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Former Vice President Al Gore pushed Monday for urgent action by citizens concerned about the ailing status of the environment.
Gore addressed the issues surrounding the pollution of the planet, the damage being done to the ozone surrounding Earth and what the world community can do to reverse the harmful trends he said will cause problems in the future.
People used to think that "the Earth is so big, and we're so small, we can't possibly have an impact," Gore said. "While that used to be so, it no longer is."
Gore explained that the atmosphere helps to warm and insulate Earth. He showed a graph of carbon dioxide levels within the atmosphere during the past 100 years, and noted a steady increase in the levels. He said the increase helps explain why global warming is occurring, and why it continues to have an adverse effect on the environment.
Gore then showed pictures of glaciers that have melted as a result of global warming. He said the melting glaciers are evidence into the human race's devastating habits, and the government's lack of legislation to prevent it.
"Glaciers don't give a damn about politics," he said.
Gore said humans' current pattern of activity has produced carbon dioxide levels at twice the all-time high, and that the 10 hottest years on record have occurred during the past 13 years.
"We are engaged in a reckless global experiment to see how much damage we can do," he said emphatically.
A drastic change in weather patterns has caused irreversible damage in the world's population, economy, and environment, he said. He cited examples: A heat wave that struck Europe last year killed 15,000 people; the American West is in its sixth consecutive year of a drought; and the cost of damages and losses due to weather have skyrocketed.
Gore said damage to the polar ice caps could drastically alter the Earth's climate. He said the trapping of solar heat due to greenhouse gases will not only cause ice to melt directly from the heat, but that it also causes ocean water to heat up, causing expansion and putting pressure on the ice caps, which in turn makes them melt faster.
He recounted a recent report by the Environmental Protection Agency, in which the government told the EPA to remove a statement about global warming and its effect on the world. Gore said this was comparable to tobacco companies paying off scientists to research tobacco products and prove falsely that cigarettes are not harmful.
Gore said companies such as ExxonMobil are trying to silence arguments that global warming is a problem. He said they insist - erroneously - that the world is such a big place, it can handle anything man throws at it.
"If we continue, this trend will create the worst catastrophe known to our species," he said.
Matthew Adair contributed to this story.
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