Gore Speaks on Stanford's White Plaza, October 2nd, 2015

In my email there was something from 350.org. They wanted me to go to Stanford to hear Al Gore speak. I was expecting a simulcast from New York or something like that.

The event was started by this poet talking about how connected to mother earth she is. It wasn't long after that they introduced Al Gore. Then he walked out onto the stage.

He said that one of the questions he hears a lot is "Can we change?" He likes to break that down into three more pertinent questions, "Do we need to change?" "Is it possible for us to change?" and "How are we going to do it?"

On the topic of "Do we need to change?" he listed the stuff about increased weather disasters, record average temperatures, and changing coastlines that we've all heard about. Then he talked about being in Florida during that blood moon we just had. When the moon is low and on the other side of the planet Florida gets extreme tides. They are so deep that he went out in waders to walk in the street just a few days ago and got wet inside the waders. The water just came in over the top. Climate change is going to make that tide even deeper. They might have to move the town. They gotta change for sure.

The question of "Can we change?" came around next. Gore asked us how many among us had cell phones. Many hands went up. He said that back in the 1980s cell phones were rare. He remembered being one of the first to have one. He pointed out that in places like Africa where they don't have the wiring for land line service they leap frogged to cell phone communications without going through all the stages of development that we remember here. He said the same kind of thing can happen in solar electricity development. He pointed to Bangladesh, where they've been installing rooftop solar systems and the rate of two a second around the clock and around the calendar. We're talking about megawatts of power being used locally. If they can do it than it must be possible for us to. We might be left behind if we don't change.

On the "Will we change?" question he said in part that's up to us who care about moving forward to make that happen. The pope is doing his part to organize church hierarchy, and so many others are to. He gets a lot of inspiration from this woman who had started out as a Georgia Tea Party activist She'd gotten marching orders from ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) to support a bill making it harder for people to install solar systems. She had a solar system on her roof and knew that ALEC was asking for the wrong thing. She got together with the Sierra Club types to make a Green Tea Alliance. Georgia is getting lots of solar systems installed on an ongoing basis now.

Gore pointed to the list signup and asked us to text our first names, last names, and email to (650) 614-5686 to get on the list for further actions to spread the word leading up to the climate negotiations. It felt like he was saying "volunteer now!"

To change a country that is so embedded with energy using technology is going to be a big shift. It's going to take all of us doing what we can. Gore is convinced that since 2000 our democracy has been hacked. He implored us to be part of the struggle to right the ship.

We gave him a big hand. Around me I was hearing people telling each other things like "Gore knows what's up!", or "Things would be very different now if he'd been elected in 2000."

There was interesting literature on the Catholic table. After it was over I blundered across this banner stretched between two poles. I found it interesting. Click the "KNOW TOMORROW" above to see the rest of it.