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Al Gore's Speech on
Renewable Energy
Following is the prepared text of former Vice President Al Gore's
speech in Washington Thursday about renewable energy. Source: AlGore.com.
There are times in the history of our nation
when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to
the challenge of a present danger. In such moments, we are called upon to
move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and
rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for
whatever reason, refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join
the effort or asked to step aside. This is such a moment. The survival of
the United States of America as we know it is at risk. And even more - if
more should be required - the future of human civilization is at stake.
I don't remember a time in our country when
so many things seemed to be going so wrong simultaneously. Our economy is in
terrible shape and getting worse, gasoline prices are increasing
dramatically, and so are electricity rates. Jobs are being outsourced. Home
mortgages are in trouble. Banks, automobile companies and other institutions
we depend upon are under growing pressure. Distinguished senior business
leaders are telling us that this is just the beginning unless we find the
courage to make some major changes quickly.
The climate crisis, in particular, is
getting a lot worse - much more quickly than predicted. Scientists with
access to data from Navy submarines traversing underneath the North polar
ice cap have warned that there is now a 75 percent chance that within five
years the entire ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months.
This will further increase the melting pressure on Greenland. According to
experts, the Jakobshavn glacier, one of Greenland's largest, is moving at a
faster rate than ever before, losing 20 million tons of ice every day,
equivalent to the amount of water used every year by the residents of New
York City.
Two major studies from military intelligence
experts have warned our leaders about the dangerous national security
implications of the climate crisis, including the possibility of hundreds of
millions of climate refugees destabilizing nations around the world.
Just two days ago, 27 senior statesmen and
retired military leaders warned of the national security threat from an
"energy tsunami" that would be triggered by a loss of our access to foreign
oil. Meanwhile, the war in Iraq continues, and now the war in Afghanistan
appears to be getting worse.
And by the way, our weather sure is getting
strange, isn't it? There seem to be more tornadoes than in living memory,
longer droughts, bigger downpours and record floods. Unprecedented fires are
burning in California and elsewhere in the American West. Higher
temperatures lead to drier vegetation that makes kindling for mega-fires of
the kind that have been raging in Canada, Greece, Russia, China, South
America, Australia and Africa. Scientists in the Department of Geophysics
and Planetary Science at Tel Aviv University tell us that for every one
degree increase in temperature, lightning strikes will go up another 10
percent. And it is lightning, after all, that is principally responsible for
igniting the conflagration in California today.
Like a lot of people, it seems to me that
all these problems are bigger than any of the solutions that have thus far
been proposed for them, and that's been worrying me.
I'm convinced that one reason we've seemed
paralyzed in the face of these crises is our tendency to offer old solutions
to each crisis separately - without taking the others into account. And
these outdated proposals have not only been ineffective - they almost always
make the other crises even worse.
Yet when we look at all three of these
seemingly intractable challenges at the same time, we can see the common
thread running through them, deeply ironic in its simplicity: our dangerous
over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these
challenges - the economic, environmental and national security crises.
We're borrowing money from China to buy oil
from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit
of that's got to change.
But if we grab hold of that common thread
and pull it hard, all of these complex problems begin to unravel and we will
find that we're holding the answer to all of them right in our hand.
The answer is to end our reliance on
carbon-based fuels.
In my search for genuinely effective answers
to the climate crisis, I have held a series of "solutions summits" with
engineers, scientists, and CEOs. In those discussions, one thing has become
abundantly clear: when you connect the dots, it turns out that the real
solutions to the climate crisis are the very same measures needed to renew
our economy and escape the trap of ever-rising energy prices. Moreover, they
are also the very same solutions we need to guarantee our national security
without having to go to war in the Persian Gulf.
What if we could use fuels that are not
expensive, don't cause pollution and are abundantly available right here at
home?
We have such fuels. Scientists have
confirmed that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every
40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world's energy needs for a full
year. Tapping just a small portion of this solar energy could provide all of
the electricity America uses.
And enough wind power blows through the
Midwest corridor every day to also meet 100 percent of US electricity
demand. Geothermal energy, similarly, is capable of providing enormous
supplies of electricity for America.
The quickest, cheapest and best way to start
using all this renewable energy is in the production of electricity. In
fact, we can start right now using solar power, wind power and geothermal
power to make electricity for our homes and businesses.
But to make this exciting potential a
reality, and truly solve our nation's problems, we need a new start.
That's why I'm proposing today a strategic
initiative designed to free us from the crises that are holding us down and
to regain control of our own destiny. It's not the only thing we need to do.
But this strategic challenge is the lynchpin of a bold new strategy needed
to re-power America.
Today I challenge our nation to commit to
producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly
clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.
This goal is achievable, affordable and
transformative. It represents a challenge to all Americans - in every walk
of life: to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and
to every citizen.
