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]

06:44 PM on 11/16/2009

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

[TxAggie]

08:37 AM on 11/15/2009

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

[TxAggie]

07:08 AM on 11/15/2009

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

[TxAggie]

02:08 PM on 11/10/2009

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

[RTIII]

12:02 PM on 11/08/2009

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.
.

[freshmind]

02:28 AM on 11/04/2009

He's a good con artist.

[DocSkull]

06:58 AM on 11/04/2009

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

[QuanticoCat]

09:04 AM on 11/04/2009

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]

09:40 PM on 11/03/2009

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

[Calinative]

11:14 PM on 11/06/2009

I wouldn't vote for him again.

[jer9848]

08:29 PM on 11/03/2009

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]

07:43 PM on 11/03/2009

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

[RTIII]

09:02 AM on 11/04/2009

...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!
.

[QuanticoCat]

06:12 PM on 11/03/2009

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]

11:03 PM on 11/03/2009

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]

11:17 PM on 11/03/2009

It matters.

[RTIII]

08:58 AM on 11/04/2009

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.
.

[QuanticoCat]

09:11 AM on 11/04/2009

What was the little ice age?

[niko73]

05:11 PM on 11/03/2009

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]

05:29 PM on 11/03/2009

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]

06:01 PM on 11/03/2009

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]

07:38 PM on 11/03/2009

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]

06:13 PM on 11/03/2009

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]

07:43 PM on 11/03/2009

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]

05:10 PM on 11/03/2009

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]

03:20 PM on 11/03/2009

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]

01:17 PM on 11/03/2009

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]

04:31 PM on 11/03/2009

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

[blueshield]

04:42 PM on 11/03/2009

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.

[JanBjernfalk]

05:16 PM on 11/03/2009

Bush was wrong about so many things ... and in this case he was wrong about global warming as well.

And let's not forget that it was during the Clinton administra­tion that the US Senate voted against signing the Kyoto treaty.

There you go.

[blueshield]

05:54 PM on 11/03/2009

I'll accept that you disagree with GW and the evidence and sources he consulted to change his own view on the subject.

[DocSkull]

11:12 PM on 11/03/2009

A Republican controlled Senate.

[miller4me10]

12:58 PM on 11/03/2009

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

[RadCenter]

04:50 PM on 11/03/2009

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]

11:13 PM on 11/03/2009

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?