Al Gore Quotes

#1. Well, the title "An Inconvenient Truth" is a way of highlighting the reasons why some people, including the president, don't seem to accept the truth.

Al Gore

#2. Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

Al Gore

#3. I'm sorry I ever invented the Electoral College.

Al Gore

#4. We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.

Al Gore

#5. We are monumentally distracted by a pervasive technological culture that appears to have a life of its own, one that insists on our full attention, continually seducing us and pulling us away from the opportunity to experience directly the true meaning of our own lives.

Al Gore

#6. The very first words that we, the American nation, spoke were right here in Philadelphia. You know those words: "We the people." It wasn't, "We the conglomerates." It wasn't, "We the corporations." It was, "We the people.

Al Gore

#7. It seems an easy choice - sacrifice the tree for a human life - until one learns that three trees must be destroyed for each patient treated. Suddenly we must confront some tough questions. How important are the medical needs of future generations?

Al Gore

#8. [T]he scientific enterprise will never be completely free of mistakes. What is important is that the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged.

Al Gore

#9. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.

Al Gore

#10. When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. When you have the law on your side, argue the law. When you have neither, holler.

Al Gore

#11. The global environment crisis is, as we say in Tennessee, real as rain, and I cannot stand the thought of leaving my children with a degraded earth and a diminished future.

Al Gore

#12. The debate's over. The people who dispute the international consensus on global warming are in the same category now with the people who think the moon landing was staged on a movie lot in Arizona.

Al Gore

#13. There's lots about politics I don't feel comfortable with. To talk about the politics of future ideas is impossible in soundbite form.

Al Gore

#14. The existence of the EPA regulation will require large carbon polluters to look at their hole cards, and some of them have decided that they much prefer legislation.

Al Gore

#15. All of us can make changes, but the changes that are most needed are not light bulbs and windows but laws and policies and treaties. So, yes, we are in a phase of this (climate protection) struggle where civic and political action is at the top of the list.

Al Gore

#16. I think it's harder for people than it should be. But as more and more of us become carbon neutral and change the patterns in our lives to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem, we are now beginning to see the changes in policy that are needed.

Al Gore

#17. While President Bush likes to project an image of strength and courage, the real truth is that in the presence of his large financial contributors, he is a moral coward.

Al Gore

#18. Speaking from my own religious tradition in this Christmas season, 2,000 years ago a homeless woman gave birth to a homeless child in a manger because the inn was full.

Al Gore

#19. As president, I will bring all the parties and stakeholders together. I am going to come up with a solution that respects the environment and does not cause an upheaval in the economy.

Al Gore

#20. Remember America, I gave you the Internet and I can take it away.

Al Gore

#21. Mother Nature does not do bailouts.

Al Gore

#22. In a time of darkness, you don't curse the darkness, you light a candle.

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#23. And just as the false assumption that we are not connected to the earth has led to the ecological crisis, so to the equally false assumption that we arenot connected to each other that has led to our social crisis.

Al Gore

#24. The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say 'I read a science fiction novel that says it's not a problem.' You take action.

Al Gore

#25. I was in elective politics for 24 years. I've made four national races, two for President, two for Vice President. I have found there are other ways to serve, and I'm enjoying them.

Al Gore

#26. As many of you know, I was very instrumental in the founding of the Internet

Al Gore

#27. The carbon fuels industry-big oil and coal-have a 50-year lease on the Republican Party and they are drilling it for everything it's worth.

Al Gore

#28. It ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a twenty-five-year period.

Al Gore

#29. A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government.

Al Gore

#30. If youre a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration.

Al Gore

#31. We're putting 70 million tonnes of pollution into the atmosphere every day, trapping an enormous amount of extra heat from the sun inside the earth's atmosphere. It's threatening to push the planet past a tipping point beyond which climate change would be difficult to stop

Al Gore

#32. There's no such thing as clean coal. It's non-existent. Theoretically, it might be possible, many years from now, to come up with a way to clean it as it's burnt. But there's not a single demonstration project in the United States. Clean coal doesn't exist.

Al Gore

#33. The Bush-Cheney administration had betrayed some basic American values. So there was hunger for change.

Al Gore

#34. A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.

