Over the past few years Rolling Stone Magazine has profiled former Vice-President Al Gore. One article came after the release of his highly successful documentary on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth”. The latest comes at the beginning of Live Earth, a worldwide global warming awareness campaign sponsored by Al Gore.
After read these articles I asked myself what role, if any, will an environmental platform play in United States politics and the rapidly approaching 2008 presidential elections. For years the Green Party has been attempting to bring environmental issues to the forefront of local and national elections. Ralph Nader has run on an environmental platform in the past several presidential elections, but has been forced out of debates and criticized by mainstream America.
Like the Green Party, global efforts have also been made to bring environmental issues to the forefront. In 1997 the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty aimed at reducing global greenhouse gas emissions was agreed upon in 1997 and has since been ratified by 174 countries and government parties around the world. While the treaty is not a tool for enforcement, simply a global monitoring system, the benefits of environmental awareness will be significant.
According to Al Gore, the US and the global community are at the “tipping point” of environmental awareness. Unfortunately, for the US, President Bush has withdrawn the US from the Protocol. Economic investments are a major factor for the Bush Administrations denial of global warming and refusal to participate in the Protocol. While other countries are beginning to discover profitable way to be environmentally conscious, the US is finding more ways to become dependent on the automobile and oil. Hopefully, as stated in the article, it does not matter who will take over the White House in 2008, the pressure from the public and the global community will force the US to plan for global warming.
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