AL GORE: "Today, for the first time, I saw Chernobyl...a hulking symbol of human decisions"

[kpete]

25 Years Since Chernobyl
Only in our hearts will we find the way to healing.
by Al Gore
............

Today, for the first time, I saw Chernobyl. It looms as a menacing monument to mistakes of the century now slipping away from us; a hulking symbol of human decisions unworthy of our children.

........................

Perhaps I should have been better prepared for the emotional impact of seeing Chernobyl. Twelve years ago, just like everybody else, I heard the horrible news: Reactor #4 at the Vladimir Ilich Lenin Atomic Power Plant in Chernobyl had suffered a runaway chain reaction that destroyed the core of the reactor and blasted graphite and reactor fuel through the roof. The blast ignited more than 30 fires, releasing lethal radioactivity, and unleashing the worst nuclear power accident the world has ever seen.

..............


But we can be redeemed. The truth, as we have been taught, will set us free. And the truth taught by Chernobyl is that we are all connected - forever. The truth is that a new time has come in which we have to make a choice.

We can choose to learn how to care for one another and the earth in a way that is worthy at last of our children's innocent trust in us; or we can choose once again, as we have so bitterly over the course of the last millennium, to persevere in our old habits of destruction and fail their trust.

.............


(beautifully written mho, kpete)
http://images2.cpcache.com/product/politics+-+government-peace-nature/157346932v5_225x225_Front.jpg
the rest:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-gore/25-years-since-chernobyl_b_854001.html