Al Gore

#35. The presidency is more than a popularity contest.

Al Gore

#36. I saw the logarithmic growth of computer power ...

Al Gore

#37. Hurricane Sandy is a disturbing sign of things to come. We must heed this warning and act quickly to solve the climate crisis. Dirty energy makes dirty weather.

Al Gore

#38. It's an important point, and every little bit helps not least because those who make those kinds of changes are more likely to make their voices heard as citizens. But the ultimate solutions are going to come through policies.

Al Gore

#39. Consider a clock thermostat, and set it so that you're not using energy when you don't need it, when you're out of your house.

Al Gore

#40. Our planet has a rising fever. If the crib catches fire you don't say: 'Hmmm, how fast is that crib going to burn? Has it ever burned before? Is my baby flame retardant?'

Al Gore

#41. Plant trees, Lots of trees

Al Gore

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

Al Gore

#43. In order to solve the climate crisis, we need to solve the democracy crisis.

Al Gore

#44. The Bush administration works closely with a network of rapid response digital brownshirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors for 'undermining support for our troops.'

Al Gore

#45. It is just human nature to take time to connect the dots, I know that. But I also know that there can be a day of reckoning when you wish you had connected the dots more quickly.

Al Gore

#46. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift Global Consciousness to a higher level.

Al Gore

#47. One tragic example of the loss of forests and then water is found in Ethiopia. The amount of its forested land has decreased from 40 to 1 percent in the last four decades. Concurrently, the amount of rainfall has declined to the point where the country is rapidly becoming a wasteland.

Al Gore

#48. When it comes to climate, we can all make a big difference. At the most basic level, don't let denial go unchallenged and win the conversation on climate.

Al Gore

#49. 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.

Al Gore

#50. My counsel advises me that there is no controlling legal authority or case that says there was any violation of law whatsoever.

Al Gore

#51. The catastrophe now threatening us is unprecedented - and we often confuse the unprecedented with the improbable.

Al Gore

#52. You need to really scrub your investment portfolios, because I guarantee you, many of you are going to find them chock-full of subprime carbon assets.

Al Gore

#53. The conversation on global warming has been stalled because a shrinking group of denialists fly into a rage when it's mentioned.

Al Gore

#54. There are good people, who are in politics - in both parties - who hold this at arm's length, because if they acknowledge it and recognize it, then the moral imperative to make big changes is inescapable.

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#55. As important as it is to change the light bulbs, its more important to change the laws

Al Gore

#56. There are many who would much prefer that the word 'climate' never be mentioned and that the issue be eliminated from our national conversation.

Al Gore

#57. I feel passionate about solving the climate crisis.

Al Gore

#58. And nobody is talking about taking guns away from hunters or sportsmen or banning all guns. Nobody is talking about that.

Al Gore

#59. Feb. 9, 1999 Dear Friend, Without your previous support, Bill Clinton and I would not have won our victories for the American people in 1992 and 1996 ... And to win in 2000, I need you by my side.

Al Gore

#60. I was born a poor black child.

Al Gore

#61. The will to act is a renewable resource.

Al Gore

#62. I see myself in the mold of Rin Tin Tin. It didn't go to his head either.

Al Gore

#63. It's always been my dream to come to Madison Square Garden and be the warm-up act for Elvis.

Al Gore

#64. Here's the solution. We need a CO2 tax, revenue-neutral, to replace taxation on employment, which was invented by Bismarck - and some things have changed since the 19th Century.

Al Gore

#65. There is the natural tendency that all of us are vulnerable to, to deny unpleasant realities and to look for any excuse to push them away and resolve to think about them another day long in the future.

Al Gore

#66. I think that more diversity is a good thing, and fresh points of view articulated by people who are committed to excellence in journalism is a beneficial change in the American media landscape.

Al Gore

#67. You're going to see new processes that utilize waste as the source of energy, so there's no petroleum consumed in the process - that makes the energy balance uniformly positive.

Al Gore

#68. Once the renewable infrastructure is built, the fuel is free forever. Unlike carbon-based fuels, the wind and the sun and the earth itself provide fuel that is free, in amounts that are effectively limitless.

