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8f57413
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Global warming, along with the cutting and burning of forests and other critical habitats, is causing the loss of living species at a level comparable to the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. That event was believed to have been caused by a giant asteroid. This time it is not an asteroid colliding with the Earth and wreaking havoc: it is us.
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inspirational
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Al Gore |
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000fe32
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As many know, the Chinese expression for "crisis" consists of two characters side by side. The first is the symbol for "danger," the second the symbol for "opportunity." "
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inspirational
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Al Gore |
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f31e9f3
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tshbh l`lq@ byn lymn wl`ql wlkhwf 'Hyn l`b@ l'Tfl lty tsm~ lHjr wlwrq@ wlmqS, flkhwf yzyH l`ql, wl`ql ytHd~ lymn, wlymn yGlb lkhwf.
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Al Gore |
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47d4750
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We can believe in the future and work to achieve it and preserve it, or we can whirl blindly on, behaving as if one day there will be no children to inherit our legacy. The choice is ours; the earth is in balance.
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Al Gore |
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bfc8d33
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bmjrd 'n 'mkn nql l'fkr lm`qd@ bshwl@ mn frd l~ jmw` lakhryn - wm 'n tmkWn lakhrwn mn tlqyh bshwl@, w'SbH bws`hm lmwfq@ `lyh - Sr lkl frd fj'@ qw@ lslT@ lsysy@ lshml@. ldhlk '`T~ tdfq lm`lwmt lHr kl frd mnzl@ 'kbr fy lmjtm` - bGD lnZr `n ntmy'h lTbqy 'w thrwth - lyTlb bqdr mn lkrm@ ytsw~ m` lakhryn jmy`, wtmnH l'frd lqdr@ `l~ fHS stkhdm lslT@ mn qbl mn y`mlwn fy lHkwm@.
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Al Gore |
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68cebf3
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I actually thought and believed that the story would be compelling enough to cause a real sea change in the way Congress reacted to that issue. I thought they would be startled, too. And they weren't.
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Al Gore |
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ab82869
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fy lsnwt l'wl~ mn lqrn lHdy wl`shryn kn hnlk dwman z`m yrGbwn fy thr@ qlq lns ,bGy@ tqdym 'nfshm bwSfhm Hm@ lkhy'fyn. flz`m lGwGy'yyn ya`idwn dwman bl'mn mqbl ltnzl `n lHry@.
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Al Gore |
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b3e822f
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lkhwf 'qw~ '`d l`ql, wlkhwf wl`ql jwhryn lHy@ lnsn, lkn l`lq@ bynhm Gyr mtwzn@. fqd ybdd l`ql lkhwf 'Hyn, lkn lkhwf yGlq l`ql dwm. wkm ktb dmwnd byrk fy nkltr qbl `shryn `m mn lthwr@ l'mryky@: "lys hnk sh`wr yslb l`ql kl qw~ ltSrf wltfkyr bSwr@ mw'thr@ mthl lkhwf" ."
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Al Gore |
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592e6c9
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ndm ykwn m tqwm bh lHkwm@ mtH blkml lfHS mwTnyh wkhD` llmnqsh@ wljdl lf`l, ySbH mn lS`b khf lstkhdm lfsd llslT@ l`m@ mn 'jl mksb shkhSy@, wdh kn Hkm l`ql hw lm`yr ldhy yqwWm bh kl stkhdm llslT@ lrsmy@, ymkn `ndy'dh ljm`@ lmwTnyn lw`y@ lkshf `n 'shd khTT khrq lthq@ l`m@ t`qyd wDbTh, Df@ l~ dhlk fnh `ndm tS`d l'fkr 'w thbT Hsb jdrth, ymyl l`ql l~ df`n fy tjh qrrt t`ks 'fDl lmtH mn Hkm@ ljm`@ klh.
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Al Gore |
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a111f93
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Having a TV--which gives you the ability to receive information--fails to establish any capacity for sending information in the opposite direction. And the odd one-way nature of the primary connection Americans now have to our national conversation has a profound impact on their basic attitude toward democracy itself. If you can receive but not send, what does that do to your basic feelings about the nature of your connection to American se..
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Al Gore |
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3cccc2c
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The rule of reason is the true sovereign in the American system.
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Al Gore |
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b9c5f76
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ndm ktsb lbshr tdryjyan mstw~ '`l~ mn ltfkyr ,fnn ktsbn myz@ lqdr@ `l~ twq` lthdydt lnshy'@ ,wktsbn lqdr@ `l~ tSwr lthdydt bdlan mn drkh fqT .lknn 'yDan ktsbn lqdr@ `l~ tSwr lthdydt (lmtkhyl@). w`ndm tqtn` mjmw`@ mn lns btSwr hdhh lthdydt (lmtkhyl@ ),ymknhm tnshyT stjb@ lkhwf ltSyr bqw@ lstjb@ nfsh llthdydt lHqyq@ .
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Al Gore |
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e2f68ce
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The flight insurance example highlights another psychological phenomenon that is important to understanding how fear influences our thinking: "probability neglect." Social scientists have found that when confronted with either an enormous threat or a huge reward, people tend to focus on the magnitude of the consequence and ignore the probability. Consider how the Bush administration has used some of the techniques identified by Professor Gl..
