In order to be optimistic about this, we have to become incredibly active as citizens in our democracy. In order to solve the climate crisis, we have to solve the democracy crisis.

68% of Americans believe the earth’s atmosphere is impacted by Global Warming. What’s missing is a sense of urgency.

We have the technologies; we have to have a unifited view about how to go about this. What’s the solution? Put a tax on carbon — to replace a tax on employment which was invented by Bismark!!

We have to mobilize resources and political will, but the political will has to be mobilized to mobilize the resources.

What we need is another hero generation. How many generations in history have had the opportunity to rise to a challenge that is worthy of our best efforts? We have to approach this challenge with a sense of great joy and gratitude. We have to somehow understand that history has presented us with a choice. We now have a culture of distraction. We have a planetary emergency. We have to find a way to convey a sense of generational mission. We can rise to the challenge that history is presenting to us!

Here’s how TED.com introduces Gore’s new Global Warming presentation:

How Dare We Be Optimistic?

In Al Gore’s brand-new slideshow (premiering exclusively on TED.com), he presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting, and challenges us to act with a sense of “generational mission” — the kind of feeling that brought forth the civil rights movement — to set it right.

Gore’s stirring presentation is followed by a brief Q&A in which he is asked for his verdict on the current political candidates’ climate policies and on what role he himself might play in future.

Alliance for Client Protection is launching a nationwide, grassroots campaign, and needs our help.

The moderators of these debates have let the American people down. Rather than asking substantive questions and giving the candidates a chance to let their views known, they have gone after “gotcha” questions time and again. They ask loaded questions so the candidates have to backtrack just to answer. They ask one candidate about another repeatedly. They ask candidates to respond to innuendo. They ask about insane hypotheticals.

And all this at a time when our country is at war, we are dealing with the repercussions of terrorism, we are dealing with a recession, we are having national dialogues about social security, immigration, human rights, civil rights, and so much more.

With all these issues in the air how do Gibson, Stephanopoulos, Russert, or the other “journalists” DARE to ask questions about aliens, haircuts, things your pastor said, things your childhood acquaintances said, things other candidates said, things that were said on Fox News, or, God help us, “bitterness”? How do these people look in the mirror the next morning?