Earth's habitability at increasing risk, Gore tells summit

Sarah Gilman, Special to the Rocky

Thursday, July 19, 2007

ASPEN - Former Vice President Al Gore said Wednesday that climate change is a "planetary emergency" and that many scientists believe there may be less than 10 years to moderate warming's destructive effects.

"There's an African proverb that says if you want to go quick, go alone," said Gore, speaking at the Aspen Institute's Greentech Innovation Network summit. "If you want to go far, go together. We have to go far quickly."

Gore told the gathering of innovators, who hope to boost the development of green technologies, that reversing climate change is still possible, but that "it is a race."

"What we're facing worldwide really is a planetary emergency," Gore said. "I'm optimistic, but we're losing this battle badly."

Gore said that worldwide atmospheric carbon has jumped from 280 to 383 parts per million in the last century, the polar ice caps are melting three times faster than anyone's worst prediction, China is on the verge of surpassing the U.S. for greenhouse gas emissions, and bark beetles and wildfires are sweeping across Western forests.

By some estimates, humans must pull 30 gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere to have a shot at reversing such effects, Gore said.

It's going to take a 90 percent decrease in carbon emissions from fossil fuel guzzlers such as the U.S. and a 50 percent decrease worldwide to get a handle on the problem, he said.

Such a massive reduction in greenhouse gases will take major leaps of political will - far beyond what current politicians see as feasible, Gore said.

That reduction could happen through carbon taxes and trades, technological innovations, and energy conservation and efficiency, he said, as long as it is accompanied by a major grass-roots public shift to sustain it at the level necessary.

"The habitability of this planet . . . really is at risk," he said.

So is there room for optimism?

Gore said he thinks so, but that it's not in the current parade of presidential candidates or the slew of climate-related bills moving through Congress - measures that Gore called "baby steps."

"It's going to depend on what's in the hearts and minds of the people," he said.

Gore has been touring with his slide show on global climate change, which became the Oscar winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

He is also on a campaign to teach 1,400 people worldwide how to deliver the global warming message in different languages. Next week, the campaign will be China, then India.

"It's a different kind of campaign," Gore said, one that he said surpasses what he might be able to accomplish in a presidential bid.

"Dealing with this climate crisis is not only what we have to do, it's our chance to get our act together," he said.

"These are not political problems," he said. "They are moral imperatives."