In N.Y. Times, Gore Outlines Compulsion to Act on Climate Quickly

In an op-ed published in the New York Times, former VP Gore said that since you can't "wish away climate change," political actions are necessary. Gore's commentary included a note that a bipartisan group of Senators would be pressing for cap-and-trade legislation, an action that may not come to pass as the trio indicated they were moving away from that approach.

Wrote Gore: "I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion. But unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at least two mistakes in the thousands of pages of careful scientific work over the last 22 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In fact, the crisis is still growing because we are continuing to dump 90 million tons of global-warming pollution every 24 hours into the atmosphere--as if it were an open sewer."

Gore quoted former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill as saying: "Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes, you must do what is required." He added: "Now is that time. Public officials must rise to this challenge by doing what is required; and the public must demand that they do so--or must replace them."