[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 195 (Wednesday, December 19, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2652-E2654]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




COMMENDING THE STATEMENT OF VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE AT HIS ACCEPTANCE OF 
                     THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE IN OSLO

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, December 19, 2007

  Mr. LANTOS. Madam Speaker, last October, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize 
was bestowed on a man who has dedicated his life to making this planet 
a more livable place for all of us and future generations. Vice 
President Al Gore has steadfastly served the people of the United 
States and the citizens of the world in his life's work, and I commend 
him for his leadership, foresight, and dedication in addressing the 
crisis of climate change.
  For our part, and under the visionary leadership of Speaker Nancy 
Pelosi, Congress has taken a serious, groundbreaking step towards 
reducing our country's dangerous dependence on foreign oil by passing 
the Energy Independence and Security Act, which today became law. I am 
proud to have authored the international provisions, and could not be 
more proud of my colleagues for supporting a forward-looking piece of 
legislation that meets the tremendous challenge of combating climate 
change head-on. At long last, we are making a meaningful investment in 
new technologies that will yield clean, renewable energy.
  Vice President Gore's Nobel acceptance speech last week in Oslo, 
Norway epitomizes the way in which he has been able to lead by example 
on this crucial topic. His words of truth and clarion call to action 
inspire us all to take care of this Earth we call home, and I am 
honored to enter his eloquent speech into the Congressional Record.

       Al Gore. Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Honorable 
     members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, 
     ladies and gentlemen.
       I Have a purpose here today. It is a purpose I have tried 
     to serve for many years. I have prayed that God would show me 
     a way to accomplish it.
       Sometimes, without warning, the future knocks on our door 
     with a precious and painful vision of what might be. One 
     hundred and nineteen years ago, a wealthy inventor read his 
     own obituary, mistakenly published years before his death. 
     Wrongly believing the inventor had just died, a newspaper 
     printed a harsh judgment of his life's work, unfairly 
     labeling him ``the Merchant of Death'' because of his 
     invention--dynamite. Shaken by this condemnation, the 
     inventor made a fateful choice to serve the cause of peace.
       Seven years later, Alfred Nobel created this prize and the 
     others that bear his name.
       Seven years ago tomorrow, I read my own political obituary 
     in a judgment that seemed to me harsh and mistaken--if not 
     premature. But that unwelcome verdict also brought a precious 
     if painful gift: an opportunity to search for fresh new ways 
     to serve my purpose.
       Unexpectedly, that quest has brought me here. Even though I 
     fear my words cannot match this moment, I pray what I am 
     feeling in my heart will be communicated clearly enough that 
     those who hear me will say, ``We must act.''
       The distinguished scientists with whom it is the greatest 
     honor of my life to share this award have laid before us a 
     choice between two different futures--a choice that to my 
     ears echoes the words of an ancient prophet: ``Life or death, 
     blessings or curses. Therefore, choose life, that both thou 
     and thy seed may live.''
       We, the human species, are confronting a planetary 
     emergency--a threat to the survival of our civilization that 
     is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we 
     gather here. But there is hopeful news as well: we have the 
     ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst--though not 
     all--of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and 
     quickly.
       However, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, 
     too many of the world's leaders are still best described in 
     the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored 
     Adolf Hitler's threat: ``They go on in strange paradox, 
     decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, 
     adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be 
     impotent.''
       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.
       As a result, the earth has a fever. And the fever is 
     rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing 
     affliction that will heal by itself. We asked for a second 
     opinion. And a third. And a fourth. And the consistent 
     conclusion, restated with increasing alarm, is that something 
     basic is wrong.
       We are what is wrong, and we must make it right.
       Last September 21, as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away 
     from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress 
     that the North Polar ice cap is ``falling off a cliff.'' One 
     study estimated that it could be completely gone during 
     summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be 
     presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it 
     could happen in as little as 7 years.
       Seven years from now.
       In the last few months, it has been harder and harder to 
     misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of 
     kilter. Major cities in North and South America, Asia and 
     Australia are nearly out of water due to massive droughts and 
     melting glaciers. Desperate farmers are losing their 
     livelihoods. Peoples in the frozen Arctic and on low-lying 
     Pacific islands are planning evacuations of places they have 
     long called home. Unprecedented wildfires have forced a half 
     million people from their homes in one country and caused a 
     national emergency that almost brought down the government in 
     another. Climate refugees have migrated into areas already 
     inhabited by people with different cultures, religions, and 
     traditions, increasing the potential for conflict. Stronger 
     storms in the Pacific and Atlantic have threatened whole 
     cities. Millions have been displaced by massive flooding in 
     South Asia, Mexico, and 18 countries in Africa. As 
     temperature extremes have increased, tens of thousands have 
     lost their lives. We are recklessly burning and clearing our 
     forests and driving more and more species into extinction. 
     The very web of life on which we depend is being ripped and 
     frayed.
       We never intended to cause all this destruction, just as 
     Alfred Nobel never intended that dynamite be used for waging 
     war. He had hoped his invention would promote human progress. 
     We shared that same worthy goal when we began burning massive 
     quantities of coal, then oil and methane.
       Even in Nobel's time, there were a few warnings of the 
     likely consequences. One of the very first winners of the 
     Prize in chemistry worried that, ``We are evaporating our

