2007 The TIME TOP 100
Who are the people making a difference? TIME makes its annual picks of the 100 most influential men and women shaping our world.
Al Gore
By James Hansen
Al Gore understands the science of global warming better than anyone else in the world of politics. His interest was sparked when he was a student at Harvard, studying with the legendary geochemist Roger Revelle, who realized that humanity's pell-mell burning of fossil fuels could make the earth a vastly different—and warmer—place.
Almost as soon as Gore was elected to Congress in 1976, he began conducting hearings on global warming. He investigated the science, holding roundtable discussions in his office with climatologists. Just as important, he learned how hard it would be to overcome the resistance of special interests, whose strategy would be to cast doubt on global-warming science, just as cigarette manufacturers cast doubt on the link between smoking and cancer.
After the 2000 election mess, Gore, now 59, might have had an easier life. Instead he took up an even tougher battle. An Inconvenient Truth, his movie and book, has moved the global-warming debate like nothing else before it. But as the planet edges closer toward environmental tipping points from which we could never recover, there is much more to be done. The most important chapters in Gore's story may remain to be written.
Hansen is director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies
pell-mell：in frantic, disorderly haste
climatologists 气象学家
An Inconvenient Truth “难以忽视的真相”（戈尔2006年的一部影片 详细而通俗的陈述了二氧化碳含量增加造成的温室效应会给人类和地球带来的不可挽回的后果 内容非常生动 此片获得2007年奥斯卡最佳记录片奖BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE）
Condoleezza Rice
By Donna Brazile
Condoleezza Rice knows who she is and remembers where she came from. Early in her tenure as U.S. Secretary of State, she brought then British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to her home state of Alabama. She took him to the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, where four little girls had been murdered by an act of racist terrorism. She took him to the Civil Rights Institute, the South's finest museum of its worst embarrassment. And she took him to attend services at the church where her father served as pastor during the turbulent 1960s.
As a child, Condi experienced personally what it is like when citizens are denied equal rights because of the color of their skin. When one of her heroes, Rosa Parks, died, Condi was in the front row at her funeral, paying homage to the woman who took a seat on a bus so that all Americans could earn a seat at the table. As Secretary of State, Rice, 52, has consistently communicated to the world that although the U.S. is a great nation, it is not perfect. While she and I don't always agree politically, I admire her courage as well as many of her values and accomplishments. She balances her active career with devotion to her family, friends and community. And she makes time to stay in touch with her Southern roots.
Brazile is the author of Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics
pay homage to 向...表示敬意
Rosa Parks
上世纪50年代的美国还实行着种族隔离制度，黑人和白人要去不同的饭店、洗手间，在公共汽车上也有不同的位置。社会生活的各个方面，黑人和白人都被隔离起来。当局宣称这是“隔离但是平等”。但是在1955年12月1日，帕克斯对这样的制度感到了厌倦。当她在亚拉巴马州蒙哥马利市的公共汽车上被要求按照当时的法律，将位子让给白人男性的时候，她平静地说“不”。 罗莎·帕克斯因此被捕。
帕克斯被捕后，引发了那时年仅26岁的马丁·路德·金将黑人组织起来对蒙哥马利（阿拉巴马州首府)的公交系统进行了长达381天的抵制，由此促进了上世纪五六十年代美国民权运动的发展，也让更多在美国受歧视黑人和其他民族得到了更多的人权。1956年美国最高法院宣布：禁止一切基于种族、肤色、宗教和国籍的歧视，并且赋予联邦政府强制取消种族隔离的权力。
2005年10月24日罗莎·帕克斯以92岁高龄去世。当天，美国总统布什发布通告：全美降半旗致哀。
posted on 2007-05-07 15:59
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