"It's just human nature to take time to connect the dots. I know that. But I also know that there can be a day of reckoning when you wish you had connected the dots more quickly" (Al Gore on his father stopping farming tobacco after his sister died of lung cancer).
This is essentially a slideshow presentation of Gore's book and yes, it is a bit self-promoting, but a neutral observer can hardly deny Gore's arguments. We are now past the point of no return on various issues discussed here. Gore describes heat waves and storms in 2006 which have meanwhile occurred in reality. The Arctic permafrost is almost gone which has indeed slowed down AMOC; this summer we began to see the consequences. But we're still here, and the fact that we're still breathing still serves as justification for climate change denial.
Gore was wrong about a few things - Lake Chad still exists, water levels have not yet risen (apart from Bangladesh). But he was right about the consequences of doing nothing - migration to Europe exploded because arable land desertification in the Equatorial Zone. Gore also mentioned the consensus on climate change, that not a single peer reviewed article in the past ten years had denied the existence of the problem.
So why is climate change still such a contentious issue for so many Americans? Don't they realize that this is not a matter of partisanship but a matter of life and death? The core issue might be that it is very likely that, had Gore been president, the world would be a better place. So Republicans would have to admit to themselves and the world that they were not just wrong about global warming, but their entire agenda as well. It's easier to militantly deny having been wrong for so many decades than to admit to endangering one's own children's future. Yet like for Gore's father, there will be a day of reckoning.
This is essentially a slideshow presentation of Gore's book and yes, it is a bit self-promoting, but a neutral observer can hardly deny Gore's arguments. We are now past the point of no return on various issues discussed here. Gore describes heat waves and storms in 2006 which have meanwhile occurred in reality. The Arctic permafrost is almost gone which has indeed slowed down AMOC; this summer we began to see the consequences. But we're still here, and the fact that we're still breathing still serves as justification for climate change denial.
Gore was wrong about a few things - Lake Chad still exists, water levels have not yet risen (apart from Bangladesh). But he was right about the consequences of doing nothing - migration to Europe exploded because arable land desertification in the Equatorial Zone. Gore also mentioned the consensus on climate change, that not a single peer reviewed article in the past ten years had denied the existence of the problem.
So why is climate change still such a contentious issue for so many Americans? Don't they realize that this is not a matter of partisanship but a matter of life and death? The core issue might be that it is very likely that, had Gore been president, the world would be a better place. So Republicans would have to admit to themselves and the world that they were not just wrong about global warming, but their entire agenda as well. It's easier to militantly deny having been wrong for so many decades than to admit to endangering one's own children's future. Yet like for Gore's father, there will be a day of reckoning.