling over in their graves.

[RTIII]

...at the continued apathy and wrong headedness of so many of us on such a vital subject. They'd tell us; protect the planet, silly! It houses the ONLY LIFE we know of in the entire universe!
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[QuanticoCat]

From 986 AD, Greenland's west coast was colonized by Icelanders and Norwegians in two settlements on fjords near the southwestern-most tip of the island. They shared the island with the late Dorset culture inhabitants who occupied the northern and eastern parts, and later with the Thule culture arriving from the north. The settlements, such as Brattahlið, thrived for centuries but disappeared some time in the 15th century, perhaps at the onset of the Little Ice Age. Interpretation of ice core data suggests that between 800 and 1300 AD the regions around the fjords of southern Greenland experienced a mild climate, with trees and herbaceous plants growing and livestock being farmed. What is verifiable is that the ice cores indicate Greenland has experienced dramatic temperature shifts many times over the past 100,000 years - which makes it possible to say that areas of Greenland may have been much warmer during the medieval period than they are now and that the ice sheet contracted significantly.

[DocSkull]

Current data suggests that it is unlikely that Greenland was warmer then than it is now. However, it wouldn't matter if it was because GLOBAL warming concerns the average of the planet, not just southwest Greenland.

[QuanticoCat]

It matters.

[RTIII]

A likely cause of any such shift would be an alteration in the flow of the Gulf Stream - the waters that are a primary cause of London's famous fog.

Any such warm period does not suggest global cooling, if that's what you're proposing; we know that simply isn't (wasn't) the case.
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[QuanticoCat]

What was the little ice age?

[niko73]

I think Al Gore needs to leave the climate change assertions to scientists. Some of his unsupported exaggerations are hurting our cause as much as he’s helping it.

[JanBjernfalk]

Here's the problem with that idea: James Hansen, Al Gore's most trusted science adviser on global warming, is speaking out against Cap and Trade legislation:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/epa-lawyers-challenge-cap-and-trade-for-climate/

What do we make of this? That we shouldn't leave politics to the scientists? Or that we shouldn't leave science to the politicians?

[blueshield]

I think it's fair to discriminate based on a person's expertise and profession.

I'll listen to my heart surgeon about a bypass, and my accountant about my taxes, but not my accountant about my surgery, or my surgeon about depreciation.

And if either of them tell me how to run my business, I'll consider the fact neither of them have never done it themselves.

That said, if either of them hands me information from a credible, expert source, I'll take a look. And if the source is thousands of experts, I'll consider it much more highly than a non-professional with an opinion.

[niko73]

These EPA lawyers are spot on. Cap and trade will only shift pollution overseas and increase pollution globally. We need a CARBON TAX, which will raise demand for green goods.

[DocSkull]

Hansen is critical of cap and trade because he wants the more severe direct TAX on carbon emissions.

[DocSkull]

Leaving "assertions" to scientists means a decoupling scientific certainty from political action. Which might be the poster's goal, but isn't a democratic means of running a country.

[niko73]

Politicians should ACT on science, not be the front man for the cause. There is a difference.

I thought it was immoral (almost evil) and almost certainly unproductive to insinuate a link between large storms and CO_2 emissions in his movie. It's not that I don’t think such a link is likely (seems very plausible to me), but there is no data yet. When Gore promises that we can avoid trouble by cutting emissions, he is making an assertion that he can not support with anything but a gut feeling. Now every year that doesn't produce a cat 5 storm we will have to listen to a bunch climate change deniers tell us how it’s stupid to conserve energy.

Science is uncertain. We know CO_2 is affecting climate, but much after that is not certain. Making blanket assertions that don't turn out to be true ruins the cause's credibility.

[RadCenter]

I don't know what Al Gore has been eating, but he appears to have lost a lot of weight and looks better than I've seen him looking in years!

[Dredd]

Of course there are similarities, however the one had to do with the rights of a single people, the other has to do with the survival of the entire species.

http://ecocosmology.blogspot.com/2009/09/tenets-of-ecocosmology.html

[blueshield]

It's cute how folks seem to think Al Gore had such an impact on US policy on climate change.

But why don't we see you calling this man out as a liar?

"In recent years, science has deepened our understanding of climate change and opened new possibilities for confronting it. The United States takes this issue seriously. By the end of next year, America and other nations will set a long-term global goal for reducing greenhouse gases." President George W Bush May 2007

Statement issued by the White House Feb 2007: "Beginning in June 2001, President Bush has consistently acknowledged climate change is occurring and humans are contributing to the problem."

If you believe what you're saying about Gore, let's see you post the same complaints against GW.

[Please-Play-Fair]

I am not sure I understand your angst. So you are saying that Bush lied about global warming?

[blueshield]

I've seen a great deal of sneering, anger and accusations leveled towards "greenies", Gore, liberals, and so on by folks who don't believe climate change is real.

Curiously, not one of them ever attacks the Republican President, George Bush, for taking formally and publicly acknowledging that climate change is real and human influenced, and for making that position US policy - the first to do so, and a complete 180 reversal from his previous stance, and the stance of many in his own party and conservative base.

If they really believe Gore is wrong, then they must also believe Bush is wrong.

I've invited them to say so, here.

[miller4me10]

It’s nice to see that Gore is about to become a billionaire because of the smart-grid.

[RadCenter]

Yes, it is, isn't it? Imagine someone deriving income from something that actually adds to our quality of life. Ain't capitalism great?

[DocSkull]

Gore's wealth is mostly from other sources. He's made a lot of smart moves where the guy who got the presidency made a lot of dumb ones. Perhaps it is time to learn from our mistakes?