Acceptance Speech at the Global Green Millennium Awards Dinner

"Thank you very much Matt.

Good evening and welcome to all my fellow tree hugging, granola eating, whale watching, harp seal loving, hybrid driving, or soon-to-be hybrid driving, environmentalist allies. I'd like to take my hat off to Global Green USA and Green Cross International and all the environmentalists here who commit themselves to the endless planet watch.

I was asked by Matt to explain the chain of ideas that brought me to my eventual involvement with the issue of global warming and the environment of our planet. As a child, I was fascinated by books filled with exotic creatures - but for me there was no distinction between the fabricated King Kong and the once living Tyrannosaurus Rex. It was only after viewing dinosaur bones at the Museum of Natural History that I grasped the concepts of evolution and extinction of species.

I was amazed by the concept that every species is perfectly adapted to its environment and has under gone millions of years of modification to reach that point. It disturbed me that human beings were responsible for the disappearance of so many unique creatures, even in the last century. I was hurt by the fact that I would never in my life get to see a Quaga, a Dodo bird, a Tasmanian wolf or a Stellar sea cow. I always had this image of nature being an indestructible force. It angered me to think of how shortsighted our forefathers were, who didn't stop to think of preserving those species for future generations. How could 5 billion passenger pigeons, the then most plentiful bird on the planet, be hunted so efficiently that they would disappear forever? The more I learned about our planet the more I learned that our natural resources are like the passenger pigeon - they are not limitless.

As angry as I wanted to be at those hunters, I realized that they had very little scientific understanding of their actions - - we do. A hundred years later - are we really being any more careful with our environment than they were?

The Department of Interior is no longer interested in recommending any of the millions of acres under its jurisdiction for permanent wilderness protection. This is a reversal of four decades of wilderness policy. We must presume that whatever is not officially a wilderness area could fall to the predations of timber companies who we must trust to "self-regulate."

Just this week, the Senate Committee on Energy rejected Senator Feinstein's proposal to make trucks and SUV's meet the same federal fuel efficiency standards as cars. If passed, this proposal would have reduced our dependency on foreign oil by 10%. We must break this cycle and make it a clean break.

Our oil-based society depends on non-renewable resources. It requires relentless probing into vast reaches of pristine land, sacrificing vital bioregions, and irreplaceable cultures. The possibility of catastrophic climate change is substantially increased by the 40 million barrels of oil burned every day by vehicles. We must all move shoulder to shoulder in a unified front to show this administration that the true majority of people are willing to vote for a cleaner environment and won't back down.

I want to thank Global Green USA and Green Cross International for this wonderful honor tonight - and thank you all."