I – Chapter 23

0100 [01:06:18] "And that brings me to the second factor that has transformed our relationship to the Earth. " (Al Gore)

0200 [01:06:23] "The scientific and technological revolution is a great blessing in that it has given us tremendous benefits in areas like medicine and communications. But this new power that we have also brings a responsibility to think about its consequences. " (Al Gore)

0300 [01:06:41] "Here is a formula to think about. Old habits plus old technology have predictable consequences. Old habits that are hard to change plus new technology can have dramatically altered consequences. " (Al Gore)

0400 [01:06:53] "Warfare with spears and bows and arrows and rifles and machine guns, that's one thing. But then a new technology came. We have to think differently about war because the new technologies so completely transformed the consequences of that old habit that we can't just mindlessly continue the patterns of the past. " (Al Gore)

0500 [01:07:27] "In the same way, we have always exploited the Earth for sustenance. " (Al Gore)

0600 [01:07:32] "For most of our existence, we used relatively simple tools. The plow, the tractor. But even tools like shovels are different now. " (Al Gore)

0650 [01:07:46] "Shovel used to be this. Shovels have gotten bigger. And every year, they get more powerful. So our ability to have an effect, in this case, on the surface of the earth is utterly transformed. " (Al Gore)

0700 [01:08:03] "You can say the same thing about irrigation, which is the great thing. But when we divert rivers without considering the consequences, then sometimes rivers no longer reach the sea. There were two rivers in Central Asia that were used by the former Soviet Union for irrigating cotton fields unwisely. The Aral Sea was fed by them. It used to be the fourth largest inland sea in the world. When I went there, I saw this strange sight of an enormous fishing fleet resting in the sand. This is the canal that the fishing industry desperately tried to build to get to the receding shoreline. " (Al Gore)

0900 [01:09:03] "And this is also a political issue. " (Al Gore)

1000 [01:09:06] "This is a computer map of the world that distorts to show the relative contributions to global warming. In our country, we are responsible for more than all of South America, all of Africa, all of the Middle East, all of Asia, all combined. " (Al Gore)

1100 [01:09:22] "The per capita average in Africa, India, China, Japan, E.U., Russia. There's where we are. Way...way above everyone else. If you take population into account, it's a little bit different. China is playing a bigger role, so is Europe. But we are still by all odds the largest contributor. " (Al Gore)

1200 [01:09:41] "And so it is up to us to look at how we think about it because our way of thinking is the third and final factor that transforms our relationship to the Earth. " (Al Gore)

1300 [01:09:50] "If a frog jumps into a pot of boiling water, it jumps right out again because it senses the danger. But the very same frog, if it jumps into a pot of lukewarm water that is slowly brought to a boil, will just sit there and it won't move. It'll just sit there, even as the temperature continues to go up and up. It'll stay there until ...until it's rescued. It's important to rescue the frog. " (Al Gore)

1400 [01:10:30] "But the point is this. Our collective nervous system is like that frog's nervous system. It takes a sudden jolt sometimes before we become aware of danger. If it seems gradual, even if it really is happening quickly, we are capable of just sitting there and not responding. And not reacting. " (Al Gore)