Al Gore

Our new technologies, combined with our numbers, have made us, collectively, a force of nature

The debate's over. The people who dispute the international consensus on global warming are in the same category now with the people who think the moon landing was staged on a movie lot in Arizona.

The warnings about global warming have been extremely clear for a long time. We are facing a global climate crisis. It is deepening. We are entering a period of consequences.

We sometimes emphasize the danger in a crisis without focusing on the opportunities that are there. We should feel a great sense of urgency because it is the most dangerous crisis we have ever faced, by far. But it also provides us with opportunities to do a lot of things we ought to be doing for other reasons anyway. And to solve this crisis we can develop a shared sense of moral purpose.

The Himalayan Glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau have been among the most affected by global warming. The Himalayas...provide more than half of the drinking water for 40% of the world's population...Within the next half-century, that 40% of the world's people may well face a very serious drinking water shortage, unless the world acts boldly and quickly to mitigate global warming.

Unless we act boldly and quickly to deal with the underlying causes of global warming, our world will undergo a string of terrible catastrophes.

One tragic example of the loss of forests and then water is found in Ethiopia. The amount of its forested land has decreased from 40 to 1 percent in the last four decades. Concurrently, the amount of rainfall has declined to the point where the country is rapidly becoming a wasteland.

We have to abandon the conceit that isolated personal actions are going to solve this crisis. Our policies have to shift.