Al Gore, pictured in Florida in September 2010, argues in a news article that people pressure on politicians is key to solving the climate crisis. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Let's start at the end, with Al Gore's final paragraph in his long and fascinating piece for Rolling Stone magazine:
The climate crisis, in reality, is a struggle for the soul of America. It is about whether or not we are still capable — given the ill health of our democracy and the current dominance of wealth over reason — of perceiving important and complex realities clearly enough to promote and protect the sustainable well-being of the many. What hangs in the balance is the future of civilization as we know it.
The doom-laden last line will annoy as many as it pleases, true or not. But, writing from the other side of the Atlantic (though not out of reach of the effects of US carbon emissions, or anyone else's), it is the critique of the current US electoral system that stands out: "crass, degrading and horribly destructive to the core values of American democracy".
Gore argues that, through now unlimited and secret campaign finance, "Polluters and Idealogues" have captured US politics to the extent that reason and the common good can no longer win out in debates. He cites powerful examples: how, on the verge of the second Gulf war, 75% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 atrocities; how the deregulation of Wall Street led the world's economy to the brink of collapse.
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