A Word on Words; 4135; Al Gore

fb and now from nashville public television's stood in the way of celebrating offers literature and ideas for more than three decades but this is a word on workers' jobs ellen johnson of all welcome once again to award own words the day i welcome back an old friend the former colleague al gore served as the lights from the united states is you know is that within the clip ministration he was there for eight is an environmentalist it was co recipient of the truth out and seven nobel peace prize on his best selling

books include an inconvenient truth or the balance assault on reason is your last into thousand nine with our joyous plan to solve the climate crisis is here today with his latest book the futures six drivers of global change an overview of the forces the remaking the world economic globalization wendling natural resources advances in the life sciences greg thank you would be about what was a huge in a benefit to talk about the new book and both and i guess it's fair to say that the us the questions on eight nine years ago what are these forces and down and you answered in rows of victorian and over the years the questions a week and you get to focus on it and the result is al gore the future of this new book let's talk about the book is it is

it is on the market does identify these lives of six salient points affect in the world which we all it but there is so much more in the future it deals with the whole relationship both of rich versus poor on corporate influence is on the politics of it the globalization of media coverage you know as much right about now the nevada i just as to it at the outset is there any monies say i'm an optimist with some reservation and you say let's not be naive about optimism and west oh but this list thats still be pessimistic and unknown but it's very tough to be an optimistic view among the forces that are at work

and then art literature and such great impact on future as the vaults and i just i just wonder though you say you're an optimist how optimistic as you look at them great problems that affect globalization of the economy the politics of globalization the images pop up well there's no point in ending thousand years ago i am an optimist by nature it's partly an act of will but i'm not good disingenuous disingenuous lee offering hope and optimism let him into a situation where it i don't think it's really just about i don't think it's justified but there's no question that the challenges that we're facing and also as a nation now are beyond anything that we've had to confront in the past we've been through some real trials and

another history of our humanity in the history of this country there been many dark times when the justification for hope and optimism and in the same very palpable but we've come through it and i guess one was say is this on almond my optimism and hope is really based on a set of beliefs i have about human nature i think that we are complex and filled with many possibilities in our routines can be deadening and we can get trapped in habits and behaviors that are self destructive but when we realize that the stakes are high the chips are down and we have to rise to an occasion we have that two thousand eight and i see all around the world are increasing evidence

that a people are becoming aware that we filled out this slow global civilization their seven billion dollars now the population having quadrupled in just a in less than a hundred years on there is widespread acceptance of the fact that we're engaging in very destructive behavior putting nine million extra times of heat trapping global warming pollution and the answer every twenty four hours trapping enough extra energy every day to equally energy from four hundred thousand hiroshima bombs going off that every day it's a big planet but that's a lot of energy and that's what's melting the ice and causing the massive floods make it much worse like the one here in national two years ago and like the one that took out the part of manhattan and new jersey calls and the drought for sixty percent of the country this past year a hundred and ten billion dollars of climate related disaster recovery and i think that all

around the world people are connecting the dots but what i try to do in this book the future is to connect the dots are the problems we're seeing in the economy are connected to the problems we're facing with the climate crisis and the depletion of topsoil and freshwater resources and the challenges we face from the computer and internet revolution are similar to those confronting us as a result of genetic engineering and cloning and all of the revolution that that from the world of genetics and genomics and that shift in power bounces around the war with the rise of china and harder to three of the six or seven the economy and are often active isn't there and they're all connected and the common denominator is that do we oh collectively we've humankind have to make some

really difficult and important our decisions and it seems at this point in time implausible that we could even get the other than my sense is urgent but we can we have in the past on it does require leadership and the united states of america is the still the only nation that is capable of providing that kind of leadership so one a bottom line conclusion that i came to in researching and writing this book is that at this moment when the world is facing challenges that do record decision making and it makes leadership essential the degradation of american democracy and the distortions and the american economy are you need to be addressed on a priority basis not only for ourselves but for our progeny for the rest of the world it's an urgent task they cannot they're too i'm hopeful bought the

the the democracy prices in the us so it is quite serious let me ask about that from that i noted that present bombers president obama's inaugural address well the deal with no issues aaliyah of the crisis and i also noticed that you say in the book the game appeared in his administration first term he had on am a good intentions had stated and then suddenly you hear and ruled by the group drew andrew o n e bikes were armed you know mentions it in his second inaugural you say the us is so important to where we go where the world knows that relates to joe is jasmine is right now with a sense of it right now i mean isn't is able to put

