The climate for change

By
Al Gore                                                                             Read Spanish Version

From
The New York Times

THE
inspiring and transformative choice by the American people to elect
Barack Obama as our 44th president lays the foundation for another
fateful choice that he — and we — must make this January to begin
an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and
rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis.

The
electrifying redemption of America’s revolutionary declaration that
all human beings are born equal sets the stage for the renewal of
United States leadership in a world that desperately needs to protect
its primary endowment: the integrity and livability of the planet.

The
world authority on the climate crisis, the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, after 20 years of detailed study and four unanimous
reports, now says that the evidence is “unequivocal.” To those
who are still tempted to dismiss the increasingly urgent alarms from
scientists around the world, ignore the melting of the north polar
ice cap and all of the other apocalyptic warnings from the planet
itself, and who roll their eyes at the very mention of this
existential threat to the future of the human species, please wake
up. Our children and grandchildren need you to hear and recognize the
truth of our situation, before it is too late.

Here
is the good news: the bold steps that are needed to solve the climate
crisis are exactly the same steps that ought to be taken in order to
solve the economic crisis and the energy security crisis.

Economists
across the spectrum — including Martin Feldstein and Lawrence
Summers — agree that large and rapid investments in a jobs-intensive
infrastructure initiative is the best way to revive our economy in a
quick and sustainable way. Many also agree that our economy will fall
behind if we continue spending hundreds of billions of dollars on
foreign oil every year. Moreover, national security experts in both
parties agree that we face a dangerous strategic vulnerability if the
world suddenly loses access to Middle Eastern oil.

As
Abraham Lincoln said during America’s darkest hour, “The occasion
is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As
our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.” In our
present case, thinking anew requires discarding an outdated and
fatally flawed definition of the problem we face.

Thirty-five
years ago this past week, President Richard Nixon created Project
Independence, which set a national goal that, within seven years, the
United States would develop “the potential to meet our own energy
needs without depending on any foreign energy sources.” His
statement came three weeks after the Arab oil embargo had sent prices
skyrocketing and woke America to the dangers of dependence on foreign
oil. And — not coincidentally — it came only three years after
United States domestic oil production had peaked.

At
the time, the United States imported less than a third of its oil
from foreign countries. Yet today, after all six of the presidents
succeeding Nixon repeated some version of his goal, our dependence
has doubled from one-third to nearly two-thirds — and many feel that
global oil production is at or near its peak.

Some
still see this as a problem of domestic production. If we could only
increase oil and coal production at home, they argue, then we
wouldn’t have to rely on imports from the Middle East. Some have
come up with even dirtier and more expensive new ways to extract the
same old fuels, like coal liquids, oil shale, tar sands and “clean
coal” technology.

But
in every case, the resources in question are much too expensive or
polluting, or, in the case of “clean coal,” too imaginary to make
a difference in protecting either our national security or the global
climate. Indeed, those who spend hundreds of millions promoting
“clean coal” technology consistently omit the fact that there is
little investment and not a single large-scale demonstration project
in the United States for capturing and safely burying all of this
pollution. If the coal industry can make good on this promise, then
I’m all for it. But until that day comes, we simply cannot any
longer base the strategy for human survival on a cynical and
self-interested illusion.

Here’s
what we can do — now: we can make an immediate and large strategic
investment to put people to work replacing 19th-century energy
technologies that depend on dangerous and expensive carbon-based
fuels with 21st-century technologies that use fuel that is free
forever: the sun, the wind and the natural heat of the earth.

What
follows is a five-part plan to repower America with a commitment to
producing 100 percent of our electricity from carbon-free sources
within 10 years. It is a plan that would simultaneously move us
toward solutions to the climate crisis and the economic crisis — and
create millions of new jobs that cannot be outsourced.

First,
the new president and the new Congress should offer large-scale
investment in incentives for the construction of concentrated solar
thermal plants in the Southwestern deserts, wind farms in the
corridor stretching from Texas to the Dakotas and advanced plants in
geothermal hot spots that could produce large amounts of electricity.

Second,
we should begin the planning and construction of a unified national
smart grid for the transport of renewable electricity from the rural
places where it is mostly generated to the cities where it is mostly
used. New high-voltage, low-loss underground lines can be designed
with “smart” features that provide consumers with sophisticated
information and easy-to-use tools for conserving electricity,
eliminating inefficiency and reducing their energy bills. The cost of
this modern grid — $400 billion over 10 years — pales in comparison
with the annual loss to American business of $120 billion due to the
cascading failures that are endemic to our current balkanized and
antiquated electricity lines.

Third,
we should help America’s automobile industry (not only the Big
Three but the innovative new startup companies as well) to convert
quickly to plug-in hybrids that can run on the renewable electricity
that will be available as the rest of this plan matures. In
combination with the unified grid, a nationwide fleet of plug-in
hybrids would also help to solve the problem of electricity storage.
Think about it: with this sort of grid, cars could be charged during
off-peak energy-use hours; during peak hours, when fewer cars are on
the road, they could contribute their electricity back into the
national grid.

Fourth,
we should embark on a nationwide effort to retrofit buildings with
better insulation and energy-efficient windows and lighting.
Approximately 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in the United
States come from buildings — and stopping that pollution saves money
for homeowners and businesses. This initiative should be coupled with
the proposal in Congress to help Americans who are burdened by
mortgages that exceed the value of their homes. 

Fifth,
the United States should lead the way by putting a price on carbon
here at home, and by leading the world’s efforts to replace the
Kyoto treaty next year in Copenhagen with a more effective treaty
that caps global carbon dioxide emissions and encourages nations to
invest together in efficient ways to reduce global warming pollution
quickly, including by sharply reducing deforestation.

Of
course, the best way — indeed the only way — to secure a global
agreement to safeguard our future is by re-establishing the United
States as the country with the moral and political authority to lead
the world toward a solution.

Looking
ahead, I have great hope that we will have the courage to embrace the
changes necessary to save our economy, our planet and ultimately
ourselves.

In
an earlier transformative era in American history, President John F.
Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon within 10
years. Eight years and two months later, Neil Armstrong set foot on
the lunar surface. The average age of the systems engineers cheering
on Apollo 11 from the Houston control room that day was 26, which
means that their average age when President Kennedy announced the
challenge was 18.

This
year similarly saw the rise of young Americans, whose enthusiasm
electrified Barack Obama’s campaign. There is little doubt that
this same group of energized youth will play an essential role in
this project to secure our national future, once again turning
seemingly impossible goals into inspiring success.

Al
Gore, the vice president from 1993 to 2001, was the co-recipient of
the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He founded the Alliance for Climate
Protection and, as a businessman, invests in alternative energy
companies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/opinion/09gore.html?ref=opinion