An Inconvenient Truth 2

I had such faith in our democratic system, our self-government.

I actually thought and believed

that the story would be compelling enough to cause a real sea change

in the way the Congress reacted to that issue.

I thought they would be startled, too.

And they weren’t.

The struggles,

the victories that aren't really victories, the defeats that aren't really defeats.

They can serve to magnify the significance

of some trivial step forward,

exaggerate the seeming importance of some massive setback.

April 3, 1989.

My son pulled loose from my hand

and chased his friend across the street.

He was six years old.

The machine was breathing for him.

We were possibly going to lose him.

He finally took a breath.

We stayed in the hospital for a month.

It was almost as if

you could look at that calendar and just go...

And everything just flew off.

Seemed trivial, insignificant.

He was so brave. He was such...

He was such a brave guy.

It just turned my whole world upside down

and then shook it until everything fell out.

My way of being in the world, it just changed everything for me.

How should I spend my time on this Earth?

I really dug in,

trying to learn about it much more deeply.

I went to Antarctica.

Went to the South Pole, the North Pole, the Amazon.

Went to places where scientists could help me understand

parts of the issue that I didn't really understand in depth.

The possibility of losing what was most precious to me.

I gained an ability

that maybe I didn't have before.

But when I felt it,

I felt that we could really lose it,

that what we take for granted might not be here for our children.

These are actual measurements of atmospheric temperatures since our Civil War.

In any given year, it might look like it's going down,

but the overall trend is extremely clear.

And in recent years,

it's uninterrupted and it is intensifying.

In fact, if you look at the 10 hottest years ever measured in this atmospheric record,

they've all occurred in the last 14 years.

And the hottest of all was 2005.

We have already seen some of the heat waves

that are similar to what scientists are saying

are gonna be a lot more common.

Couple of years ago in Europe they had that massive heat wave

that killed 35,000 people.

India didn't get as much attention,

but the same year the temperature there went to 122 degrees Fahreneit.

This past summer in the American West,

there were a lot of cities that broke all-time records for high temperatures

and number of consecutive days with a 100-degree temperature or more.

Two hundred cities and towns in the west set all-time records.

And in the east there were a lot of cities that did the same thing.

Including, incidentally, New Orleans.

So the temperature increases are taking place all over the world,

including in the oceans.

This is the natural range of variability for temperature in the oceans.

You know, people say, "Oh, it's just natural.

"It goes up and down, so don't worry about it."

This is the range that would be expected over the last 60 years,

but the scientists who specialize in global warming have computer models

that long ago predicted this range of temperature increase.

Now I'm gonna show you, recently released,

the actual ocean temperatures.

And, of course, when the oceans get warmer, that causes stronger storms.

We have seen in the last couple of years

a lot of big hurricanes.

Hurricane Jeanne and Frances and Ivan were among them.

And the same year that we had that string of big hurricanes,

we also set an all-time record for tornadoes in the United States.

Japan again didn't get as much attention in our news media,

but they set an all-time record for typhoons.

Previous record was seven.

Here are all 10 of the ones they had in 2004.

The science textbooks have had to be rewritten

because they say that it's impossible to have a hurricane in the South Atlantic.

But the same year the first one ever hit Brazil.

Summer of 2005 has been one for the books.

The first one was Emily that socked into Yucatan.

Then Hurricane Dennis came along and it did a lot of damage,

including to the oil industry.

This is the largest oil platform in the world after Dennis went through.

This one was driven into the bridge at Mobile.

And then, of course, came Katrina.

It's worth remembering that when it hit Florida, it was a Category One.

But it killed a lot of people and caused billions of dollars' worth of damage.

And then what happened?

Before it hit New Orleans,

it went over warmer waters.

As the water temperature increases,

the wind velocity increases

and the moisture content increases.

And you'll see Hurricane Katrina form over Florida.

And then as it comes into the gulf over that warm water,

it picks up that energy and gets stronger and stronger and stronger.

Look at that hurricane's eye.

And, of course, the consequences were so