September 29, 2026
Al Gore Is Right: We Are Not Powerless
For decades, Al Gore has warned the world about the climate crisis. Now he has another message we need to hear: The danger is growing — but we are not powerless.
“We have urgency, but we also have agency,” Gore told Forbes.
That's a powerful message at a moment when climate news can make progress seem impossible.
The climate crisis is accelerating. Extreme weather is becoming more dangerous, greenhouse gases continue accumulating in the atmosphere, and the window to prevent even greater damage is shrinking.
But something else is accelerating too: our ability to fight back.
Solar, wind, batteries and other clean technologies have advanced dramatically. Renewable energy investment has surged. Gore says 65% of global energy investment now goes toward renewables, compared with 35% for fossil fuels. And he believes 2026 could eventually be remembered as the beginning of a positive climate tipping point.
Gore’s optimism isn’t based on pretending the danger has passed. It’s based on what he sees happening in the real world: clean technologies are improving, investment is shifting, and renewable energy is being deployed in countries outside the U.S. at a scale that would have seemed extraordinary not long ago.
And Gore has long warned against allowing fear about climate change to become paralysis. His message is that we shouldn't move from denial to despair while skipping the most important step in between: action. The solutions are increasingly within reach. What matters now is whether we summon the political will to put them to work fast enough.
That doesn't mean the climate crisis is solving itself. Clean energy is still not replacing fossil fuels nearly fast enough. But it does mean we have something worth fighting for.
As Gore has argued, despair can become another form of denial. Giving up when solutions are finally gaining momentum would surrender the future just when we have more power to change it.
Congress should meet this moment by helping America build clean energy faster — expanding renewable power, energy storage, transmission, efficiency and other climate solutions instead of putting new obstacles in their way.
We have spent decades asking whether humanity would develop the technology needed to confront climate change.
Increasingly, the answer is yes.
Now the question is whether we will use it quickly enough and who will reap the economic rewards of investing in the future.
Thank you for all that you do,
Mitch w/ Tipping Point
Source:
Forbes | Al Gore, Climate Optimist: ‘We Have Urgency. But We Also Have Agency’
Photo credit Flickr user World Economic Forum used under cc 2.0