that on in the second term and broader solution to do with this crisis author of song i hope you and here is the jury is still out the armor is a boy in the area i was a young boy going to the municipal swimming pool in carthage fell asleep at a major work when i have yet to last week the high diving board one out there on the edge of a latino influence it look like a long way down but the fact that i find all the way up there to make it more likely that i was going to make that make that jump and i think he's put himself up there on the board and up by forthrightly and eloquently declaring and forceful terms are that that we have to respond to the climate crisis at gay pride of place the very first issue that you turn to in his inaugural address

our debt and it would've said to my ears was pitch perfect and i think that they're backing away from that climbing back down now but it is gonna be difficult after a while you know you make these proclamations and you know he put it out there that way it eternal forces action he served notice and not always at a time when the are always served solid majorities in america for action on climate have grown it to significantly more in the wake of the unbelievable year that we had in two thousand twelve i know the service animal is you talk about borders of your land visibility of our hundredth anniversary of her birth so i knew my mother so let me ask you as you look at

these six anna connecting forces one of them has to do with the media with globalization of the media and you talk a little bit about emerging nations naomi is having worked in june al jazeera which now on teens parents bought them but the impact that al jazeera head in general sense with as arab spring and fall to talk a little bit about it and traditionally use a television still is that it is important that reaches out and grabbed most part of our people to advise them but among young people as you point out there is a growing reliance on on the world and that this

system such changes in the town and there's such frustration among so many people this country and as they read what used to be newspapers they admired respected and now they're saying looks like a paper might die what's the future of addresses your the media generally as the effects not just naturally both worldwide with changes that take place in a well because our human ability to create models of the world i think an abstract ways and communicate with one another is what defines us as being unique has force we knowingly in the world a lot of the ways that we communicate have always enormous influence on the organization of society and conceptions of governance and economic the organization and i see it as all

on an act and three point is the pre history is spoken word written word but when the progress so it emerged in europe in the fifteenth century that changed everything prior to that time our libraries adnan twenty thirty books often chained to the desk written in a language and all of the monks could understand ninety nine percent of the people were literate and their helplessness and powerlessness was born their ignorance and the feudal system that there was supported in that information world aren't was exploitive mr deming but when the progress distributed knowledge widely audie in popular languages triggering no demand for literacy and filling the minds of people with the notion that they could make their own decisions as it was not long before the reformation how the emergence awful modern route representative a democracy an

idea that was planted on these shores then came took full flower here and that communications medium really fostered a role for reason and logic and it was never bernard bought a lot of power and wealth and money it did have a less less role now the second act of the progress was the television began with radio when radio had a totalitarian our impulse in italy and germany of the nineteen twenties and thirties for his art and was more benign here of course but that fdr's opponent so feared those radio fireside chats but when television and of the picture to the sound of a sudden the revolution began in earnest and it was so a centralizing impulse is that having a two way flow of communication were the individual citizen to play a role at the ces and became part of an

audience and sat back and just receive advertising entertainment and corporate messaging it and that system is now is still dominated percent of the money spent by politicians in both political parties goes to buy these thirty second tv ads and the necessity to raise ever larger amounts amounts of money every election cycle is the principle reason why i write our democracy has been hacked it does not work anymore the way our founders intended to it can be redeemed are it was in trouble when the robber baron days and then came back with the progressive reforms but the difference now is that this television medium completely dominate our politics now that zac to the third act it's the internet and the digital universe so it and it is growing so powerfully is still a bit player

compared to tv but as you mentioned with young people particularly it's increasingly important and it has characteristics the internet medium that are very similar to the printing press in this as individuals have ease of access ideas can have velocity yes and no significance because of their perceived in terms of merit and people can coalesce around ideas and reform proposals and so part of my optimism about the chance to redeem the promise of american democracy comes from the fact that we already see individual bloggers having an impact we're already seeing new reform movements of coalescing on the internet and i believe it's only a matter of time before this new medium art eclipses the medium of television and gives us a better chance to have to