[[Page E2653]]

     coal mines into the air.'' After performing 10,000 equations 
     by hand, Svante Arrhenius calculated that the earth's average 
     temperature would increase by many degrees if we doubled the 
     amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
       Seventy years later, my teacher, Roger Revelle, and his 
     colleague, Dave Keeling, began to precisely document the 
     increasing CO2 levels day by day.
       But unlike most other forms of pollution, CO2 is invisible, 
     tasteless, and odorless--which has helped keep the truth 
     about what it is doing to our climate out of sight and out of 
     mind. Moreover, the catastrophe now threatening us is 
     unprecedented--and we often confuse the unprecedented with 
     the improbable.
       We also find it hard to imagine making the massive changes 
     that are now necessary to solve the crisis. And when large 
     truths are genuinely inconvenient, whole societies can, at 
     least for a time, ignore them. Yet as George Orwell reminds 
     us: ``Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid 
     reality, usually on a battlefield.''
       In the years since this prize was first awarded, the entire 
     relationship between humankind and the earth has been 
     radically transformed. And still, we have remained largely 
     oblivious to the impact of our cumulative actions.
       Indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on 
     the earth itself. Now, we and the earth's climate are locked 
     in a relationship familiar to war planners: ``Mutually 
     assured destruction.''
       More than two decades ago, scientists calculated that 
     nuclear war could throw so much debris and smoke into the air 
     that it would block life-giving sunlight from our atmosphere, 
     causing a ``nuclear winter.'' Their eloquent warnings here in 
     Oslo helped galvanize the world's resolve to halt the nuclear 
     arms race.
       Now science is warning us that if we do not quickly reduce 
     the global warming pollution that is trapping so much of the 
     heat our planet normally radiates back out of the atmosphere, 
     we are in danger of creating a permanent ``carbon summer.''
       As the American poet Robert Frost wrote, ``Some say the 
     world will end in fire; some say in ice.'' Either, he notes, 
     ``would suffice.''
       But neither need be our fate. It is time to make peace with 
     the planet.
       We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency 
     and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations 
     mobilized for war. These prior struggles for survival were 
     won when leaders found words at the 11th hour that released a 
     mighty surge of courage, hope and readiness to sacrifice for 
     a protracted and mortal challenge.
       These were not comforting and misleading assurances that 
     the threat was not real or imminent; that it would affect 
     others but not ourselves; that ordinary life might be lived 
     even in the presence of extraordinary threat; that Providence 
     could be trusted to do for us what we would not do for 
     ourselves.
       No, these were calls to come to the defense of the common 
     future. They were calls upon the courage, generosity and 
     strength of entire peoples, citizens of every class and 
     condition who were ready to stand against the threat once 
     asked to do so. Our enemies in those times calculated that 
     free people would not rise to the challenge; they were, of 
     course, catastrophically wrong.
       Now comes the threat of climate crisis--a threat that is 
     real, rising, imminent, and universal. Once again, it is the 
     11th hour. The penalties for ignoring this challenge are 
     immense and growing, and at some near point would be 
     unsustainable and unrecoverable. For now we still have the 
     power to choose our fate, and the remaining question is only 
     this: Have we the will to act vigorously and in time, or will 
     we remain imprisoned by a dangerous illusion?
       Mahatma Gandhi awakened the largest democracy on earth and 
     forged a shared resolve with what he called ``Satyagraha''--
     or ``truth force.''
       In every land, the truth--once known--has the power to set 
     us free.
       Truth also has the power to unite us and bridge the 
     distance between ``me'' and ``we,'' creating the basis for 
     common effort and shared responsibility.
       There is an African proverb that says, ``If you want to go 
     quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.'' We 
     need to go far, quickly.
       We must abandon the conceit that individual, isolated, 
     private actions are the answer. They can and do help. But 
     they will not take us far enough without collective action. 
     At the same time, we must ensure that in mobilizing globally, 
     we do not invite the establishment of ideological conformity 
     and a new lock-step ``ism.''
       That means adopting principles, values, laws, and treaties 
     that release creativity and initiative at every level of 
     society in multifold responses originating concurrently and 
     spontaneously.
       This new consciousness requires expanding the possibilities 
     inherent in all humanity. The innovators who will devise a 
     new way to harness the sun's energy for pennies or invent an 
     engine that's carbon negative may live in Lagos or Mumbai or 
     Montevideo. We must ensure that entrepreneurs and inventors 
     everywhere on the globe have the chance to change the world.
       When we unite for a moral purpose that is manifestly good 
     and true, the spiritual energy unleashed can transform us. 
     The generation that defeated fascism throughout the world in 
     the 1940s found, in rising to meet their awesome challenge, 
     that they had gained the moral authority and long-term vision 
     to launch the Marshall Plan, the United Nations, and a new 
     level of global cooperation and foresight that unified Europe 
     and facilitated the emergence of democracy and prosperity in 
     Germany, Japan, Italy and much of the world. One of their 
     visionary leaders said, ``It is time we steered by the stars 
     and not by the lights of every passing ship.''
