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.
Interpretation
The environmental crisis is urgent and affects future generations.
Al Gore emphasizes the seriousness of the global environmental crisis, arguing that it is undeniable and compares its reality to a common saying in Tennessee. He expresses a deep concern for the future of his children, highlighting the moral responsibility to address environmental degradation to ensure a better planet for them.
In practice
During a lecture on sustainability, this quote can be used to emphasize the urgency of environmental protection.
Global warming is real and human activity is the main cause. The consequences are mainly negative and headed toward catastrophic, unless we act. However, the good news is that we can meet this challenge. It is not too late, and we have everything we need to get started.
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.
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.
We have a planetary emergency. We have to find a way to create, in the generation of those alive today, a sense of generational mission.
CO2 is the exhaling breath of our civilization, literally... Changing that pattern requires a scope, a scale, a speed of change that is beyond what we have done in the past.
Well-established theories collapse under the weight of new facts and observations which cannot be explained, and then accumulate to the point where the once useful theory is clearly obsolete.
What beauty. I saw clouds and their light shadows on the distant dear earth.... The water looked like darkish, slightly gleaming spots.... When I watched the horizon, I saw the abrupt, contrasting transition from the earth's light-colored surface to the absolutely black sky. I enjoyed the rich color spectrum of the earth. It is surrounded by a light blue aureole that gradually darkens, becoming turquiose, dark blue, violet, and finally coal black.
To a dull mind all of nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.
. . . the time has also come to identify and preserve free-flowing stretches of our great rivers before growth and development make the beauty of the unspoiled waterway a memory.
With the coming of spring, I am calm again.
Tis like the birthday of the world,_x000D_ _x000D_ When earth was born in bloom;_x000D_ _x000D_ The light is made of many dyes,_x000D_ _x000D_ The air is all perfume:_x000D_ _x000D_ There's crimson buds, and white and blue,_x000D_ _x000D_ The very rainbow showers_x000D_ _x000D_ Have turned to blossoms where they fell,_x000D_ _x000D_ And sown the earth with flowers.
The moon was a sharply defined crescent and the sky was perfectly clear. The stars shone with such fierce, contained brilliance that it seemed absurd to call the night dark.
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