reinvigorate themselves for the year just joining us i'm talking as you know if you're watching your screen without morris about the future six drivers of global change oh you knew james madison those are coming down against what he described his faction and we've gone through a period right now where factions a real gridlock he points out and i don't know that i ever of a potent form i forgot that book but he says factions are most driven negativity around the issue of property than worth been the most dangerous action would be created as a result of the elves and that's a major part of the

economy is lama won among six drivers and as important as in the other eye you look at the gap between haves and have not in this country anyone thing is distressing and it's disturbing and the last election was about little else than that gap you look at the gap around the world at it so frightening to realize that there are emerging nations we've just been through arab spring it looked like the democratic forces will take hold now we find out that instability is following violence where's that headed how do you how do you learn how you come away with a sense of optimism when that when that the actual split but his owners and muslims know purses and still and still threatens democratic institutions or around the world you know when i

made four for a first or wheat it in approaching the future and what we can do to shape the future we've given away as americans have two large all the tools to use it and get in and working our collective will one is democracy dollars cap was both systems have some more essence they collect information from great masses of people in he feels four of the invisible hand in the marketplace in the wisdom of crowds in the myers were both systems are now in trouble and the rising at the levels of inequality both in economics and in political but in terms or are threatening to the vitality of our democracy in the

system that dog not thought that ethic has sought freedom of movement for individuals which is what our system is based on it is going to be vulnerable to seeing concentrations of wealth and power developed what happens when that when that occurs if it reaches a threshold where the wealthy and powerful are able to use they're accumulations of wealth and power to prevent reforms that that might threaten the continuation that then you eat them then you get real paralysis in the markets and i'm afraid that's where we're close to that right now have absolutely at and hear it you know here we have a time when there's a mass a very high levels of unemployment and underemployment in mentally income families have not had any increases in real income to speak out for a couple of decades

since the financial crisis of two thousand eight ninety three percent of the national income increases since then have gone to the top one percent this is not radical rhetoric it's just the arithmetic measuring actually what has happened and that's not healthy and it's not good for our country and one of the arm factors that i'd analyze it in this book is so the way we define our economic objectives we want growth we want to increases in gdp will help how do we define that it you know the old rules a bigger what jane for you may have a bigger warhead you may gather well what we have been pursuing a kind of growth that is distorted and artificial i envy the metrics we use the dashboard we use to drive in the economy

it tells us up ahead for in a particular direction and it says when you can't really grow ignore all the pollution don't don't reflect that at anywhere in your profit and loss statements and your businesses or in the revenue inexpensive part severe budget just ignore the pollution altogether what else to ignore we ignore the distribution of income so that it is very is ninety three percent goes to the top one percent that's fine according to this desk for that we're using to drive the economy what else do we ignore the depletion of natural resources they're just completely ignored in the accounting system that we use so we really do face a fundamental challenge in coming up with a better way of understanding what kind of country where we want to be what kind of global civilization we want to try to help shape you had said that some of this

the foley issue for all of wealth you send what influences the media and interesting ways and influences and influences public policy and public opinion and you point out that corporate advertising on the media on television and quite often is some place so as i have the most inveterate and result of that is that a suspect in public love following popular programming now finds itself indoctrinated and sold by by forces argue against any solution to do from every side has not which can do about that except

create a counter argument but the night live not much not much counter out that was on television that it's almost impossible to create a counter argument but in the end the days of the progress thomas tank and walk out his front door in philadelphia and find a dozen low cost bread shops within ten square blocks competing to give him the best price for publishing the common sentiment that modern day thomas paine walks out a store in philadelphia goes down the owners' tv station or a few blocks further to comcast says hey i got this new tv documentary common sense of wonder why the long ways left off the premises unless he can come up with many millions of dollars but the large carbon will here's the large financial services industry accompanies the larger pharmaceutical companies that they have the resources allocated to being on the air constantly not all

all of virtually every the news political commentary program on television and is sponsored by these images now when you see an ad for for so called clean coal which is an oxymoron or for all oil companies they're not trying to to cause you get to a wife that and set up by some gold so i'm told you they're selling political ideas to you and there are and there they're selling up a set up an attitude our audience that includes ignoring the climate crisis and nothing's wrong we've got your back don't worry about and by the way it's not uncommon for some of our bad boys when the people i used to be in this business ought to to say by the way are we won't buy these ads but don't run these

employees on romney's adjacent to a story about a climate change and a goat industry go for that we run a time of unity ellis coming back next week i'm dancing on forward own words he really fb