       In the last year of that war, you gave the Peace Prize to a 
     man from my hometown of 2000 people, Carthage, Tennessee. 
     Cordell Hull was described by Franklin Roosevelt as the 
     ``Father of the United Nations.'' He was an inspiration and 
     hero to my own father, who followed Hull in the Congress and 
     the U.S. Senate and in his commitment to world peace and 
     global cooperation.
       My parents spoke often of Hull, always in tones of 
     reverence and admiration. Eight weeks ago, when you announced 
     this prize, the deepest emotion I felt was when I saw the 
     headline in my hometown paper that simply noted I had won the 
     same prize that Cordell Hull had won. In that moment, I knew 
     what my father and mother would have felt were they alive.
       Just as Hull's generation found moral authority in rising 
     to solve the world crisis caused by fascism, so too can we 
     find our greatest opportunity in rising to solve the climate 
     crisis. In the Kanji characters used in both Chinese and 
     Japanese, ``crisis'' is written with two symbols, the first 
     meaning ``danger,'' the second ``opportunity.'' By facing and 
     removing the danger of the climate crisis, we have the 
     opportunity to gain the moral authority and vision to vastly 
     increase our own capacity to solve other crises that have 
     been too long ignored.
       We must understand the connections between the climate 
     crisis and the afflictions of poverty, hunger, HIV-AIDS and 
     other pandemics. As these problems are linked, so too must be 
     their solutions. We must begin by making the common rescue of 
     the global environment the central organizing principle of 
     the world community.
       Fifteen years ago, I made that case at the ``Earth Summit'' 
     in Rio de Janeiro. Ten years ago, I presented it in Kyoto. 
     This week, I will urge the delegates in Bali to adopt a bold 
     mandate for a treaty that establishes a universal global cap 
     on emissions and uses the market in emissions trading to 
     efficiently allocate resources to the most effective 
     opportunities for speedy reductions.
       This treaty should be ratified and brought into effect 
     everywhere in the world by the beginning of 2010--two years 
     sooner than presently contemplated. The pace of our response 
     must be accelerated to match the accelerating pace of the 
     crisis itself.
       Heads of state should meet early next year to review what 
     was accomplished in Bali and take personal responsibility for 
     addressing this crisis. It is not unreasonable to ask, given 
     the gravity of our circumstances, that these heads of state 
     meet every three months until the treaty is completed.
       We also need a moratorium on the construction of any new 
     generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to 
     safely trap and store carbon dioxide.
       And most important of all, we need to put a price on 
     carbon--with a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the 
     people, progressively, according to the laws of each nation, 
     in ways that shift the burden of taxation from employment to 
     pollution. This is by far the most effective and simplest way 
     to accelerate solutions to this crisis.
       The world needs an alliance--especially of those nations 
     that weigh heaviest in the scales where earth is in the 
     balance. I salute Europe and Japan for the steps they've 
     taken in recent years to meet the challenge, and the new 
     government in Australia, which has made solving the climate 
     crisis its first priority.
       But the outcome will be decisively influenced by two 
     nations that are now failing to do enough: the United States 
     and China. While India is also growing fast in importance, it 
     should be absolutely clear that it is the two largest CO2 
     emitters--most of all, my own country--that will need to make 
     the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for 
     their failure to act.
       Both countries should stop using the other's behavior as an 
     excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual 
     survival in a shared global environment.
       These are the last few years of decision, but they can be 
     the first years of a bright and hopeful future if we do what 
     we must. No one should believe a solution will be found 
     without effort, without cost, without change. Let us 
     acknowledge that if we wish to redeem squandered time and 
     speak again with moral authority, then these are the hard 
     truths:
       The way ahead is difficult. The outer boundary of what we 
     currently believe is feasible is still far short of what we 
     actually must do. Moreover, between here and there, across 
     the unknown, falls the shadow.
       That is just another way of saying that we have to expand 
     the boundaries of what is possible. In the words of the 
     Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, ``Pathwalker, there is no 
     path. You must make the path as you walk.''
       We are standing at the most fateful fork in that path. So I 
     want to end as I began, with a vision of two futures--each a 
     palpable possibility--and with a prayer that we will see with 
     vivid clarity the necessity of choosing between those two 
     futures, and the urgency of making the right choice now.
       The great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, wrote, ``One 
     of these days, the younger generation will come knocking at 
     my door.''

[[Page E2654]]

       The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no 
     mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two 
     questions. Either they will ask: ``What were you thinking; 
     why didn't you act?''
       Or they will ask instead: ``How did you find the moral 
     courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so 
     many said was impossible to solve?''
       We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps 
     political will, but political will is a renewable resource.
       So let us renew it, and say together: ``We have a purpose. 
     We are many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will 
     act.''

                          ____________________