Al Gore Quotes - Page 10

I think that we should ban so-called junk guns. I think we should ban assault weapons like the weapons used here [in Fort Worth], yes. I think that the kinds of weapons that have no legitimate use for hunting or the kind of weapon that a homeowner would use, I think they should be banned, yes, those kind of weapons.

Any child born into the hugely consumptionist way of life so common in the industrial world will have an impact that is, on average, many times more destructive than that of a child born in the developing world.

Of all the works of civilization that interfere with the natural water distribution system, irrigation has been by far the most pervasive and powerful.

The center of the earth is about a million degrees.

No controlling legal authority

I used to have a military officer travelling with me at all times with a suitcase - referred to as the nuclear football - in case it had to be used.

The ten hottest years in the atmospheric record, going back only 160 years, have been in the last eleven years.

Most people in politics draw energy from backslapping and shaking hands and all that. I draw energy from discussing ideas.

We have to abandon the conceit that isolated personal actions are going to solve this crisis. Our policies have to shift.

In a time of social fragmentation, vulgarity becomes a way of life. To be shocking becomes more important - and often more profitable - than to be civil or creative or truly original.

Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilisation in World War Two. We have everything we need except political will, but political will is a renewable resource.

When people flirt with despair about the future, they are less likely to take the actions necessary to safeguard it, focusing instead on the short-term.

The science linking the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather to the climate crisis has matured tremendously in the last couple of years.

The dominance of short-term perspectives has led to routine decisions in the markets that sacrifice the long-term buildup of genuine value in pursuit of artificial, short-term gains.

The ability of big money to shape perceptions - where you have four anti-climate lobbyists for every single member of the House and Senate - is a big factor.

Surveillance technologies now available - including the monitoring of virtually all digital information - have advanced to the point where much of the essential apparatus of a police state is already in place.

Science has a culture that is inherently cautious and that is normally not a bad thing. You could even say conservative, because of the peer review process and because the scientific method prizes uncertainty and penalises anyone who goes out on any sort of a limb that is not held in place by abundant and well-documented evidence.

Population growth is straining the Earth's resources to the breaking point, and educating girls is the single most important factor in stabilizing that. That, plus helping women gain political and economic power and safeguarding their reproductive rights.

Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.

All I have to do is be the best Al I can be, because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and, doggone it, people like me.

What changed in the United States with Hurricane Katrina was a feeling that we have entered a period of consequences.

The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels... If we succeed, we create booming new industries, wealth, clean secure energy and maybe we prevent the greatest disaster so far in human history, saving millions of lives while improving billions more. If we fail, basically it's business as usual while things slowly get worse all around us.

We the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency-a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential...the earth has a fever. And the fever is rising...Indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on earth itself.

We have arrived at a moment of decision. Our home - Earth - is in grave danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, of course, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings.

The wind and the sun are free.