In his first public event following his divorce with wife of forty years Tipper Gore, Al Gore went to the Philippines to preach his message about climate change and man’s responsibility to do something about the pressing problems of the changing times. For the most part, regardless of what side you’re on in the climate change debate; you can more or less see that Gore’s conviction is sincere.
In what was touted to be an updated version of the Inconvenient Truth – an Academy Award winning documentary back in 2007. There were some issues that were rebuked in recent years so Gore had to go back on his world tour caravan to put the stamp on his landmark advocacy. The speech that he delivered at the SMX Convention Center was supposedly a more nuanced and contextualized take on the hot button issue of climate change.
What Gore did while he had the floor last June 8 was almost insulting and degrading to the intelligence of the Filipinos in attendance. While Gore did show a good amount of slides showing breath taking and dramatic contrasts of glacial thaw and ice sheet melting; the conclusion of his speech left much to be desired.
In the end, Gore suggested that it was a “spiritual” obligation of the people to do something about the climate change crisis. Regardless of how compelling the argument was, it was quite degrading for Al Gore to try to coerce of coax people into action with the relative standards of morality despite the supposedly strong empirical evidence that much care should be taken.
He may have been given a heads up that Filipinos are mostly religious but at the same time, most Pinoys would know that a spiritual imperative would not be necessary if an empirical reason to take action is already present.
After watching him speak for roughly 90 minutes, I was left unimpressed with his ability to convince people – he was merely preaching to the choir and he barely even responded to the criticism against his philosophy. The speech sounded like something that a televangelist would deliver to his already devoted flock. I doubt if he inspired new believers. It’s possible that he came into the even thinking it was and would be an all out Gore love fest.
I wonder if the True reason for Al Gores visit was so he could meet a girl to give him a massage since we have so many massage places or places to meet young girls (for a girl friend experience)
Wow. I can't understand how Algeria lost. How quick was that. I just believed that they had a great opportunity to do well in this years world cup. I guess I will have to wait. Maybe its time to jump on the Argentina bandwagon. Looks like Demichelis has already scored. Go Argentina. To turn around my day that was ruined by Algeria, I have been watching some funny jokes.. This joke is really funny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3j7uSbccSc
why's "loren legarda" in the tags when she wasn't even mentioned in the article itself?
just a few quick points:
– climate change is indeed happening, what's unsure is just how much these greenhouse gases actually contribute to it. it may be an natural cyclic thing like el-nino-la-nina, or there may be a more direct corelation. my relatives who live near alaska are already bugging us to go take the alaskan tour asap because of the severe degradation to the icebergs every year, they measure the decrease in feet now, not inches. the changes daw to the icebergs are visibly noticeable to locals.
– even if air quality isn't directly responsible for climate change, it does have dire consequences on human health. i've had friends and relatives who visit manila develop respiratory problems after a few days of staying here. its creepy knowing that our lungs have gotten so used to bad air here that would otherwise trigger severe asthma in others.
Maybe we should tell animals to stop eating other animals. Haha.
For political reasons the support of urgent matters like global warming, environmental protection, overfishing etc… (actually all caused or made worse from overpopulation) the support of spiritual (religious) organization would be much more powerful than the support from a small minority like environmentalist, freethinkers or the like. Therefore Al Gore a politician from the USA – a country where each politician can only be elected if they show off Christian faith and appeal to the religious feelings – seemed to have just done that in his lecture : appeal to the spiritual feelings not the rational logic from the citizens of the R of P, where the religious belief is widespread and the Church is a very powerful organization. And Al Gore is a politician not a scientist, so he used political successful tactics.
And the enrollment of the Christian sects for these important topics e.g. to take care of the environment will be difficult enough, as it is positioned against Christian dogma of the old man in the sky, who takes care of planet earth in behalf of humans, humans who are created to rule the planet and subjugate all other species for solely human benefit , also to sacrifice animals to the Lord YHWH who likes the smell of burnt offerings ( sorry couldn’t resist this sarcastic insert) , and the widespread hope for the rapture and endtimes to enjoy the ‘second coming’ when the planet is finally destroyed.
"He may have been given a heads up that Filipinos are mostly religious but at the same time, most Pinoys would know that a spiritual imperative would not be necessary if an empirical reason to take action is already present." -Benj
Isn't that being guilty of what you were just accusing him of?
Spirituality is understood to be a catalyst that enables a person who believes in it, and I repeat, who believes in it, the ability to provide within him an extreme driving force that enables them to do things even to the point of sacrificing oneself, all for the greater good.
If the main purpose is to send that kind of urgency, it is understandable the use of spirituality as it embodies the same principle. How it has something to do with religion and empirical evidence of necessity vs. moral/spiritual obligation is really stretching it too far.
Following suit, with what you said “that most Pinoys would know that a spiritual imperative would not be necessary if an empirical reason to take action is already present”…I guess this is exactly the reason why our country is in turmoil…because the guilty, who chooses to do wrong despite of knowing the right thing to do, continues to believe that knowing what is right is enough to do what is right.
Can you share the main takeaways of his talk? Also, how much did you pay to attend?
http://thepoc.net/thepoc-features/kamundohan/kamu…
Try this link Nancy. Thanks. 🙂
I wouldn't call it insulting though. He was probably advised to appeal to "spirituality." Good speakers speak to the majority – and I don't think it would be wrong for him to assume that majority of Filipinos are "spiritual" (docile and unquestioning Christians).
Although I will give credit to Al Gore for making more people aware of our environmental problems, I still find it hard to accept that he refuses to adopt a plant-based diet. Being such an advocate of the issue, he knows fully well the environmental degradation of meat consumption. He said “I now eat less meat. I’m not a vegetarian and I have no intention to become one". It appears so that he wants to save the environment only when it fits his preferences, only when it's convenient to him. He wants to rest of the world to change, but he is unwilling to change his own daily habits.
I think there's a world of a difference between not eating meat and reducing one's meat intake. Saying that all forms of animal farming is "bad" is a bit bigoted in the sense that there is an imposition on carnivores/ omnivores to drop the habit of eating meat to evade being label hypocritical. The world can clearly support a certain degree of farming. The goal of obliterating it would just be pushing the agenda a tad too much.
The solution must match the problem, and the biggest problem contributing to climate change is eating meat. If the entire town of Ghent can push this agenda of abstaining from meat at least once a week, why can't one strong advocate do everything he can to contribute to his own cause? He needs to fly to Manila to speak, fine. But does he need to eat meat? He doesn't have to. He just wants to.
"The solution must match the problem, and the biggest problem contributing to climate change is eating meat."
Um, how exactly?
It's not about the eating of meat. By eating meat we contribute to the demand for meat therefore more livestock will have to be produced. Livestock such as cattle, pigs or chicken have to be fed constantly from birth until they are fully grown so they consume so much fodder.
Also this
http://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/methane-…
From http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,18…
In a 2006 report, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) concluded that worldwide livestock farming generates 18% of the planet's greenhouse gas emissions — by comparison, all the world's cars, trains, planes and boats account for a combined 13% of greenhouse gas emissions.
I just read now that the methodology used in the 2006 study was erroneous. The demand for meat contributes to greenhouse gases, but because of the questionable validity, we don't exactly know by how much.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,19…