Ever since unveiling “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore has become a symbol for the fight against climate change. The image of him standing on his pedestal, Earth in peril looming large in the background, has etched itself permanently on our minds. Gore’s film raised environmentalists’ whisper-warnings to shouts coming from the mouths of elites. Given his immense contribution of elevating the importance of the climate challenge, it’s easy to forget that Gore had a political career that predated his current one as environmentalist advocate.
Gore the environmentalist
But the former vice president has been many things over his political career, and one of those permutations is worth revisiting. Al Gore the high-tech aficionado may have been the butt of jokes for his claim that he “invented” the internet, but what he actually said was true:
During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our education system.
His 1991 High Performance Computing and Communications Act led to what is now known as the “Information Superhighway,” and was a springboard for the development of the commercial Internet. The “Gore Bill,” as it was often referred to, played a major role in helping to hoist an obscure military project across the technology valley of death, and Gore has been hailed as the first political leader to recognize the Internet’s importance. His early support of the Internet — which dates back to the 1970s — is evidence of wise foresight.
A younger Gore
Gore should call upon these faculties in his work on climate change. The best he has been able to offer us in terms of a solution are small, individual acts like “use less hot water” and “drive less” — acts which don’t even begin to address the huge challenge he characterizes so vividly in “An Inconvenient Truth.” The heavy emphasis on sacrifice doesn’t leave any room for big, aspirational goals like investing in a new clean energy economy (see Breakthrough’s “The Investment Consensus”). Where is the faith in human ingenuity he displayed back when he was romping around “inventing” internets? It’s certainly not to be found in his statement that the truth about climate change is “an inconvenient one that we are going to have to change our lives.” Nowhere does he suggest that he means a change for the better.
Gore frames the issue as one that will require great sacrifices if humanity is to have a chance at survival; it’s ironic, then, that he also underestimates what it will take to address the climate change. He emphasizes that global warming is not really a technological challenge — in other words, global warming wouldn’t be such a big deal if more people would just trade in their Hummers for Priuses already. As Roger Pielke pointed out earlier this month, Gore has suggested that $2 billion dollars is all we need to invest in clean energy technology. That paltry sum betrays Gore’s optimism for technological complacency — all the more frustrating given his tech-savvy background.
Of course, if we follow Gore’s logic out to it’s end, he’s absolutely right: if we’re as naive as Pollyanna about what it will take to confront this problem, the outcome might well look like doomsday. His sacrifice-focused agenda underestimates human ingenuity, undermines the aspirations of those in the developing world, and is not enough to stop climate change. At the Breakthrough Institute, we don’t think we have all the technology we need, but by investing in improved technology, we offer up our own dream: equalizing worldwide living standards and defeating global warming. A tall order, to be sure, and while light bulbs and Priuses can play their part, they won’t be enough. It’s the visionary, techno-savant, expansive dreamer that should be up there on the pedestal.
Subscribe by Email!
Subscribe by RSS!
Share on Facebook
I just read the Breakthrough Institute report via your link at the end. I was surprised to see that it supports using all the technologies (e.g., solar, wind, carbon capture, nuclear). Glad to see that solving the carbon problem is being looked at with fewer ideological filters (i.e., must only be solved with conservation, must be solved with only carbon sequestration, etc.). Your comprehensive approach offers both a more practical method, but can give you allies that the more ideological sides would neglect (e.g., wind and carbon sequestration folks have a better chance working together of getting carbon regulation than being divided by social engineering goals).
Also agree that Al Gore has underestimated the scale of the solutions needed to truly go zero carbon without excessive loss of public health and economic opportunity.
Graciously, Gore tells consumers how to change their lives to curb their carbon-gobbling ways: Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs, use a clothesline, drive a hybrid, use renewable energy, dramatically cut back on consumption. Better still, responsible global citizens can follow Gore’s example, because, as he readily points out in his speeches, he lives a “carbon-neutral lifestyle.” But if Al Gore is the world’s role model for ecology, the planet is doomed.
For someone who says the sky is falling, he does very little. He says he recycles and drives a hybrid. And he claims he uses renewable energy credits to offset the pollution he produces when using a private jet to promote his film. (In reality, Paramount Classics, the film’s distributor, pays this.)
Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself.
Then there is the troubling matter of his energy use. In the Washington, D.C., area, utility companies offer wind energy as an alternative to traditional energy. In Nashville, similar programs exist. Utility customers must simply pay a few extra pennies per kilowatt hour, and they can continue living their carbon-neutral lifestyles knowing that they are supporting wind energy. Plenty of businesses and institutions have signed up. Even the Bush administration is using green energy for some federal office buildings, as are thousands of area residents.
But according to public records, there is no evidence that Gore has signed up to use green energy in either of his large residences. When contacted Wednesday, Gore’s office confirmed as much but said the Gores were looking into making the switch at both homes. Talk about inconvenient truths.
The issue here is not simply Gore’s hypocrisy; it’s a question of credibility. If he genuinely believes the apocalyptic vision he has put forth and calls for radical changes in the way other people live, why hasn’t he made any radical change in his life? Giving up the zinc mine or one of his homes is not asking much, given that he wants the rest of us to radically change our lives.
Gore is not alone. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has said, “Global warming is happening, and it threatens our very existence.” The DNC website applauds the fact that Gore has “tried to move people to act.” Yet, astoundingly, Gore’s persuasive powers have failed to convince his own party: The DNC has not signed up to pay an additional two pennies a kilowatt hour to go green. For that matter, neither has the Republican National Committee.
Maybe our very existence isn’t threatened.