Washington Pulls the Plug on the Climate Bill

“If the United States doesn’t act, if the Senate defeats the legislation, that is an event horizon beyond which it is difficult to see. It may mean there is a fundamental flaw in the international political approach, but I’m not sure there is a good alternative. The reality is so dire that a new plan would have to emerge—but just now I can’t imagine what it would be. The fact that this is extremely hard doesn’t mean we should quit.”

—Al Gore, from a conversation in Copenhagen,
December 2009, quoted in The Climate War