Our Purpose: The Nobel Peace Prize Lecture 2007 by Al Gore

The lecture given by Vice President Al Gore for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize

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I had picked this book up at a dollar store because I have always been fascinated with global warming and Al Gore. This book contained his Nobel Peace Prize speech and a few excpets from his novel An Inconvient Truth.

I view Al Gore as a very intelligent man, and have admired his stance on global warming and climate change. I have often wondered what would have happened if he would have won the 2000 election over George W. Bush; if my state hadn't screwed up the election, would Gore have won? Would we be a more environmentally friendly country? Would we have been better off overall with him in the office instead of a drunken, power-hungry, oil loving President? Who knows; the past is the past. I was only 6 or 7 at the time of that particular election.

"I'm a strong proponent of the restoration of the wetlands, for a lot of reasons. There's a practical reason, though, when it comes to hurricanes: The stronger the wetlands, the more likely the damage of the hurricane."- George Bush in New Orleans, March 1, 2007 (discussing wetlands work after Katrina)

this explains his environmental policies.

But onto this book (you don't want to get me started on Bush lol. Even though I dislike him, I am loyal to my country and our Presidents, but I don't have to agree to everything they say or do), it was a beautiful speech. If I had not already been concerned with the state of our environment, this would have made me see the light.

The only thing I didn't agree with in this speech, was how Gore kept refering to people as the cause of global wraming; there I don't agree. I actually wrote a paper on this topic in my junior year. Global warming is a form of climate change. And climate change is a natural process. What people don't often realize is that climate change is "a long-term change in the earth's climate", this does not limit it to only a rise in temperature; it would also be a decline. To put it in simple terms, everyone knows about the Ice Age, correct? Okay, so that was a form of climate change. Now what does this have to do with my disagreement with Gore? Well, we certainly were not the cause of the Ice Age. The Ice Age happened because of natural elemants and processes. Therefore, wouldn't it make sense to assume that Global Warming, which is another form of climate change, would happen eventually on its own as well? I believe that even without humans, this process would run its course. However, I do believe we, as humans, are increasing the speed at which this process is occuring because of our own careless actions. We are adding more than the natural allowment of CO2 into the air, therefore trapping infrared radiation in our atmosphere which in turn, prevents heat from being released out of the atmosphere, resulting in the rise in temperature of Earth.

I honestly cannot understand how people can listen to this man, and not believe that we are indeed facing a global crisis, but they readily accept the lies that other politicans let roll of their tongues. Critics of Gore love to repute his theories, but never have to scientific data to back their case, yet people still side with them. Why? Because people are in denial; they don't want to accept that our actions have consequences and that even if those consequences don't reveal themselves until way after their own lifetime, they are still important. Some people don't care to do anything because they feel they'll outlive the consequences. Well that's probably true, and great for you, but what about your children? Grandchildren? Future generations of people who had nothing to do with this, who are going to face the blunt of our actions. Are we, as humans, willingly to let the future of our species suffer because we didn't feel the need to fix it because it's not our problem? Well here's some news for you: it is our problem. And unless we do what is necessary to turn things back around, the problem will only get worse. You can't reverse global warming; once it starts, that's it. But you can slow it down, you can lessen the harsh effects. We can make this a better place for us and those after us. But we have to be willing to work together, to make sacrifices, we have to care.

This book was inspiration, and sorry if I got a little rambling, or intense. I just feel very passionate about this particualr topic :)