From Bali: Al Gore calls out the lack of DC leadership

From AFP: Former US vice president Al Gore called Thursday on the deadlocked world conference on climate change to forge a deal without the United States, accusing Washington of obstructing progress in the talks.

The newly awarded Nobel laureate told delegates that they can leave an “open space” in their framework and hope it will eventually be filled by President George W. Bush’s successor.

“I am not an official and I am not bound by diplomatic niceties,” said Gore, who narrowly lost to Bush in 2000.

“So I am going to speak an inconvenient truth: My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali,” the new Nobel peace prize laureate said to applause.

“You can feel anger and frustration and direct it at the United States of America. Or you can make a second choice, you can decide to move forward and do all of the difficult work that needs to be done and save a large open blank space in your document and put a footnote by it.”

Here is the famous Martin Niemöller quote:

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”