'We All Owe Al Gore An Apology': More People See Climate Change In Record Flooding

[Dulcinea]

Angel Portillo doesn't think about climate change much. It's not that he doesn't care. He's just got other things to worry about. Climate change seems so far away, so big.

Lately though, Portillo says he's been thinking about it more often.

Standing on the banks of a swollen and surging Arkansas River, just upriver from a cluster of flooded businesses and homes, it's easy to see why.

"Stuff like this," he says, nodding at the frothy brown waters, "all of the tornadoes that have been happening — it just doesn't seem like a coincidence, you know?"

A string of natural disasters has hit the central U.S. in recent weeks. Tornadoes have devastated communities, tearing up trees and homes. Record rainfall has prevented countless farmers in America's breadbasket from planting crops. Rising rivers continue to flood fields, inundate homes and threaten aging levees from Iowa to Mississippi.

https://www.npr.org/2019/06/08/730456004/more-people-see-climate-change-in-record-floods-and-extreme-weather-will-that-me

[gordianot]

1. My suspicion is many of the worlds intelligence agencies have figured this out.

It is still a minority opinion until your house washes away or blows up like a bomb. I watched a storm this Winter that led with 70 degree temperatures, dense fog, hail, tornados, rain, followed by sleet and 10 degree thunder snow in a 50 mile band all in a span of an hour. I believe.

[House of Roberts]

2. Bill McKibben deserves an apology too.

And all the dirty effing hippies that were right all along.

[DemocracyMouse]

8. I think about that all the time. I grew up in the counter culture and have always wondered...

why did my brilliant mother have to die before I could tell her "You and your friends were right all the way back in the 1940s and 50s

[llmart]

3. I don't owe him an apology.

I have been an ardent environmentalist since the 60's and read his book/saw his movie when it came out. I have tried to live with an awareness of my ecological footprint all of my adult life.

I voted for him. I wear the slanderous meme of "tree hugger" with pride. I've practiced voluntary simplicity most of my adult life. I've read so many books on people's impact on the planet including many of Bill McKibbin's books and articles.

So, no. I don't owe him an apology but a hell of a lot of people do. A fat lot of good an apology would do now anyway. I don't want to hear any apologies. I want to see drastic actions taken to halt the abuse of the earth without having to hear the voices of naysayers saying, "But you're an anti-consumerist and our economy will be drastically hurt if everyone stops buying crap and throwing it away." That has been disproven by greater minds than mine.

[pazzyanne]

4. Standing with you, llmart.

Also been "there" since the 1960s. Served on the first Environmental Education Council in my state. Taught Environmental Education in my classroom, while being active in wildlife and ecology issues in my community. I was/ am active in the wolf recovery program in our state. Pro-ecology and anti-corporation from the git go. I wore the moniker of "Mother Earth" and tree hugger" with pride, also. Your last paragraph, particularly resonates with me.

[DemocracyMouse]

9. Hey, send us some wolves!!! Too many deer and thus deer ticks in the East Coast!

[pazzyanne]

12. We're still working on returning wolves to Madeline Island and Isle Royale.

Reestablishing wolf populations is hard work. If you are serious about learning about wolf reestablishment here is a good starting point:

https://www.wolf.org/

https://www.facebook.com/InternationalWolfCenter

[llmart]

18. Thank you!

And thank you for all you've done and are doing, especially the reintroduction of wolves to Isle Royale. I live in Michigan and have been to Isle Royale. What a gem it is.

[airmid]

6. I spent most of my 20's working for Greenpeace as well as doing a few other more radical

groups in the mid to late 1980's and early 1990's. Most just didn't care back then but the data was there. Apathy will be our death. And perhaps the death of the planet.

[llmart]

19. Those were two decades where Americans' interest in the environment flew out the window.

Once Jimmy Carter was out of the White House and Reagan took over and preached "greed is good", well, people hopped on that bandwagon of pursuing as much consumer goods as they could and building bigger houses for smaller families with no regard to their ecological footprint. It was when the term "tree hugger" took on a negative connotation. But hey, Al Gore was "too stiff and too wonky" to be considered a viable candidate. Many people wanted "that guy they could have a beer with" instead, despite how stupid and easily malleable the goofy idiot was.

[FakeNoose]

5. It's unfortunate that the media called it "global warming"

... before the term "climate change" caught on. Truly global warming is a misnomer and it gave everyone an instant way to dismiss the entire concept. But nowadays it seems only Chump and ultra-conservatives still use that term because their brains are solid sawdust.

[Ferrets are Cool]

7. Who is this ALL stuff...

I have stood behind and beside the man who should have been our 43rd president...had it not been stolen. I will always stand by the side of truth and honor. Can you just imagine how different our world would be now if he had rightfully been selected as our President?

[mtngirl47]

10. I imagined what it would be like with Al Gore all the way thru W's term.

Climate change, the wars we were lied into, the 2nd depression--what might have been different?

Every vote counts!

[Aristus]

15. This will give you an idea. From 2006:

[pazzyanne]

13. I weep whenever I think about it!

[Ferrets are Cool]

16. It is indeed something to cry over and unfortunately

the current regime is even more stupid. The difference is that Agent Orange's administration is destroying democracy as we know it. And that, as of yet, he hasn't killed a million foreign humans in a war for oil rights.

[Skittles]

20. yup

[sop]

11. The extractive energy interests have had a stranglehold on our political system

for so long, there's little chance anything positive will happen before it's too late. We should stop calling those in government, the media and "science" who oppose moving away from carbon-based fuels climate change "deniers," they're nothing more than well-paid spokespersons for fossil fuel companies.

They knew what was happening years ago, and thought they could put off doing something till the last drop of oil (or coal and gas) was sucked out of the ground. Even now, as it's becoming more and more apparent it's too late to do anything, they're still putting profit ahead of the planet. Where do these folks think they're going to go to escape the effects of climate change? Mars?

[pazzyanne]

14. Amen and +1000

[Gothmog]

17. Al Gore would have been a great POTUS

I will blame Nader for Gore’s loss

[Skittles]

22. there were a lot of factors

Nader was easily the most senseless

[BeckyDem]

21. The first time I viewed An Inconvenient Truth, I teared up.

It was emotional for me because Gore was able to communicate this important message to bring change. But it was a reminder how we lost a chance to have an individual who would have done so much to help the earth.

We were screwed by the SCOTUS and ended up with the dope and Cheney. ugh