“Illegal protest” can count a new baritoned bedfellow. In an interview ahead of the Copenhagen climate change conference, former Vice President Al Gore pronounced civil disobedience to be justified, believing that the global warming crisis requires more forceful methods of political activism. — JCL

The Guardian:

Al Gore has sought to inject fresh momentum into the Copenhagen build-up, saying he is certain Barack Obama will attend and predicting a rise in civil disobedience against fossil-fuel polluters unless drastic action is taken over global warming.

Amid increasing incidents of climate protesters disrupting the operations of fossil-fuel industries and airports in Britain and elsewhere, Gore suggests the scale of the emergency means non-violent lawbreaking is justified. “Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play,” he says. “And I expect that it will increase, no question about it.”

In his only UK newspaper interview to mark the publication of his new book, entitled Our Choice, Gore says it is crucial for Obama to attend Copenhagen in person, adding: “I feel certain that he will.”

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