In a live webcast tonight, former vice president Al Gore and Energy Action Coalition head Jessy Tolkan implored young voters to get out the vote and push for action on both the climate crisis and energy independence.
Gore emphasized the need for young people to stay involved after the election to ensure that politicians live up to environmental promises made during the campaign. And he renewed his "Repower America" call to move the country to 100 percent renewable energy in the next decade.
"It's really important to hold elected officials accountable for what they do. This is your chance to make it clear that you're going to get involved, you're going to vote on the basis of this agenda, and you're going to hold elected officials accountable," he said.
Tolkan underlined that point, speaking on behalf of young voters engaged on this issue.
"Young people have a brand new vision for this country," said Tolkan. "Young people know that coal and oil and nuclear have dominated our energy policy for too long, and it's time that our officials on the state, local, and national level stand up to the occasion."
Here's video of the event:
Michael Pollan video on Democracy Now
U.N. climate chief raises the temperature with racy novel
Comments
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 7:38 pm
29 Oct 2008
Self-interested-thinking is potentially dangerous because it serves to hide the truth of global warming, among other things, as well as to "poison the well" of public discourse regarding climate change.
Too many of our politicians, economists, big-business benefactors and the talking heads in the mass media are all "whistling the same tune". What is even worse is the way leaders entice many appointees and surrogates to whistle that same tune. After all, who can resist offerings of great wealth, power and privileges that accrue to those who go along and get along with whatsoever is political convenient, economically expedient, religiously tolerated and socially agreeable. In the face of such temptation, we can readily understand why scientific gains are eschewed by denialists and naysayers. The many warnings of scientists about the potentially pernicious effects of climate change serve to forcefully impede the adamant efforts of the wealthy and powerful to acquire even more wealth, more power and more privileges.
Not only are too many leaders hiding or otherwise in denial of the good scientific evidence of human-driven climate change, they are also surreptitiously involved in poisoning the well of public discourse by facilitating the strategic dissemination of disinformation. And for what? Evermore power, wealth and privileges for themselves and their minions so they can carefreely play out their conspicuous consumption fantasies by living large, long and unsustainably come what may, having forsaken the future of their children and forgotten how human life and the colossal global economy utterly depend upon Earth's limited resources and frangible ecosystem services for existence.
It seems to me that the human community has reached a crossroads: EITHER we will choose to "stay the current course" of endless global economic growth, ever increasing conspicuous per capita consumption, and skyrocketing human population numbers OR we will find other ways to go forward. If distinctly human-driven overproduction, over-consumption and overpopulation activities of the human species we see overspreading the surface of Earth in our time are unsustainable, then I suppose we will choose to make changes in our behavioral repertoire so that sustainable ways of living in the world are proposed by policymakers, adopted by leaders and enacted by our community.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population,
established 2001
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