Earth in the Balance Part 1

Book review

In Part 1 of Earth in the Balance: Ecology and Human Spirit, Senator Al Gore tells us that: “Too often we are unwilling to look beyond ourselves to see the effect of our actions today on our children and grandchildren. Many people have lost faith in the future because in virtually every facet of our civilization we are beginning to act as if our future is now so much in doubt that it makes more sense to focus exclusively on our current needs and short-term problems.” “My earliest lessons on environmental protection were about the prevention of soil erosion on our family farm. Little has changed. Even now, about 8 acre’s worth of prime top soil floats past Memphis every hour.” “Iowa used to have an average of 16 inches of the best topsoil in the world. Now it is down to 8 inches; most of the rest of it is somewhere on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.” “People who lease the land for short-term profits often don’t consider the future. They strip-mine the topsoil and move on. Even if you own the land it is difficult to compete in the short term against somebody who doesn’t care about the long term.” “Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring about DDT and pesticide abuse made me think about threats to the environment that are hard to see. In Vietnam I encountered an even more powerful new poison, Agent Orange. It was later the suspected cause of chromosomal damage and birth defects in the offspring of soldiers.” “How can we be sure that a chemical has only those powers we desire and not others that we don’t? Are we taking enough time to discover their long-term effects?” “Thousands of compounds have come out of chemical plants that are supposed to have improved our lives but too many have left a legacy of poison that we will be coming to terms with for many generations.” “In the middle 1960s Professor Revelle explained that higher levels of carbon dioxide would create the greenhouse effect, which would cause the earth to grow warmer.” “Twelve years later I invited Professor Revelle to be the lead-off witness at the first congressional hearing on global warming. This was my first encounter, though hardly the last, with the powerful and determined opposition to the dangerous truth about what we are doing to the earth.” “By the 1980s I had a deep appreciation for the most horrifying fact in all our lives: civilization is now capable of destroying itself.” “Every education is a kind of inward journey, and my study of the global environment has required a searching re-examination of the ways in which political motives and government policies have helped to create the crisis and now frustrate the solutions we need.” “The world’s ecological balance depends on more than just our ability to restore a balance between civilization’s ravenous appetite for resources and the fragile equilibrium of the earth’s environment; it depends on more, even, than our ability to restore a balance between ourselves as individuals and the civilization we aspire to create and sustain.” “In the end, we must restore a balance within ourselves between who we are and what we are doing.” “Each of us must take a greater personal responsibility for this deteriorating global environment; each of us must take a hard look at the habits of mind and action that reflect – and have led to – this grave crisis.” “The more deeply I search for the roots of the global environmental crisis, the more I am convinced that it is an outer manifestation of an inner crisis, that is, for lack of a better word, spiritual.” “I cannot stand the thought of leaving my children with a degraded earth and a diminished future. That’s the basic reason why I have searched so intensively for ways to understand this crisis and help solve it; it is also why I am trying to convince you to be a part of the enormous change our civilization must undergo.”

 

