Tuesday, March 2, 2010

A Planetary Emergency (2007)

The noble lecture presented by U.S House of Representatives Al Gore was directed towards the quick shifting of our world's climate change and other destructive issues created by mankind that are about to put us in a major crisis.
The horrible affect is proven as Gore states, " So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun." I felt that this was one of the most moving sentences in his whole speech. It really put things into perspective for people to realize the drastic damage we are doing to the very world that we live in, and possibly creating our own death sentence. Reading this speech, I think that Al Gore is a great speaker and uses many good metaphors such as " The Earth has a fever. And the fever is rising" and catching sentences to keep the audience engaged.
I think this speech could have helped build the turning point to so many people in the mass movement to "go green" and positively change our planet. This issue continues to affect our world and there are two choices we can make. The first is to sit back and continue to the damage until eventually animals along with so many trees and other CO2 inhibitors are so wiped out, the world will be unlivable. The second is to continue to work towards cleaning our own mess we have created such a pollution, deforestation and limited space and take little steps into cleaning up our environment. Since then, there have been growing campaigns and companies working to creating "greener" grocery bags, lighting, chemicals and other uses that have already made a huge impact in our everyday lifestyles. As we continue to slowly change our bad habits, we can train younger generations to do the same in a way they only see acceptable.

3 comments:

  1. I like the fact that you gave two choices. In the end that is what it comes down too. Should we do something now or let our grandkids deal with it. It's such a hot topic, but somehow nothing ever seems to get started. Do you ever think we will really ever be a greener planet?

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  2. This is very interesting because this is a very controversial issue right now because the very topic of global warming is being challenged because of the inconsistency of data collection and record keeping. It will be interesting to see how this whole issue plays out farther down the road.

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  3. I agree this speech was turning point for many people, which is why we have green movements going around the world.

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