By Robert Bradley Jr. — November 28, 2023
“The global environment crisis may demand responses that are comparatively radical…. It will call for … a Strategic Environment Initiative.” (Al Gore, 1989)
Al Gore might be the the slickest of the 70,000 expected at the United Nations’ Conference of the Parties (COP28) climate meeting in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from November 30th until December 12, 2023. Gore is the world’s #1 climate barker–and has made tens of millions of dollars from his “crisis.” He has one of the highest CO2 footprints on the globe … but he is different, you know.
So what’s new with Al Gore’s pitch? Not much. His crisis in the 1980s is still the crisis of 2023. We are in a “planetary emergency.” We are almost out of time. There is hope with a new energy future….
Mid-course correction not. Sort of like Enron, the climate crusader until its demise.
—————-
Just to document the yawns that 99 percent of the world have toward the never-ending crisis, read excerpts from his Washington Post editorial, “Earth’s Fate Is the No. 1 National Security Issue” (May 14, 1989).
The world is in a crisis–and we are ignoramuses for not seeing what is so clearly obvious (“don’t look up,” they say 34 years later). And an all-of-government (Biden’s phrase) to arrest the ‘crisis’ that only the experts and politicians can see, not us boiling frogs (as one person recently said about us uncleansed). Here he is:
“Humankind has suddenly entered into a brand new relationship with the planet Earth. The world’s forests are being destroyed; an enormous hole is opening in the ozone layer. Living species are dying at an unprecedented rate. Chemical wastes, in growing volumes, are seeping downward to poison groundwater while huge quantities of carbon dioxide, methane and chlorofluorocarbons are trapping heat in the atmosphere and raising global temperatures.”
How much information is needed by the human mind to recognize a pattern? How much more is needed by the body politic to justify action in response? It took 10,000 human lifetimes for the population to reach 2 billion. Now in the course of one lifetime, yours and mine, it is rocketing from 2 billion to 10 billion, and is already halfway there.
Yet, the pattern of our politics remains remarkably unchanged. That indifference must end. … the environment is becoming a matter of national security — an issue that directly and imminently menaces the interests of the state or the welfare of the people.”
To date, the national-security agenda has been dominated by issues of military security…. Many of us hope that the global environment will be the new dominant concern.
The global environment crisis may demand responses that are comparatively radical. This central fact suggests that the notion of environmentally sustainable development at present may be an oxymoron, rather than a realistic objective. It declares war, in effect, on routine life in the advanced industrial societies. And — central to the outcome of the entire struggle to restore global environmental balance — it declares war on the Third World.
… the effort to solve the global environmental crisis will be complicated …. It will call for the environmental equivalent of the Strategic Defense Initiative: a Strategic Environment Initiative.
An Energy SEI should focus on producing energy for development without compromising the environment. Priorities for the near term are efficiency and conservation; for the mid-term, solar power, possibly new-generation nuclear power, and biomass sources (with no extraneous pollutants and a closed carbon cycle); and for the long term, nuclear fusion, as well as enhanced versions of developing technologies.
Needed in the United States probably more than anywhere is a Transportation SEI focusing in the near term on improving the mileage standards of our vehicles, and encouraging and enabling Americans to drive less. In the mid-term come questions of alternative fuels, such as biomass-based liquids or electricity. Later will come the inescapable need for re-examining the entire structure of our transportation sector, with its inherent emphasis on the personal vehicle.
The U.S. government should organize itself to finance the export of energy-efficient systems and renewable energy sources. That means preferential lending arrangements through the Export-Import Bank, and Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
Encouragement for the Third World should also come in the form of attractive international credit arrangements for energy-efficient and environmentally sustainable processes. Funds could be generated by institutions such as the World Bank, which, in the course of debt swapping, might dedicate new funds to the purchase of more environmentally sound technologies.
Finally, the United States, other developers of new technology, and international lending institutions, should establish centers of training at locations around the world to create a core of environmentally educated planners and technicians — an effort not unlike that which produced agricultural research centers during the Green Revolution.
But we must also transform ourselves — or at least the way we think about ourselves, our children and our future. The solutions we seek will be found in a new faith in the future of life on earth after our own, a faith in the future which justifies sacrifices in the present, a new moral courage to choose higher values in the conduct of human affairs, and a new reverence for absolute principles that can serve as guiding stars for the future course of our species and our place within creation.
“Transform ourselves”. How about yourself? As I noted on social media:
The leader of the climate industrial complex–and one of the biggest CO2 footprints in the world. And lots of Green–as in money.
Following the analysis of Vijay Jayaraj:
Al Gore created a billion-dollar profitable market for himself by lying to us about Polar Bears and Arctic Ice. His green investment firm is now worth 36 Billion US$. It pays him $2 million every month!!
Related
