The environmental threat facing the planet as a result of carbon-based fuel consumption makes all other efforts to improve the quality of human life seem futile–unless the global climate crisis is addressed, and soon. That was the message Al Gore delivered at the Arthur Curley Memorial Lecture yesterday at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Boston.
Gore's message did not fall on deaf ears, as some 3,000 librarians filled the lecture hall to listen as he walked them through his new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, published last year by Melcher Media and Rodale. The author was clear about what the book is intended to do. While the small things that each of us do to save the environment are important, Gore said, his goal is to prompt gobal policy change that will restrict carbon emmissions and minimize our dependence on fossil fuels.
Present for the lecture were the late Arthur Curley's daughters, Ellen Curley and Susan Curley Clancy, and his grandsons Matt and Tim Clancy, all of whom were able to meet Al Gore and chat with him briefly before the lecture.
In an exclusive interview with American Libraries before the program, Gore talked candidly about his presentation and the seriousness with which he views the climate crisis and its "potenital to elimate human civilization as we know it, as well as his optimism that we have the power to solve it, if we have the political will. "We have not yet demonstrated it," he said.
