On Friday, June 19, climate activist and former Vice President Al Gore joined the growing list of high-profile world leaders calling for a “Great Reset” of the world economy to help battle climate change.
The Great Reset is a proposal pushed by the World Economic Forum and a number of important political, business, and civil leaders, including the president of Microsoft and the heads of the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund. The purpose of the plan is to “reset” the globe’s capitalist economy in favor of one that advances eco-socialist principles, including collective property ownership, “green” energy sources and infrastructure, and wealth redistribution.
In an interview on June 19 with NBC’s Today television show, Gore was asked how the world can “build” on the “progress” made in cutting global CO2 emissions due to reduced economic activity from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Toward the end of Gore’s lengthy response, the former vice president and current head of the Climate Reality Project evoked the “Great Reset” as his solution to what he referred to as the world’s “climate crisis.”
“So, I think this is a time for a ‘Great Reset,’” Gore said, after describing the alleged economic benefits of renewable energy sources and electric cars. “We’ve got to fix a lot of these problems that have been allowed to fester for way too long. And the climate crisis is an opportunity to create tens of millions of new jobs, clean up the air, and reduce the death rate from pandemics, by the way, because the air pollution from burning fossil fuels heightens the death rates from coronavirus.
“So, this is a time for a reset to fix a bunch of challenges, first among them the climate crisis,” Gore added.
Gore’s use of the words “opportunity,” “Great Reset,” and “climate crisis”—especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic—mimic those used by numerous speakers at a June 2020 virtual event introducing the “Great Reset” proposal. The World Economic Forum hosted the event.
“We have a golden opportunity to seize something good from this [COVID-19] crisis. Its unprecedented shockwaves may well make people more receptive to big visions of change,” said Prince Charles, one of the leaders of the event and a significant proponent of the Great Reset.
In an article published on the World Economic Forum’s website, WEF founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab said “the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions.
“Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed,” Schwab also said. “In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”
The World Economic Forum has announced that the theme of its next Davos meeting—the most influential event that WEF hosts each year, one that features prominent leaders from a variety of government bodies, nonprofits, and businesses—will be the “Great Reset.” The event is currently scheduled for January 2021.
At the upcoming Davos meeting, summit attendees will work with a network of groups from 400 cities to develop the details of the “Great Reset” and formulate strategies for rolling it out in 2021 and beyond.
The network, called the Global Shapers Community, was created by the World Economic Forum. It has more than 7,000 members, all of whom are aged 29 or younger, and deep connections to Gore and his far-reaching climate change training organization.
Justin Haskins is editor-in-chief of StoppingSocialism.com, a New York Times bestselling author, and the director of the Socialism Research Center at The Heartland Institute. Follow him on social media @JustinTHaskins.
