On the anniversary of September 11th, where is Al Gore, the man who should have been President? Why he’s in Australia, still trying to save the world, one country at a time:
Former US vice-president Al Gore says global warming threatens Australia more than most other countries, causing weather extremes, water shortages and the devastation of environmental treasures, including the Great Barrier Reef.
Mr Gore says politicians can no longer ignore scientific warnings of accelerating temperatures and carbon dioxide emissions, and the world should be turning away from fossil fuels.
He has become an evangelist for the environment in the five years since he lost the presidential race to George W Bush.
With his new film, An Inconvenient Truth, he is spreading the word that unless countries unite to drastically cut carbon emissions, global warming will wreak havoc on the planet.
“This is not a political issue, it’s a moral one – it’s deeply unethical,” he said.
Now, Mr Gore has brought the message to Australia, where he says the stakes are extremely high.
“In many ways, Australia has more at risk than any other country,” he said.
“I would hope that Australia would put more pressure on the US by adopting this global agreement and then the US would feel enormous pressure to change.”
He says events like cyclone Larry and other severe storms are a direct result of climate change.
“You are the driest of the inhabited continents,” he said.
“Your grain growing areas are at risk.
“Ocean storms become stronger – you’ve had series of category 5 cyclones.
“All of these effects have been predicted and all of them will get worse and worse until we turn the thermostat down.”
Tonight, the failure who sits in the Oval Office at the White House, in that peculiarly affected Texan twang of his, punctuated by that moronic clipped sentence structure John Stewart loves to mock, will lie and bluster in a nationally televised address about how he’s made us safer from the greatest threat known to man: terrorism. In all likelihood, he will also, paradoxically and without any irony in that insipid weasel voice, remind us that we are engaged in a global war against Islamofascism (World War III or is it IV?) and all Americans (except those who make over $1 million per year) need to accept greater sacrifices (like the eradication of our Constitutional Rights).
Meanwhile, the man I voted for in 2000 who was robbed of the privilege of being sworn in as our 41st President, is out on the front lines of a far more serious effort: the fight to stop Global Warming. One man is trying to save his political life. The other is trying to save the planet. Remind me again: which one of these guys is our President?
