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those alive today, a sense of generational mission. I wish I could find the words to convey this. This was another
hero generation that brought democracy to the planet. Another that ended slavery. And that gave women the
right to vote. We can do this. Don't tell me that we don't have the capacity to do it. If we had just one week's
worth of what we spend on the Iraq War, we could be well on the way to solving this challenge. We have the
capacity to do it.

One final point: I'm optimistic, because I believe we have the capacity, at moments of great challenge, to
set aside the causes of distraction and rise to the challenge that history is presenting to us. Sometimes I hear
people respond to the disturbing facts of the climate crisis by saying, "Oh, this is so terrible. What a burden we
have." I would like to ask you to reframe that. How many generations in all of human history have had the
opportunity to rise to a challenge that is worthy of our best efforts? A challenge that can pull from us more than
we knew we could do? I think we ought to approach this challenge with a sense of profound joy and gratitude
that we are the generation about which, a thousand years from now, philharmonic orchestras and poets and
singers will celebrate by saying, they were the ones that found it within themselves to solve this crisis and lay the
basis for a bright and optimistic human future.

Let's do that. Thank you very much.

Chris Anderson: For so many people at TED, there is deep pain that basically a design issue on a voting
form -- one bad design issue meant that your voice wasn't being heard like that in the last eight years in a
position where you could make these things come true. That hurts.

Al Gore: You have no idea. (Laughter)

CA: When you look at what the leading candidates in your own party are doing now -- I mean, there's --
are you excited by their plans on global warming?

AG: The answer to the question is hard for me because, on the one hand, I think that we should feel really
great about the fact that the Republican nominee -- certain nominee -- John McCain, and both of the finalists for
the Democratic nomination -- all three have a very different and forward-leaning position on the climate crisis.
All three have offered leadership, and all three are very different from the approach taken by the current
administration. And I think that all three have also been responsible in putting forward plans and proposals. But
the campaign dialogue that -- as illustrated by the questions -- that was put together by the League of
Conservation Voters, by the way, the analysis of all the questions -- and, by the way, the debates have all been
sponsored by something that goes by the Orwellian label, "Clean Coal." Has anybody noticed that? Every single
debate has been sponsored by "Clean Coal." "Now, even lower emissions!"

The richness and fullness of the dialogue in our democracy has not laid the basis for the kind of bold
initiative that is really needed. So they're saying the right things and they may -- whichever of them is elected --
may do the right thing, but let me tell you: when I came back from Kyoto in 1997, with a feeling of great
happiness that we'd gotten that breakthrough there, and then confronted the United States Senate, only one out of
100 senators was willing to vote to confirm, to ratify that treaty. Whatever the candidates say has to be laid
alongside what the people say.

This challenge is part of the fabric of our whole civilization. CO2 is the exhaling breath of our
civilization, literally. And now we mechanized that process. Changing that pattern requires a scope, a scale, a
speed of change that is beyond what we have done in the past. So that's why I began by saying, be optimistic in
what you do, but be an active citizen. Demand -- change the light bulbs, but change the laws. Change the global
treaties. We have to speak up. We have to solve this democracy -- this -- We have sclerosis in our democracy.
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