Opening his November 9 remarks at San Rafael's Dominican University with his trademark self-deprecating humor -- "I'm Al Gore, I used to be the next president of the United States" -- the relaxed and good-humored Tennessean immediately had his audience laughing and applauding. To be sure, for Gore, speaking to an ideologically compatible and politically sophisticated San Francisco Bay Area audience about global climate change, the only thing missing from the love would be flowers and kisses.
I've somewhat closely followed Al Gore ever since the 1992 release of his clarion call to save our planet, Earth in the Balance, a New York Times bestseller. And Gore delivered on this evening entirely as I had expected. He was charming, gracious, completely at ease and astoundingly knowledgeable and articulate. He smoothly wove his way through an informal but wonkish presentation laden with statistics, facts, industry observations, greenhouse gas emissions data, and brief tutorials and anecdotes alike regarding an array of clean energy technologies. Carbon dioxide emissions and concentrations, national security concerns, wind energy, solar, biomass, ethanol, electric vehicles, life cycle analysis, carbon capture and sequestration.....the topics breezed by. And of course, delivered entirely without notes.
His oration was almost too relaxed and the plethora of relevant facts were almost too thorough. This was consummate Al Gore -- collegial politician and exceptionally expert advocate for climate change action, able to suffocate climate change deniers with the superiority of his facts while at the same time striving to avoid alarming the rest of us.
A few of the more interesting and far-reaching comments from Gore:
- (Referring to groundwater depletion, prolonged droughts, and increased severe storm activity in the U.S.): "The water crisis in many ways is the cutting edge of the global warming crisis."
- "Ethanol has not worked out that well. It really doesn't contribute much to the solution." I wanted to shout with relief when he said this. The huge U.S. push into ethanol is an epic blunder and it is refreshing to hear a politician speak out against it.
- "The electric car is the future of the U.S. automobile fleet." So think twice about that future hydrogen- or liquid nitrogen-powered car of yours.
- Carbon capture and sequestration works, "That's been proven." But Gore's larger point here was that this technology has "yet to be accomplished on a commercial scale," in great part due to the fact that "it takes an enormous amount of energy for a coal plant" to capture and sequester its carbon emissions. And Gore concluded, "A technology that may be good enough as a viable solution beginning in 20 years is not good enough. We need to implement solutions now."
- Gore stressed the importance of maintaining the fertility of soil, which largely depends on soil holding on to its carbon. He made three points here: First, the U.S. agricultural sector is facing an enormous problem involving soil fertility depletion. Second, we need to enact measures to keep carbon in soils, such as reducing use of nitrogen-based fertilizers. And third, improving carbon sequestration in soil is part of the answer for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
- Occupying a healthy concluding chapter in his new book but only a light touch at the tail end of his presentation was the matter of politics. Gore gently introduced the topic of ongoing U.S. political failure on climate change by stating, "The last obstacle I'll address....is our way of thinking." And he correctly noted at the very end of his remarks that, "We have everything we need with the possible exception of political will."
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