Al Gore began warning us about drastic climate change in 1993. Basically, the reaction was

[Atticus]

"Yeah, ---- whatever."

IF we had listened to his "inconvenient truth" then, we could now be telling OPEC to take a long walk off a short pier.

But, no---bringing snowballs onto the Senate floor to disprove "global warming" was applauded as an appropriate response to "liberal hand-wringing".

Look behind you. That's the tipping point.

[Walleye]

1. Worse. It went from yeah, whatever, to yea, he says he invented the Internet, har har har

[raging moderate]

2. Yes. And Al Gore actually DID help set up the modern Internet.

Al Gore is said to have written much of the legislation that converted an old military communication system into our public-access Internet. He was so obviously the right choice for President.

[Walleye]

9. I know what an alternate universe it would've been but for 500 votes in Florida

And five votes on the Supreme Court

[Pobeka]

4. "Information super highway". No one publicly pushed this harder than Al Gore.

Where was the "liberal" media when it came to pointing out this was what he was referring to, not that he invented the network technology itself?

[Walleye]

8. Woefully deficient

[samplegirl]

3. I know we would never be

In the mess we are in now! That’s for sure.

[Kaleva]

5. It would have required the industrial world to listen to him

Trying to convince China not to vastly expand its economy would have been a tough task.


Today, China is the largest emitter of CO2. About twice what the US produces.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/271748/the-largest-emitters-of-co2-in-the-world/

[edhopper]

7. An Apollo size program

to develop renewable energy would have given them the means to grow using less fossil fuels.

[Kaleva]

13. But they chose not to go that route. Same with India.

[edhopper]

14. What I am saying

is if we had an Apollo size program with Gore as President when he won, the technology would have been available for the rest of the world. Those countries are using what is fast cheap and available.
We should have been working on this since Carter. But the GOP has stalled it every step of the way.
They keep pushing for more use of oil and coal.

[Kaleva]

18. This also assumed Congress funding it

Which could have been possible but we'll never know.

[edhopper]

24. It is a definite "What If?"

But it is also what should have been done. Our lack of action may have doomed us.

[Kaleva]

25. I agree

[LastDemocratInSC]

6. Edward Teller, principal designer of the hydrogen bomb

and as hardcore a right-winger as ever lived, was vocal about global warming and warned the oil industry in a 1959 speech:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jan/01/on-its-hundredth-birthday-in-1959-edward-teller-warned-the-oil-industry-about-global-warming

Teller was a scientist who didn't ignore facts that were right in front of him.

[karynnj]

10. Al Gore actually started warning long before that

He had at least one hearing as a congressman, before 1985. He also wrote a book, Earth in the Balance, and held hearings in the Senate. One interesting thing is that in the late 80s and early 90s, there was bipartisan support.. and bipartisan opposition.

[malaise]

11. Before Al Gore, Jimmy Carter set the standard with Solar use at the White House

Reagan the asshole removed the solar panels.
That is all.

[SYFROYH]

16. You're right. Jimmy was on top of it with the National Engery Act of 1978

[ananda]

12. I listened.

I actually started listening in the 70's.

[Hortensis]

15. And in 1965 LBJ officially put congress on notice to take action, 57 years ago.

Of course that action was taken by a Democratic president. And the resistance against acting on it organized mostly by the Republicans and their backers. The general migration of liberals and conservatives to opposing parties had begun.

Btw, the League of Conservation Voters has been keeping congressional data on individual and party records since 1971. Seeing where pro- and minus votes were back then and what they changed to over the years is interesting viewing. Many categories are tracked; a separate "climate" category was added later.

https://scorecard.lcv.org/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwnP-ZBhDiARIsAH3FSRfCwApnwDx0S3h2UKKHx7IYAdHV23B2p4MmCgVmDBmORqgjbEWm7pUaAn2QEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

[Yavin4]

17. Notice how much things have been going to shit since Bush v. Gore?

Obama and Biden have been able to slow the slide, but we're still on the path to shit town.

[Emrys]

19. Not disagreeing about Gore's important role,

but the first warnings about anthropogenic climate change stretch as far back as at least the 1860s.

More recently, this video's from 1958:

For FIFTY YEARS scientists have known about global warming. This exerpt is from the well known educational documentary "Unchained Goddess" produced by Frank Capra for Bell Labs for their television program "The Bell Telephone Hour." It was so well made, that it went on to live a continued life in middle school science classrooms across the nation for decades.

Nearly half a century before Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth," this film was made. But what does it reveal? That our scientists have known for over two generations about this danger, but our politicians and citizenry have chosen to ignore the dangerous implications of this fact until it really is too late to avoid the preventable consequences.

Perhaps we deserve our fate.

The role of Big Oil and its associates, particularly during and after the Reagan years, in suppressing and falsifying the evidence is well known.

[jalan48]

20. We were sold a Disneyland existence by the corporations and now the show is ending while

those responsible and their families escape to better places on the planet.

[inthewind21]

22. Well

In order to sell successfully, you have to have willing buyers. Who is responsible for the damage done by snake oil? The snake oil salesman or those who bought it without question?

[jalan48]

23. Those who sell the snake oil know exactly what they are selling, the uninformed buyers don't.

[inthewind21]

26. That's

where we disagree. To a point. Yes, the salesman knows, but the buyer is responsible for their own choices. Or is it your position that the public bears no responsibility for being informed? I hate corporations just as much as the next, but they wouldn't be mega billionaires if the public didn't buy hook line and sinker what they are selling.

[jalan48]

27. Power differential. Corporations can spend billions of dollars selling a toxic

dream to the citizens. They can spend millions employing behavioral psychologists to sell that dream to uninformed and unsophisticated citizens. The two parties are in no way equal, corporate propaganda is powerful and effective.

[inthewind21]

21. 1993?

Hell Jimmy Carter started warning in 1979 when he installed Solar Panels on the White House. Which Regan promptly removed.

[Hekate]

28. I remember it well