EARTH IN THE BALANCE

ECOLOGY AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT

SENATOR AL GORE

Houghton Mifflin Company            1992

PART 1

Introduction

• Writing this book is part of a personal journey that began more than 25 years ago, a journey in search of a true understanding of the global ecological crisis and how it can be resolved.
• It has led me to undertake a deeper kind of inquiry, one that is ultimately an investigation of the very nature of our civilization and its relationship to the global environment.
• In one sense, civilization itself has been on a journey from its foundations in the world of nature to an ever more contrived, controlled, and manufactured world of our own initiative and sometimes arrogant design.
• It is all too easy to regard the earth as a collection of resources having an intrinsic value no larger than their usefulness at the moment.
• The ecological perspective begins with a view of the whole, an understanding of how the various parts of nature interact in patterns that tend toward balance and persist over time.
• Too often we are unwilling to look beyond ourselves to see the effect of our actions today on our children and grandchildren. Many people have lost faith in the future because in virtually every facet of our civilization we are beginning to act as if our future is now so much in doubt that it makes more sense to focus exclusively on our current needs and short-term problems.
• Our willingness to ignore the consequences of our actions has combined with our belief that we are separate from nature to produce a genuine crisis in the way we relate to the world around us.
• My earliest lessons on environmental protection were about the prevention of soil erosion on our family farm. Little has changed. Even now, about 8 acre’s worth of prime top soil floats past Memphis every hour.
• The Mississippi River carries away millions of tons of topsoil from farms in the middle of America, soil that is gone for good.
• Iowa used to have an average of 16 inches of the best topsoil in the world. Now it is down to 8 inches; most of the rest of it is somewhere on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
• People who lease the land for short-term profits often don’t consider the future. They strip-mine the topsoil and move on. Even if you own the land it is difficult to compete in the short term against somebody who doesn’t care about the long term.
• Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring about DDT and pesticide abuse made me think about threats to the environment that are hard to see. In Vietnam I encountered an even more powerful new poison, Agent Orange. It was later the suspected cause of chromosomal damage and birth defects in the offspring of soldiers.
• How can we be sure that a chemical has only those powers we desire and not others that we don’t? Are we taking enough time to discover their long-term effects?
• Thousands of compounds have come out of chemical plants that are supposed to have improved our lives but too many have left a legacy of poison that we will be coming to terms with for many generations.
• A company from Memphis bought up the neighboring farm and dumped several million gallons of hazardous waste into trenches that leaked into the well water. Later Love canal became synonymous with the problem of hazardous chemical waste.
• Strip-mined soil and hazardous chemical waste represent local threats to the environment that are minor compared to the global threat we now face.
• In the middle 1960s Professor Revelle explained that higher levels of carbon dioxide would create the greenhouse effect, which would cause the earth to grow warmer.
• Twelve years later I invited Professor Revelle to be the lead-off witness at the first congressional hearing on global warming. This was my first encounter, though hardly the last, with the powerful and determined opposition to the dangerous truth about what we are doing to the earth.
• By the 1980s I had a deep appreciation for the most horrifying fact in all our lives: civilization is now capable of destroying itself.
• In March 1987 I decided to run for president, focusing on global warming, ozone depletion, the ailing global environment and nuclear arms control. A columnist described my candidacy as being motivated by a consuming interest in issues that are, in the eyes of the electorate, not even peripheral.
• The national press corps, reflecting the consensus of the political community, resolutely refused to consider the global environment as an important part of the campaign agenda.
• Every education is a kind of inward journey, and my study of the global environment has required a searching re-examination of the ways in which political motives and government policies have helped to create the crisis and now frustrate the solutions we need.
• The problem is not so much one of policy failures; much more worrisome are the failures of candor, evasions of responsibility, and timidity of vision that characterize too many of us in government. Focusing on the shortest of short-term values avoids the most important issues and postpones the really difficult choices.
• The world’s ecological balance depends on more than just our ability to restore a balance between civilization’s ravenous appetite for resources and the fragile equilibrium of the earth’s environment; it depends on more, even, than our ability to restore a balance between ourselves as individuals and the civilization we aspire to create and sustain.
• In the end, we must restore a balance within ourselves between who we are and what we are doing.
• Each of us must take a greater personal responsibility for this deteriorating global environment; each of us must take a hard look at the habits of mind and action that reflect – and have led to – this grave crisis.
• The more deeply I search for the roots of the global environmental crisis, the more I am convinced that it is an outer manifestation of an inner crisis, that is, for lack of a better word, spiritual.
• This book, and the journey it describes, is thus a search for ways to understand – and respond to – the dangerous dilemma that our civilization now faces. I had to look inside myself and confront some difficult and painful questions about what I am really seeking in my own life, and why.
• In a way, the search for truths about this ungodly crisis and the search for truths about myself have been the same search all along.
• True change is possible only when it begins inside the person who is advocating it. Mahatma Gandhi said it well: “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”
• The time has long since come to take more political risks – and endure much more political criticism – by proposing tougher, more effective solutions and fighting hard for their enactment.
• Although I didn’t plan to use this book as an opportunity to offer a series of undoubtedly controversial proposals for saving the global environment, I’m glad to say that whether you agree with them or not, you will find in Part III the tough new proposals from which I have shied away – until now.
• I cannot stand the thought of leaving my children with a degraded earth and a diminished future. That’s the basic reason why I have searched so intensively for ways to understand this crisis and help solve it; it is also why I am trying to convince you to be a part of the enormous change our civilization must undergo.

 

PART I: BALANCE AT RISK