A few years ago, it would not have been
possible to issue such a challenge. But here's what's changed: the sharp
cost reductions now beginning to take place in solar, wind, and geothermal
power - coupled with the recent dramatic price increases for oil and coal -
have radically changed the economics of energy.
When I first went to Congress 32 years ago,
I listened to experts testify that if oil ever got to $35 a barrel, then
renewable sources of energy would become competitive. Well, today, the price
of oil is over $135 per barrel. And sure enough, billions of dollars of new
investment are flowing into the development of concentrated solar thermal,
photovoltaics, windmills, geothermal plants, and a variety of ingenious new
ways to improve our efficiency and conserve presently wasted energy.
And as the demand for renewable energy
grows, the costs will continue to fall. Let me give you one revealing
example: the price of the specialized silicon used to make solar cells was
recently as high as $300 per kilogram. But the newest contracts have prices
as low as $50 a kilogram.
You know, the same thing happened with
computer chips - also made out of silicon. The price paid for the same
performance came down by 50 percent every 18 months - year after year, and
that's what's happened for 40 years in a row.
To those who argue that we do not yet have
the technology to accomplish these results with renewable energy: I ask them
to come with me to meet the entrepreneurs who will drive this revolution.
I've seen what they are doing and I have no doubt that we can meet this
challenge.
To those who say the costs are still too
high: I ask them to consider whether the costs of oil and coal will ever
stop increasing if we keep relying on quickly depleting energy sources to
feed a rapidly growing demand all around the world. When demand for oil and
coal increases, their price goes up. When demand for solar cells increases,
the price often comes down.
When we send money to foreign countries to
buy nearly 70 percent of the oil we use every day, they build new
skyscrapers and we lose jobs. When we spend that money building solar arrays
and windmills, we build competitive industries and gain jobs here at home.
Of course there are those who will tell us
this can't be done. Some of the voices we hear are the defenders of the
status quo - the ones with a vested interest in perpetuating the current
system, no matter how high a price the rest of us will have to pay. But even
those who reap the profits of the carbon age have to recognize the
inevitability of its demise. As one OPEC oil minister observed, "The Stone
Age didn't end because of a shortage of stones."
To those who say 10 years is not enough
time, I respectfully ask them to consider what the world's scientists are
telling us about the risks we face if we don't act in 10 years. The leading
experts predict that we have less than 10 years to make dramatic changes in
our global warming pollution lest we lose our ability to ever recover from
this environmental crisis. When the use of oil and coal goes up, pollution
goes up. When the use of solar, wind and geothermal increases, pollution
comes down.
To those who say the challenge is not
politically viable: I suggest they go before the American people and try to
defend the status quo. Then bear witness to the people's appetite for
change.
I for one do not believe our country can
withstand 10 more years of the status quo. Our families cannot stand 10 more
years of gas price increases. Our workers cannot stand 10 more years of job
losses and outsourcing of factories. Our economy cannot stand 10 more years
of sending $2 billion every 24 hours to foreign countries for oil. And our
soldiers and their families cannot take another 10 years of repeated troop
deployments to dangerous regions that just happen to have large oil
supplies.
What could we do instead for the next 10
years? What should we do during the next 10 years? Some of our greatest
accomplishments as a nation have resulted from commitments to reach a goal
that fell well beyond the next election: the Marshall Plan, Social Security,
the interstate highway system. But a political promise to do something 40
years from now is universally ignored because everyone knows that it's
meaningless. Ten years is about the maximum time that we as a nation can
hold a steady aim and hit our target.
When President John F. Kennedy challenged
our nation to land a man on the moon and bring him back safely in 10 years,
many people doubted we could accomplish that goal. But 8 years and 2 months
later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface of the moon.
To be sure, reaching the goal of 100 percent
renewable and truly clean electricity within 10 years will require us to
overcome many obstacles. At present, for example, we do not have a unified
national grid that is sufficiently advanced to link the areas where the sun
shines and the wind blows to the cities in the East and the West that need
the electricity. Our national electric grid is critical infrastructure, as
vital to the health and security of our economy as our highways and
telecommunication networks. Today, our grids are antiquated, fragile, and
vulnerable to cascading failure. Power outages and defects in the current
grid system cost US businesses more than $120 billion dollars a year. It has
to be upgraded anyway.
We could further increase the value and
efficiency of a Unified National Grid by helping our struggling auto giants
switch to the manufacture of plug-in electric cars. An electric vehicle
fleet would sharply reduce the cost of driving a car, reduce pollution, and
increase the flexibility of our electricity grid.
At the same time, of course, we need to
greatly improve our commitment to efficiency and conservation. That's the
best investment we can make.
