ABSTRACT
Fast forward to 2006. While the so-called war on terror rages on, the “war” on humanmade climate change heats up. This war has a different kind of urgency than the war on terror. For if the war on terror might pit civilization against civilization (as Samuel Huntington controversially claimed-see Chapter 8), human-made climate change resulting mainly from excessive carbon dioxide emissions threatens every civilization on earth because it threatens the earth’s ability to support human life itself. As former US Vice President Al Gore, Jr puts it, “[The Earth] is our only home. And that is what is at stake. Our ability to live on planet Earth-to have a future as a civilization” (Gore, 2006: 298). These are among the claims Gore makes in his 2006 documentary film and accompanying book An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It.
