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Al Gore:
Ultimately, this question comes down to this. Are we, as Americans, capable of doing great things even though they are difficult? Are we capable of rising above ourselves and above history? Well, the record indicates that we do have that capacity. We formed a nation, we fought a revolution, and brought something new to this earth, a free nation guaranteeing individual liberty. America made a moral decision that slavery was wrong, and that we could not be half free and half slave. We, as Americans, decided that of course women should have the right to vote. We defeated totalitarianism and won a war in the Pacific and the Atlantic simultaneously. We desegregated our schools. And we cured fearsome diseases like polio. We landed on the moon! The very example of what's possible when we are at our best. We worked together in a completely bipartisan way to bring down communism. We have even solved a global environmental crisis before, the hole in the stratospheric ozone layer. This was said to be an impossible problem to solve, because it's a global environmental challenge requiring cooperation from every nation in the world. But we took it on. And the United States took the lead in phasing out the chemicals that caused that problem. So now we have to use our political processes in our democracy, and then decide to act together to solve those problems. But we have to have a different perspective on this one. It's different from any problem we have ever faced before
Ultimately, this question comes down to this. Are we, as Americans, capable of doing great things even though they are difficult? Are we capable of rising above ourselves and above history? Well, the record indicates that we do have that capacity. We formed a nation, we fought a revolution, and brought something new to this earth, a free nation guaranteeing individual liberty. America made a moral decision that slavery was wrong, and that we could not be half free and half slave. We, as Americans, decided that of course women should have the right to vote. We defeated totalitarianism and won a war in the Pacific and the Atlantic simultaneously. We desegregated our schools. And we cured fearsome diseases like polio. We landed on the moon! The very example of what's possible when we are at our best. We worked together in a completely bipartisan way to bring down communism. We have even solved a global environmental crisis before, the hole in the stratospheric ozone layer. This was said to be an impossible problem to solve, because it's a global environmental challenge requiring cooperation from every nation in the world. But we took it on. And the United States took the lead in phasing out the chemicals that caused that problem. So now we have to use our political processes in our democracy, and then decide to act together to solve those problems. But we have to have a different perspective on this one. It's different from any problem we have ever faced before
Full Transcript
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and brought something new to this earth
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a free nation guaranteeing individual liberty
00:00:08.107 --> 00:00:13.012
America made a moral decision Its slavery was wrong
00:00:13.012 --> 00:00:18.999
and that we could not be half free and half slave
00:00:18.999 --> 00:00:19.852
We as Americans decided
00:00:19.852 --> 00:00:22.722
that of course women should have the right to vote
00:00:22.722 --> 00:00:25.458
We defeated totalitarianism and won a war
00:00:25.458 --> 00:00:29.229
in the Pacific and the Atlantic simultaneously
00:00:29.229 --> 00:00:32.332
We desegregated our schools
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Movie Summary
Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim follows Al Gore on the lecture circuit, as the former presidential candidate campaigns to raise public awareness of the dangers of global warming and calls for immediate action to curb its destructive effec