America's transition to renewable energy
sources must also include adequate provisions to assist those Americans who
would unfairly face hardship. For example, we must recognize those who have
toiled in dangerous conditions to bring us our present energy supply. We
should guarantee good jobs in the fresh air and sunshine for any coal miner
displaced by impacts on the coal industry. Every single one of them.
Of course, we could and should speed up this
transition by insisting that the price of carbon-based energy include the
costs of the environmental damage it causes. I have long supported a sharp
reduction in payroll taxes with the difference made up in CO2 taxes. We
should tax what we burn, not what we earn. This is the single most important
policy change we can make.
In order to foster international
cooperation, it is also essential that the United States rejoin the global
community and lead efforts to secure an international treaty at Copenhagen
in December of next year that includes a cap on CO2 emissions and a global
partnership that recognizes the necessity of addressing the threats of
extreme poverty and disease as part of the world's agenda for solving the
climate crisis.
Of course the greatest obstacle to meeting
the challenge of 100 percent renewable electricity in 10 years may be the
deep dysfunction of our politics and our self-governing system as it exists
today. In recent years, our politics has tended toward incremental proposals
made up of small policies designed to avoid offending special interests,
alternating with occasional baby steps in the right direction. Our democracy
has become sclerotic at a time when these crises require boldness.
It is only a truly dysfunctional system that
would buy into the perverse logic that the short-term answer to high
gasoline prices is drilling for more oil ten years from now.
Am I the only one who finds it strange that
our government so often adopts a so-called solution that has absolutely
nothing to do with the problem it is supposed to address? When people
rightly complain about higher gasoline prices, we propose to give more money
to the oil companies and pretend that they're going to bring gasoline prices
down. It will do nothing of the sort, and everyone knows it. If we keep
going back to the same policies that have never ever worked in the past and
have served only to produce the highest gasoline prices in history alongside
the greatest oil company profits in history, nobody should be surprised if
we get the same result over and over again. But the Congress may be poised
to move in that direction anyway because some of them are being stampeded by
lobbyists for special interests that know how to make the system work for
them instead of the American people.
If you want to know the truth about gasoline
prices, here it is: the exploding demand for oil, especially in places like
China, is overwhelming the rate of new discoveries by so much that oil
prices are almost certain to continue upward over time no matter what the
oil companies promise. And politicians cannot bring gasoline prices down in
the short term.
However, there actually is one extremely
effective way to bring the costs of driving a car way down within a few
short years. The way to bring gas prices down is to end our dependence on
oil and use the renewable sources that can give us the equivalent of $1 per
gallon gasoline.
Many Americans have begun to wonder whether
or not we've simply lost our appetite for bold policy solutions. And folks
who claim to know how our system works these days have told us we might as
well forget about our political system doing anything bold, especially if it
is contrary to the wishes of special interests. And I've got to admit, that
sure seems to be the way things have been going. But I've begun to hear
different voices in this country from people who are not only tired of baby
steps and special interest politics, but are hungry for a new, different and
bold approach.
We are on the eve of a presidential
election. We are in the midst of an international climate treaty process
that will conclude its work before the end of the first year of the new
president's term. It is a great error to say that the United States must
wait for others to join us in this matter. In fact, we must move first,
because that is the key to getting others to follow; and because moving
first is in our own national interest.
So I ask you to join with me to call on
every candidate, at every level, to accept this challenge - for America to
be running on 100 percent zero-carbon electricity in 10 years. It's time for
us to move beyond empty rhetoric. We need to act now.
This is a generational moment. A moment when
we decide our own path and our collective fate. I'm asking you - each of you
- to join me and build this future. Please join the WE campaign at
wecansolveit.org.We need you. And we need you now. We're committed to
changing not just light bulbs, but laws. And laws will only change with
leadership.
On July 16, 1969, the United States of
America was finally ready to meet President Kennedy's challenge of landing
Americans on the moon. I will never forget standing beside my father a few
miles from the launch site, waiting for the giant Saturn 5 rocket to lift
Apollo 11 into the sky. I was a young man, 21 years old, who had graduated
from college a month before and was enlisting in the United States Army
three weeks later.
I will never forget the inspiration of those
minutes. The power and the vibration of the giant rocket's engines shook my
entire body. As I watched the rocket rise, slowly at first and then with
great speed, the sound was deafening. We craned our necks to follow its path
until we were looking straight up into the air. And then four days later, I
watched along with hundreds of millions of others around the world as Neil
Armstrong took one small step to the surface of the moon and changed the
history of the human race.
We must now lift our nation to reach another
goal that will change history. Our entire civilization depends upon us now
embarking on a new journey of exploration and discovery. Our success depends
on our willingness as a people to undertake this journey and to complete it
within 10 years. Once again, we have an opportunity to take a giant leap for
humankind.
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