There has been a lot of buzz about Al Gore and global warming with a couple of high profile diaries about his visit to Idaho the other day. I was able to attend another speech by Gore that has received almost no attention on this site. Last night Al Gore spoke at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota to acceptthat college's annual Boe Award to a full-house of 4,000 people (tickets sold out within a couple of weeks).
Gore spent a large amount of his time at the podium talking about global warming, which was no surprise to me. Average temperatures are increasing, ice shelfs (that reflect heat back into space) are melting, hurricanes and on the rise, etc.
Assault on Reason
What impressed me the most about his speech, however, was a theme he presented. Reason is failing in our Democracy. Gore started his speech by talking about the enlightenment. For 1,000 years inbetween the fall of the Romans and the Renissiance reason failed. Only monks could read. The church and the nobility controlled all of the information. But that all changed with innovations like the printing press and the birth of America was the birth of a new age of reason. But something has gone wrong.
Gore then launched into a startlingly passionate speech about the Iraq War (which surprised me because he was accepting an award for his work on global warming). Gore raised his voice and authoratativly stated that 3/4's of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein and Iraqi pilots were primarily responsible for 9/11 when we started our war with Iraq. If Americans had all known that Saddam was in no way responsible and in no way a threat, he reasoned, then there would have been no war. We as a nation failed.
Gore then switched to a grave critique of modern politics, which he said had abandoned the concept of "self-governance according to the rules of reason." He linked that breakdown to a false connection between Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"If we the people had been alert and had fully understood the truth of the situation, we would never have empowered our senators and congressmen to say, 'Go after that fellow in Iraq and get revenge for us for what he did to us on 9-11,'" Gore said.
He blamed this failing on the rise of television and the decrease in the the printed word (although he did acknowledge the internet was on the rise and may give the future more hope in this regard). Then he linked America's reliance on television to the political reliance on television as a means to broadcast advertisements. And how does one pay for these advertisements?
Gore gave a story about Senator Byrd from West Virginia, a man that Gore respects. Before the vote on the Iraq War Resolution, Sen. Byrd asked "Why is this chamber empty?" Gore said that the other congressmen were at cocktail parties asking donors for money. Money, Gore said, is a major problem in our democracy. Our politicians have a daily quota of money to make in order to run for office next election. He didn't fault the politicians personally, but said they were simply surviving in a poorly designed political system. This was music to my ears. If only he would run for office again, I thought, and fix this.
Solutions
Another aspect of his speech were the solutions he proposed for global warming. The market is unfair because price tags are what people care about when shopping. Here's an analogy he used by quoting Maslow (humanist philosopher known for the heirarchy of needs): "if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail." If the only way we have to decide on what to buy is a pricetag, we decide our purchases based on costs. Gore also mentioned psychological studies that show that we have a tendency to throw "non-critical" information into a garbage basket in our memory. The marketplace should incorporate the costs of pollution (like carbon dioxide) into their products. The cheapest products should be the ones that are most effecient in all ways including pollution.
The country should eliminate most employment-based taxes and, Gore said, "replace all that revenue, dollar for dollar, with pollution-based taxes, principally on carbon dioxide."
Many consider the idea "crazy," but "I don't care."
His proposal was to bring wage taxes as close to zero as possible and replace them with a pollution tax. He didn't get into the comprehensive elements of the plan but I was impressed with the idea. Even though I pay $0 a year for income tax, I still pay taxes on Social Security and Medicare (other wage taxes) and I feel that it is important to have pollution figured into the costs of products. It's the perfect capitalist solution to this problem and hopefully everybody can get on board with this proposal or one similar to it.
Afterthoughts
Gore was very well received. He got a standing ovation when introduced, when starting his speech, when finishing his speech, and after finishing a short Q&A session. His jokes were laughed at and his jibes at the Bush administration, even in a state as "red" as South Dakota, were met with enthusiastic applause and no jeers. I'll leave you with these quotes that the Argus Leader, the state newspaper (and the source of my other hyperlinks), used in their article regarding his speech.
Audience members said they were impressed and a bit surprised by Gore's passion.
"I had the stereotypical opinion of him being a robot," said Kathleen Neuharth, a bookseller in Sioux Falls. But she said the talk changed her view.
Augustana biology professor Leland Johnson said he was also struck by Gore's emotion.
"This was a call to action. This was evangelism. He was preaching today, he wasn't teaching like he did in his video," Johnson said. "And I think that's good."
Sorry I have to go to work now; I am a busy student and wanted to diary this before it was outdated. I will log in once I get there to participate in any discussion on this diary. Thanks for reading :)