Gore to TED: Integrate Poverty/Climate Change Responses

"We have a planetary emergency, and we have to find a way to create in the generation of those alive today a sense of generational mission."


- Al Gore, speaking at the closing session of the Technology, Entertainment and Design [TED] conference in Monterey, California last Saturday afternoon.

[Gore] asked investors in the [TED] audience to change their portfolios to focus on technologies that solve the climate crisis. He also wants the U.S. to ratify the Kyoto Treaty limiting greenhouse gas emissions and he wants a global movement that's aimed at achieving renewable energy, conservation, and efficiency not only in the developed world but in the developing one. The latter is important, he said, because "in our day and time, increased global warming pollution anywhere is a threat to the human future everywhere," and "we have given to the developing countries the technologies and the thinking that are creating the crisis."

He noted that issues of poverty are intimately tied to the environmental crisis, and therefore responses to poverty in developing nations would need to be integrated with responses to the climate crisis. He added that the struggle against poverty and the challenge of cutting emissions in wealthy countries both had "a single, very simple solution": A CO2 tax -- revenue-neutral -- to replace taxations on employment.

- from Al Gore Makes Impassioned Plea to TEDsters by Kim Zetter, [Wired.com]

For the how and why, see:

Poverty and Climate Change: Reducing the Vulnerability of the Poor through Adaptation
by the Poverty-Environment Partnership
June 2003 [pdf]




A beauty of a tune by Jill Sobule from the 2006 TED con (with a cameo performance by TED curator Chris Anderson:




An additional note on the Gore family:
Al Gore's daughter Karenna Gore Schiff, who has penned a new book about inspiring women leaders in politics, "Lighting the Way: Nine Women Who Changed Modern America." was asked, while speaking at an all-girls' school on March 4th, whether she planned to vote for Hillary Clinton. Her reply:

"I have not publicly come out supporting anyone," Schiff answered, adding that women should not vote for a presidential candidate simply because she is a woman. "I've been excited about both candidates." - LINK

The New York Times DealBook blog points us to a Bloomberg News article revealing that:

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore left the White House seven years ago with less than $2 million in assets, including a Virginia home and the family farm in Tennessee. Now he's making enough to put $35 million in hedge funds and other private partnerships.

Tipper Gore will be among the speakers this Saturday in Washington D.C. at the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) 16th annual national dinner. The event will honor Army Sergeant Darren Manzella, an openly gay medic featured on the December 16th edition of the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes, with the group's Barry Winchell Courage Award.