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Gore Issues Nationwide Climate Change Challenge

Posted on: Thursday, 17 July 2008, 11:45 CDT

Speaking in response to rising fuel costs, climate change and national security threats, Nobel Prize-winning former vice president Al Gore said “a new political environment” is beginning to form in which bold and expensive steps will be necessary to wean the nation off fossil fuels.

"I have never seen an opportunity for the country like the one that's emerging now," Gore told The Associated Press in an interview previewing a speech on global warming he was to deliver Thursday in Washington.

Gore’s vision is to see the nation to produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun and other Earth-friendly energy sources within 10 years.

Fellow Democrat Barack Obama and Republican rival John McCain are "way ahead" of most politicians in the fight against global climate change, Gore added.

Gore chairs the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan group that has estimated the cost of transforming the nation to so-called clean electricity sources at $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion over 30 years in public and private money. But he says it would cost about as much to build ozone-killing coal plants to satisfy current demand.

"This is an investment that will pay itself back many times over," Gore said. "It's an expensive investment but not compared to the rising cost of continuing to invest in fossil fuels."

Gore, who has made global warming his signature issue, knows politicians will be reluctant to act unless voters are willing to sacrifice - and demand new fuels.

"I hope to contribute to a new political environment in this country that will allow the next president to do what I think the next president is going to think is the right thing to do," Gore said. "But the people have to play a part." He likened his challenge to Kennedy's pledge in May 1961 to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

After a narrow defeat by then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential race, Gore returned to his bread-and-butter issue of climate change. Gore said his goal now is to "enlarge the political space" within which politicians can "deal with the climate challenge."

Apart from huge investments in new technologies, Gore said nuclear energy output would continue at current levels while the nation dramatically increases its use of solar, wind, geothermal and so-called clean coal energy in order to meet his 10-year goal.

If Americans decide not to act, energy costs will continue to spiral out of control as fast-growing China and India increase demand, Gore said.

Government experts recently predicted that, at the current rate, world energy demand will grow 50 percent over the next two decades. The Energy Information Administration also said in its long-range forecast to 2030 that the world is not close to abandoning fossil fuels despite their effect on global warming.

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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