Gore Calls for Climate Civil Disobedience at Clinton Global Initiative

[kristopher]

http://realist-idealist.com/2008/09/25/gore-calls-for-climate-civil-disobedience-at-clinton-global-initiative/

At today’s Clinton Global Initiative, Al Gore said for the first time in public that we are at a point in our world’s history, and in need of such immediate action, that if you are a young person it’s time for civil disobedience.

In particular to bring coal plants to a halt.

On a panel with Queen Rania of Jordan, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, Neville Isdell (the CEO of Coca Cola), and Bono - moderated by President Clinton himself - Gore was fiery in his calls for action and investment in new clean energy technologies. He was even more fiery in his strong denouncements of nonexistent clean coal (”There is no such thing!”), and a congress that is today voting on an energy bill that lifts the moratorium on mining coal shale, calling it - with dramatic pause - “IN-SANITY.”

In fact, Gore used the word “insane” or “insanity” at least 3 times (we’ll check the records to see if there more) in his descriptions of various political and business decisions made (or not made) with regard to climate.

Here are my minute by minute notes from the Opening Plenary. The times reflected are from my laptop clock - initially synced with event organizers - but are not official record:

11:24 Clinton asks Gore to tell everyone what investors/politicians should do in regard to energy/climate, and how to overcome political and financial difficulties.

11:25 Gore acknowledges all in the room and offers ...




Interesting - K

[GliderGuider]

1. Perhaps a little monkey wrenching is in order?

Ecodefense

Representative democracy in the United States has broken down. Our legis­lators do not represent those who elected them but rather the minority who fi­nance their political campaigns and who control the organs of communica­tion-the Tee Vee, the newspapers, the billboards, the radio-that have made politics a game for the rich only. Representative government in the USA rep­resents money not people and therefore has forfeited our allegiance and moral support. We owe it nothing but the taxation it extorts from us under threats of seizure of property, or prison, or in some cases already, when resisted, a sud­den and violent death by gunfire.

Such is the nature and structure of the industrial megamachine (in Lewis Mumford's term) which is now attacking the American wilderness. That wilder­ness is our ancestral home, the primordial homeland of all living creatures in­cluding the human, and the present final dwelling place of such noble beings as the grizzly bear, the mountain lion, the eagle and the condor, the moose and the elk and the pronghorn antelope, the redwood tree, the yellowpine, the bristlecone pine, even the aspen, and yes, why not say it?, the streams, wa­terfalls, rivers, the very bedrock itself of our hills, canyons, deserts, moun­tains.

This is a book that will fit handily in any saddlebag, in any creel, in any backpack, in any river runner's ammo can-and in any pic­nicker's picnic basket. No good American should ever go into the woods again without this book and, for example, a hammer and a few pounds of 60-penny nails. Spike a few trees now and then whenever you enter an area condemned to chainsaw massacre by Louisiana Pacific and its affiliated subsidiary the U.S. Forest Service. You won't hurt the trees; they'll be grateful for the pro­tection; and you may save the forest. My Aunt Emma back in West Virginia has been enjoying this pleasant exercise for years. She swears by it. It's good for the trees, it's good for the woods, it's good for the earth, and it's good for the human soul. Spread the word-and carry on!

[bananas]

2. I posted it in LBN the other day

It was on the greatest page and had 26 interesting replies.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3509639