In the interview Obama said that “the challenges that we’re confronting are enormous” and many, and that he sometimes asks himself “where do I start?” Obama also said that the American people are looking for “action” instead of “a lot of speeches”.

I would just like to add that the whole world is looking for action, not just the American people. Watch the interview below:

Obama on the rising price of oil and gas:

Kroft: When the price of oil was at $147 a barrel, there were a lot of spirited and profitable discussions that were held on energy independence. Now you’ve got the price of oil under $60.

Mr. Obama: Right.

Kroft: Does doing something about energy is it less important now than…

Kroft: Why?

Mr. Obama: Well, because this has been our pattern. We go from shock to trance. You know, oil prices go up, gas prices at the pump go up, everybody goes into a flurry of activity. And then the prices go back down and suddenly we act like it's not important, and we start, you know filling up our SUVs again.

And, as a consequence, we never make any progress. It’s part of the addiction, all right. That has to be broken. Now is the time to break it.

Obama on the failing auto industry in USA:

Kroft: You have a situation right now where you have General Motors, which is in dire straits.

Mr. Obama: Yeah.

Kroft: May run out of cash by the end of the year, maybe by the end of certainly, if we believe what we read in the papers, by the time you take office.

Mr. Obama: Yeah. Well, let’s see how this thing plays itself out. For the auto industry to completely collapse would be a disaster in this kind of environment, not just for individual families but the repercussions across the economy would be dire. So it’s my belief that we need to provide assistance to the auto industry. But I think that it can’t be a blank check.

So my hope is that over the course of the next week, between the White House and Congress, the discussions are shaped around providing assistance but making sure that that assistance is conditioned on labor, management, suppliers, lenders, all the stakeholders coming together with a plan what does a sustainable U.S. auto industry look like? So that we are creating a bridge loan to somewhere as opposed to a bridge loan to nowhere. And that’s, I think, what you haven’t yet seen. That’s something that I think we’re gonna have to come up with.

Kroft: Are there a lot of people that think that the country would probably be better off and General Motors might be better off if it was allowed to go into bankruptcy?

Mr. Obama: Well, you know, under normal circumstances that might be the case in the sense that you’d go to a restructuring like the airlines had to do in some cases. And then they come out and they’re still a viable operation. And they’re operating even during the course of bankruptcy. In this situation, you could see the spigot completely shut off so that it would not potentially permit GM to get back on its feet. And I think that what we have to do is to recognize that these are extraordinary circumstances. Banks aren’t lending as it is. They’re not even lending to businesses that are doing well, much less businesses that are doing poorly. And in that circumstance, the usual options may not be available.

A full transcript of the interview can be found here.

Yesterday Al Gore launched the We Campaign. It’s a $300 million 3-year effort “to mobilize Americans on climate change.”

The campaign will focus on sending out its message using mainly TV and print ads. People will be urged to go to the We Campaign website and sign the petition for a global treaty on climate change, urge the press to ask questions about climate change and learn more about global warming, the solutions and how they can personally minimize their environmental impact.

The ads will show, by featuring people like Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich, Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton, that both conservatives and liberals can rally around the climate crisis (You can see the very first advertisement that will be aired on TV after the jump).

The We Campaign is backed up by Alliance for Climate Protection. Organisations like the Girl Scouts of the USA, Conservation Federation of Missouri, Earth Day Network, Colorado Wildlife Federation and many others is partnering with the We Campaign to bring in grassroots organisations to the campaign.

To be able to fund this huge campaign Al Gore will donate all profits from the An Inconvenient Truth book and movie. He will also donate his Nobel Prize money and a matching sum from his own personal money stash.

Below you can find a interview from 60 Minutes with Al Gore about the new campaign (“- Like the Vice President?” “- Hahaha”). And, ah, the irony when you have to watch a car commercial before and after the actual video interview.

Interview with Al Gore:

The first TV ad: