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I believe we have come to take bold action and a clear need: We are part of a central organization to save the environment, the policies of the central principle for civilization. We are aware of whether it or lump it, we are engaged in a great battle, and our planet is the right balance, the tide and go with the possibility of war in order, Only when the majority of the world's people become more common dangerous to be a sense of urgency to the efforts of all participants.           Al Gore’s Call to Action     Modern industrial civilization, as presently organized, is colliding violently with our planet's ecological system. The ferocity of its assault on the earth is breathtaking, and the horrific consequences are occurring so quickly as to defy our capacity to recognize them, comprehend their global implications, and organize an appropriate and timely response. Isolated pockets of resistance fighters who have experienced this juggernaut at first hand have begun to fight back in inspiring but, in the final analysis, woefully inadequate ways. It is not that they lack courage, imagination, or skill; it is simply that what they are up against is nothing less than the current logic of world civilization. As long as civilization as a whole, with its vast technological power, continues to follow a pattern of thinking that encourages the domination and exploitation of the natural world for short-term gains, this juggernaut will continue to devastate the earth no matter what any of us does.   I have come to believe that we must take bold and unequivocal action: we must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle for civilization. Whether we realize it or not, we are now engaged in an epic battle to right the balance of our earth, and the tide of this battle will turn only when the majority of people in the world become sufficiently aroused by a shared sense of urgent danger to join an all-out effort.   ... We now confront a set of choices as difficult as any in human history. The art of politics must be brought to bear in defining these choices, raising public awareness of the imminent danger facing us, and catalyzing decisions in favor of a collective course of action that has a reasonable chance of success.   There is no doubt that with sufficient agreement of our goals, we can achieve the victory we are seeking. Although very difficult changes in established patterns of thought and action will be required, the task of restoring the natural balance of the earth's ecological system is both within our capacity and desirable for other reasons — including our interest in social justice, democratic government, and free market economics. Ultimately, a commitment to healing the environment represents a renewed dedication to what Jefferson believed were not merely American but universal inalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.   The hard part, of course will be securing a sufficient measure of agreement that difficult comprehensive changes are needed. Fortunately, however, there are ample precedents for the kinds of pervasive institutional changes and shared effort that will be necessary. Though it has never yet been accomplished on a global scale, the establishment of a single shared goal as the central organizing principle for every institution in society has been realized by free nations several times in modern history.   … Many were reluctant to acknowledge that an effort on the scale of what became World War II was actually necessary, and most wanted to believe that the threat could be wished away with trivial sacrifices. For several years before the awful truth was accepted, one Western leader spoke out forcefully and eloquently about the gathering storm. Winston Churchill was uncompromising in his insistence that every effort be immediately bent to the task of ensuring Hitler's defeat. After Neville Chamberlain concluded the Munich Pact of 1938, which gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler in return for his pledge not to take over more territory, most Britons were happy and supported the policy that later was condemned as appeasement. Churchill, however, grasped the essence of what had occurred and of the unavoidable conflict that lay ahead: "I do not begrudge our loyal, brave people... the natural, spontaneous outburst of joy and relief when they learned that the hard ordeal would no longer be required of them at the moment; but they should know the truth... this is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor we arise again and take our stand for freedom."   Thus do we meekly acquiesce in the loss of the world's rain forests and their living species, the loss of the Everglades, the Aral Sea, the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest, the topsoil of the Midwest, the vegetation and soils of the Himalayas, Lake Baikal, the Sahel, the unnecessary deaths of 37,000 children every day, the thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer, the disruption of the climate balance we have known since the dawn of the human species. Bitter cups all — but only "the beginning of the reckoning," only the first of a steady stream of progressively more serious ecological catastrophes that will be repeatedly proffered to us and will, sooner or later, arouse us to action and convince us to fight back.   … Adopting a central organizing principle — one agreed to voluntarily — means embarking on an all-out effort to use every policy and program... every tactic and strategy, every plan and course of action — to use, in short, every means to halt the destruction of the environment and to preserve and nurture our ecological system.         — Al Gore, Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, Chapter 14 – A New Common Purpose                           Indexes/19