EARTH IN THE BALANCE
Ecology and the Human Spirit
by Albert Gore

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Selected Quotes from Updated Foreword

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"I remember the fierce criticism I got eight years ago, when I wrote 'Earth in the Balance.' I expected that criticism then, and I wear it as a badge of honor today." April 21 - Earth Day - 2000

Al Gore's profound analysis of where humanity has gone wrong ranges across history, politics, science, economics, psychology, philosophy, and religion.

Astonishingly, many political and business leaders obstinately insist that the environmental threat is not real, but Gore proves irrefragably that it is real. Very real. Supported by the latest research, he demonstrates that the quality of our air and water is urgently at risk. He clearly illustrates how problems that once were regional have now become global. Gore argues for a worldwide mobilization to save us from disaster. He addresses not only the planet's ecology, but population, technology, and the diffusion of environmental education.

The seriousness of the crisis requires a bold and visionary response, and Al Gore believes that it will take nothing less than a new conception of the individual human being and of civilization.

This illuminating book is essential for anyone aware of the urgent need to bring Earth back into balance.

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Selected quotes from updated Foreword:

After Earth in the Balance was published, I had a personal encounter with that verse from the Bible, "Would that mine adversary had written a book." Adversaries, some of whom I suspect haven't read it, love to hate this book and attack it as "too environmental." I welcome that. I believe the environment should be a central issue in the year 2000, because, like it or not, the environment will be a fateful issue in the next decade and the new century.

To warn of the dangers is not to despair of the solutions. Most of all, this book is a call to action and hope. Whether our purpose is to preserve the simple pleasure of fishing in a mountain stream on an autumn morning or the simple security of knowing that our children's drinking water is safe - to save an endangered species, an endangered wilderness, or an endangered earth - we have it in our power to restore the earth's balance before the growing imbalance inflicts its greatest potential damage on our children and grandchildren. Today the human species is the only one with the self-knowledge and the capacity to protect its own future.

Our next step is to seek meaningful participation from developing nations and submit the Kyoto agreement to the Senate for ratification. I will stay and fight on this issue until we finally overcome the special-interest opposition, abroad and at home, that threatens to extend and worsen global warming.

Now the innovative must become the usual; we must continually act before crisis hits, before a species is on the edge of extinction, to safeguard habitats that are essential not just for one or two creatures but for the whole life web of the ecosystem.

Our public lands are a public trust, not a resource to be wasted or exhausted. We cannot fight to save the rain forests halfway across the world if we are clear-cutting forests here at home. That's why we took the historic decision to protect the remaining roadless areas in our national forests - 40 million acres, the precious last reserves that have been largely spared aggressive exploitation.

The headwaters of our rivers and streams, the sources of our drinking water, are largely in our public lands. Our stewardship must respect all these uses and not let our federal lands be misused, as they often were in the past, as the exclusive domain of corporations intent on extracting resources.

This has to become not the policy of one or two administrations but a permanent commitment of the whole nation - to make as many new deposits as we can in the national bank of our public lands. Nor can we forget the second half of the equation: where we permit the commercial use of public lands, we must no longer give away their treasures. The public must get a fair return.

Empowering women is a fundamental precondition of progress.

One of our greatest hopes is young people, those who will inherit the earth and the challenge of restoring its balance - the ones who will live long enough to know surely whether this peaceful battle for the planet is finally being won.

Our challenge now, which requires the education of us all and the raising of our collective awareness on a global basis, is to restore and save the earth even as we add still more members to the human family. This will not be easy or simple; there will be setbacks, and fierce resistance from those who profit from pollution.

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