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Al Gore |
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c48d08b
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The subjugation of news by entertainment seriously harms our democracy: It leads to dysfunctional journalism that fails to inform the people. And when the people are not informed, they cannot hold government accountable when it is incompetent, corrupt, or both.
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Al Gore |
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2c0f3bc
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if consumption by the one billion people in the developed countries declined, it is certainly nowhere close to doing so where the other six billion of us are concerned. If the rest of the world bought cars and trucks at the same per capita rate as in the United States, the world's population of cars and trucks would be 5.5 billion. The production of global warming pollution and the consumption of oil would increase dramatically over and abo..
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Al Gore |
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712ba08
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Bernays's business partner, Paul Mazur, said, "We must shift America from a needs to a desires culture.... People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality. Man's desires must overshadow his needs." As Bernays later wrote, in 1928, the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democra..
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Al Gore |
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98f209d
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The derivation of just power from the consent of the governed depends upon the integrity of the reasoning process through which that consent is given. If the reasoning process is corrupted by money and deception, then the consent of the governed is based on false premises, and any power thus derived is inherently counterfeit and unjust. If the consent of the governed is extorted through the manipulation of mass fears, or embezzled with clai..
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Al Gore |
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f5866cd
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The feelings of powerlessness are an adaptive function. The child adopts behavior that sets himself or herself up for more of the same. He or she becomes antisocial and stops evoking a feeling of warmth in other people, thus reinforcing the notion of powerlessness. Children then stay on the same pathway. These courses are not set in stone, but the longer a child stays on one course, the harder it is to move on to another. By studying the be..
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Al Gore |
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6b449da
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This administration has not been content simply to reduce the Congress to subservience. By closely guarding information about their own behavior, they are dismantling a fundamental element of our system of checks and balances. A government for the people and by the people should be transparent to the people. Yet the Bush administration seems to prefer making policy in secret, based on information that is not available to the public and in a..
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Al Gore |
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f4e11b3
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After basic needs are met, higher incomes produce gains in happiness only up to a point, beyond which further increases in consumption do not enhance a sense of well-being. The cumulative impact of surging per capita consumption, rapid population growth, human dominance of every ecological system, and the forcing of pervasive biological changes worldwide has created the very real possibility, according to twenty-two prominent biologists and..
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Al Gore |
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f4f5b4c
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HUNGER AND OBESITY The change in diets around the world is also creating a global obesity epidemic--and in its wake a global diabetes epidemic--even as more than 900 million people in the world still suffer from chronic hunger. In the United States, where many global trends begin, the weight of the average American has increased by approximately twenty pounds in the last forty years. A recent study projects that half the adult population of..
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Al Gore |
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a0609df
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too little--and complex, because the manufacturing and marketing of food products has changed dramatically. Dr. David Kessler, former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, has extensively documented how food manufacturers and restaurant and fast food chains carefully combine fats, sugar, and salt in precise ratios that reach the "bliss point"--which means they trigger brain systems that increase the desire to eat more, even after o..
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Al Gore |
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6980623
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it's rare to see a family-run media business with deep pride in its independence and a journalistic tradition that has survived over half a dozen generations. Such businesses are now part of conglomerates whose obligations involve meeting Wall Street's expectations rather than the Founders' expectations of the requisite for a well-informed citizenry. Now that the conglomerates can dominate the expressions of opinion that flood the minds of ..
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Al Gore |
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fe01312
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There are only two kinds of politics. They're not radical and reactionary or conservative and liberal or even Democratic and Republican. There are only the politics of fear and the politics of trust. One says you are encircled by monstrous dangers. Give us power over your freedom so we may protect you. The other says the world is a baffling and hazardous place, but it can be shaped to the will of men.
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Al Gore |
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9912090
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Leadership means inspiring us to manage through our fears. Demagoguery means exploiting our fears for political gain.
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Al Gore |
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b4bbeb7
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Our political system today does not engage the best minds in our country to help us get the answers and deploy the resources we need to move into the future. Bringing these people in--with their networks of influence, their knowledge, and their resources--is the key to creating the capacity for shared intelligence that we need to solve the problems we face, before it's too late. Our goal must be to find a new way of unleashing our collectiv..
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Al Gore |
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2d76430
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Thomas Jefferson once wrote that "whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that, whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them right." He also said: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." But we are right now in a period of great vulnerability. As noted earlier, when t..
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Al Gore |
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5710575
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Just as the printing press led to the appearance of a new set of possibilities for democracy, beginning five hundred years ago--and just as the emergence of electronic broadcasting reshaped those possibilities, beginning in the first quarter of the twentieth century--the Internet is presenting us with new possibilities to reestablish a healthy functioning self-government, even before it rivals television for an audience. In fact, the Intern..
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Al Gore |
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d658a8f
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The remedy for what ails our democracy is not simply better education (as important as that is) or civic education (as important as that can be), but the reestablishment of a genuine democratic discourse in which individuals can participate in a meaningful way--a conversation of democracy in which meritorious ideas and opinions from individuals do, in fact, evoke a meaningful response. And in today's world, that means recognizing that it's ..
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Al Gore |