A “planetary emergency”

These are the terms used yesterday to describe climate change by Al Gore in front of the US Congress. Mr. Gore is a former vice-president of the USA and is an environmentalist with huge conviction. He released last year “An inconvenient truth“, a film that contributes to mass awareness of the threat represented by climate change.

Mr. Gore asked for strong action on climate change from the US Congress. Some opponents declared that he was declaring a war on oil and coal. To me, it is more a fight for survival of life on this planet, but let’s get back to what happened in North America.

Some people in the US and worldwide are still denying the very phenomenon of climate change. Some others deny the very anthropogenic (human made) origin. To them, it is not a huge threat but only a hoax.

Here is a quote from an article written by the International Herald Tribune :

“(…) Gore called on Congress to put aside partisan differences, accept the scientific consensus on global warming as unambiguous (…) Democrats and Republicans, Gore said, should emulate their British counterparts and compete to see how best to curb emissions of smokestack and tailpipe “greenhouse” gases that scientists now say they have firmly linked to a global warming trend.”

One needs to know that the UK government, via its Prime Minister Mr. Tony Blair, is indeed committed and is beginning to stop climate change and does whatever is necessary to do so. Mr. Gore also advocates the launch of a plan that would lead to less energy consumption via energy savings in housing or else. This also handles the extended use of clean energy sources as renewables.

Mr. Gore concluded his speech by the following words :

“A day will come when our children and grandchildren will look back and they’ll ask one of two questions: They will ask, ‘What in God’s name are they doing?’ or they may look back and say, ‘How did they find the uncommon moral courage to rise above politics and redeem the promise of American democracy?'”

I do sincerely hope for all of us that Mr. Gore’s opponents will embrace his views on climate change in a very near future. If they were not doing so, this situation would lead the entire Earth population into huge problems.

To infer, I would like to state that the United States’ population represents 6 percent of the global population but accounts for 25 percent of world’s greenhouse gases emissions. So, this is why America truly and undoubtedly needs to act on climate change and global warming as soon as possible.

Sources : IHT.com | NYTimes

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