Al Gore

#69. I'm a big fan of # Bitcoin

Al Gore

#70. I want to extend condolences to the families of those who died in the service of the United Nations.

Al Gore

#71. I don't have the illusion that there's any position or role in the world with as much potential for bringing about change as that of president of the United States.

Al Gore

#72. The subjugation of news by entertainment seriously harms our democracy: It leads to dysfunctional journalism that fails to inform the people. And when the people are not informed, they cannot hold government accountable when it is incompetent, corrupt, or both.

Al Gore

#73. I take no pleasure in the fact that the scientific predictions I've relayed to popular audiences turn out to be true.

Al Gore

#74. 2009 saw the eighth 'ten-year flood' of Fargo, North Dakota, since 1989. In Iowa, Cedar Rapids was hit last year by a flood that exceeded the 500-year flood plain. All-time flood records are being broken in areas throughout the world.

Al Gore

#75. Consider what kind of car you get. Buy cars and other products that have the least impact environmentally.

Al Gore

#76. It is my deep personal conviction that abortion is wrong. I hope that some day we will see the current outrageously large number of abortions drop sharply ... let me assure you that I share youR belief that innocent human life must be protected.

Al Gore

#77. American troops and American taxpayers are shouldering a huge burden with no end in sight because Mr. Bush took us to war on false premises and with no plan to win the peace.

Al Gore

#78. The struggle to save the global environment is in one way much more difficult than the struggle to vanquish Hitler, for this time the war is with ourselves. We are the enemy, just as we have only ourselves as allies.

Al Gore

#79. It's as if we think the laws of physics are subject to debate and amendment and political contributions can sway the laws of physics.

Al Gore

#80. The rule of reason is the true sovereign in the American system.

Al Gore

#81. 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.

Al Gore

#82. The truth is that climate change is presenting the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced.

Al Gore

#83. The first less is this: take it from me, every vote counts.

Al Gore

#84. 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.

Al Gore

#85. Today we're dumping 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the environment, and tomorrow we will dump more, and there is no effective worldwide response. Until we start sharply reducing global-warming pollution, I will feel that I have failed.

Al Gore

#86. Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play.

Al Gore

#87. The task of saving the earth's environment must and will become the central organizing principle of the post-Cold War world.

Al Gore

#88. 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.

Al Gore

#89. The moral imperative to make big changes is inescapable ... that what we take for granted may not be here for our children

Al Gore

#90. The crisis is a concrete threatening reality today. It stands to get catastrophically worse unless we take action before the accumulation [of] this global warming pollution reaches such toxic levels that the problem becomes bigger than we can solve.

Al Gore

#91. Judge Roberts is a brilliant lawyer, a brilliant judge. He is a very careful judge, a thoughtful judge. I would agree with what the President said earlier. He is a decent man. I think everybody who knows him likes him.

Al Gore

#92. You know there's an old african proverb that i made up. if you want to go quickly, go alone. if you want to go far, go together. we need to go far, quickly

Al Gore

#93. I actually thought and believed that the story would be compelling enough to cause a real sea change in the way Congress reacted to that issue. I thought they would be startled, too. And they weren't.

Al Gore

#94. The spiritual sense of our place in nature ... can be traced to the origins of human civilization ... The last vestige of organized goddess worship was eliminated by Christianity.

Al Gore

#95. Global warming pollution, indeed all pollution, is now described by economists as an "externality." This absurd label means, in essence: we don't to keep track of this stuff so let's pretend it doesn't exist.

Al Gore

#96. I drive a hybrid, and we've changed our light bulbs and windows and installed solar panels and geothermal ground source heat pumps and most everything else.

Al Gore

#97. The persistent and sustained reliance on falsehoods as the basis of policy, even in the face of massive and well-understood evidence to the contrary, seems to many Americans to have reached levels that were previously unimaginable.

Al Gore

#98. As I have said for many years throughout this land, we're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the future of human civilization. Every bit of that has to change.

Al Gore

#99. I did very extensive diligence on Al Jazeera English, the network from which Al Jazeera America is going to be derived, and it's really very clear that they have long since established a reputation for excellence and integrity and objectivity.

Al Gore

#100. The planet is in distress and all of the attention is on Paris Hilton.

Al Gore