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.
Interpretation
Despair about the future can inhibit proactive behavior and promote short-sightedness.
In this quote, Al Gore highlights the detrimental effect of despair on our ability to take meaningful actions for the future. When individuals dwell on hopelessness, they become preoccupied with immediate concerns rather than engaging in efforts that will ensure a better long-term outcome, thus failing to make the necessary changes to improve their situation.
In practice
Using this quote in a motivational speech about overcoming challenges.
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.
Behind every American soldier, dozens of their countrymen tonight sleep soundly β and hundreds more in their shadow abroad will wake up alive and safe.
In my darkest days in the oncology unit, I promised myself that if I ever got into remission one day, I would become a stronger, healthier and better version of my precancer self.
My friend Kurt Maix once described this diffidence as Fear's friendly sister, the right and necessary counterweight to that courage that urges men skyward, and protects them from self-destruction.
Those in powerless positions aren't about to complain about bullying bosses, abusive supervisors or corrupt co-workers. There is no safe way to do so and no process that promises redress.
There is a certain impertinence in allowing oneself to be burned for an opinion.
As a visible and outspoken trans woman myself, I know that it's rare not to have your trans-ness lead the way for you in public spaces.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.