Can This Be Real?

I have been following the global warming saga since 1994 when I worked as a campaigner for Friends of the Earth in Europe on energy and atmosphere issues. For over a decade I have felt a growing sense of despair at my country's inability to take on this issue and its responsibility as the world's largest polluter. I turned against Gore at one point because the Clinton White House did nothing about it after taking a beating on Gore's proposed BTU tax. While Bush was in the White House, I did what I could, helping green candidates in their quixotic attempts to run for local office, taking on garbage incinerators when the neighbors said I was misguided. At least, I told myself, I can tell my grandchildren, and my grandparents someday, hopefully, that I tried. I voted for Obama with a hope that at last the tide was turning as we faced down a collapse on all fronts. But now, reading Gore as he speaks to the Senate, there is a giddy sense of a revolution taking place and I can only hope that the dinosaurs are heading to the exits as fast as their big feet can carry them.