Gore Urges Cap on Carbon Emissions, Global Climate Pact
DriftingByTheStorm
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More Fun In The New World, by The Washington Post.
Gore Urges Cap on Carbon Emissions, Global Climate Pact
He Tells Senators the Situation Is Dire
Former vice president Al Gore urged lawmakers yesterday to adopt a binding carbon cap and push for a new international climate pact by the end of this year in order to avert catastrophic global warming.
Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Gore delivered a short slide show that amounted to an update of his Oscar-winning documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," lecturing some of his former colleagues that even if the world halted greenhouse gas emissions now, the world could experience a temperature rise of 2.5 to 7.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.
"This would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on the Earth, and this is within this century," Gore said.
The high-tech display included a graphic illustration of how the Arctic's permanent summer ice cover has melted in recent decades, a pulsating image the Nobel Peace Prize winner described as "30 years in less than 30 seconds," and a short video clip of a scientist who ignited the methane gas seeping out of the melting Arctic permafrost.
After the audience watched the flames leap up and the researcher scurry away, Gore remarked: "She's okay. The question is, are we?"
Gore received a largely sympathetic hearing from the panel.
"Frankly, the science is screaming at us," said the committee's chairman, John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who added that the United States would not make the mistake of leaving emerging economies out of any future climate agreement.
"A global problem demands a global effort, and today we are working toward a solution with a role for developed and developing countries alike, which will be vital as we work to build consensus here at home in tough economic times," Kerry said.
Gore did not sugarcoat his message to senators. While politicians including President Obama have touted the importance of exploring "clean coal technology," the former vice president said it will not be available for years: "We must avoid becoming vulnerable to the illusion that this is near at hand. It is not."
Sen. Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), the committee's top Republican, asked Gore to draw on his experience as "a practical politician" to explain how senators could muster a broad bipartisan majority for any international treaty that could come out of the Copenhagen climate conference at the end of the year.
After distancing himself from his political past -- "I'm a recovering politician. I'm on about Step 9" -- Gore said the chances of a treaty passing the Senate should be boosted by developing countries' willingness to embrace binding climate goals, coupled with the new scientific evidence of recent warming and Obama's leadership.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who supports a carbon tax rather than a cap-and-trade system, said he thinks the only way to construct a bipartisan coalition on climate change is to be honest about what it means to curb greenhouse gas emissions. "I think we can build consensus around transparency," Corker said, adding that when it comes to addressing global warming, "we're really talking about increasing the price of carbon."
Corker said that even lawmakers who have some reservations about a carbon cap's economic impact need to acknowledge it will likely become reality.
Gore Urges Cap on Carbon Emissions, Global Climate Pact
He Tells Senators the Situation Is Dire
Former vice president Al Gore urged lawmakers yesterday to adopt a binding carbon cap and push for a new international climate pact by the end of this year in order to avert catastrophic global warming.
Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Gore delivered a short slide show that amounted to an update of his Oscar-winning documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," lecturing some of his former colleagues that even if the world halted greenhouse gas emissions now, the world could experience a temperature rise of 2.5 to 7.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.
"This would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on the Earth, and this is within this century," Gore said.
The high-tech display included a graphic illustration of how the Arctic's permanent summer ice cover has melted in recent decades, a pulsating image the Nobel Peace Prize winner described as "30 years in less than 30 seconds," and a short video clip of a scientist who ignited the methane gas seeping out of the melting Arctic permafrost.
After the audience watched the flames leap up and the researcher scurry away, Gore remarked: "She's okay. The question is, are we?"
Gore received a largely sympathetic hearing from the panel.
"Frankly, the science is screaming at us," said the committee's chairman, John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who added that the United States would not make the mistake of leaving emerging economies out of any future climate agreement.
"A global problem demands a global effort, and today we are working toward a solution with a role for developed and developing countries alike, which will be vital as we work to build consensus here at home in tough economic times," Kerry said.
Gore did not sugarcoat his message to senators. While politicians including President Obama have touted the importance of exploring "clean coal technology," the former vice president said it will not be available for years: "We must avoid becoming vulnerable to the illusion that this is near at hand. It is not."
Sen. Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), the committee's top Republican, asked Gore to draw on his experience as "a practical politician" to explain how senators could muster a broad bipartisan majority for any international treaty that could come out of the Copenhagen climate conference at the end of the year.
After distancing himself from his political past -- "I'm a recovering politician. I'm on about Step 9" -- Gore said the chances of a treaty passing the Senate should be boosted by developing countries' willingness to embrace binding climate goals, coupled with the new scientific evidence of recent warming and Obama's leadership.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who supports a carbon tax rather than a cap-and-trade system, said he thinks the only way to construct a bipartisan coalition on climate change is to be honest about what it means to curb greenhouse gas emissions. "I think we can build consensus around transparency," Corker said, adding that when it comes to addressing global warming, "we're really talking about increasing the price of carbon."
Corker said that even lawmakers who have some reservations about a carbon cap's economic impact need to acknowledge it will likely become reality.
If I was to smile and I held out my hand
If I opened it now would you not understand?
If I opened it now would you not understand?
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Posting 4 stories took me all of 30 minutes.
I think i can manage my time by myself.
I share because i care.
If you don't like it,
you can...
If I opened it now would you not understand?
Open your eyes man..What will it take? The UK actually going ahead with what they are already considering- rationing energy? Then will you see what damage Gore is creating?
I'm superserrial!
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I love how right after Hansen's former supervisor called Hansen an embarrassment and fraud, and the IPCC was charged with 72 counts of fraud, Gore got himself plastered all over the news with a desperate plea to quickly pass legislature that would kill this country. He knows he doesn't have much time left.
its so much easier to maintain the status quo of dumping toxic waste into the local stream and pumping out millions of tons of mercury into the environment.
its easier to pollute than own up to the fact that it may be affecting our climate.
support corporations all you want, just be sure, they don't give a fuck about you.
Instead of trying to inspire people and companies with new ideas and alternative consumables all he wants to do is fine everyone. How is charging a company or the public tons of money (which in the end just goes to him and his private jets and fleets of SUV's) going to help the environment and combat global climate change? And the argument that hitting these companies in their wallets doesn't work, all they do is continue with their same old practices and just pass the cost on to the consumer (gas guzzler tax, higher fuel costs, etc). That should really help get us out of this recession.
I'm so tired of hearing that something is better tan nothing. Sometimes that's just not true. The only way we as a nation and as humans in general are ever going to fix the mess we created is to change peoples belief structures and daily routines. Fining and threatening is just going to cause more and more people to rebel against your message, whether it's good or not. And acting as though you are the most important person on the planet and that you're the only person that can save the human race doesn't help either (even if you did invent the Internet).
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How did Gore make all that fucking ice melt? I mean you DO say the biggest racket in the world so he MUST have had those huge ice shelfs melted. I mean that makes sense. :roll:
Gore is running the biggest "money for nothing" racket. He personally didn't melt all the ice (I blame the sun for that). What it means is that he owns or has a vested (read:financial) interest in every company that he recommends be used to battle global climate change. The fact that he is getting paid for recommendations that don't work and shady companies that do nothing but offer empty promises validates my point.
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Worms take advantage of the dirt they find around themselves. Back in the 70's when it was getting cooler, worms were claiming we were flying into an ice age and the death count would be inconceivable. Then the ice started to melt, so a new worm that was just emerging cried "global warming!"
The most suspected cause of the melting in the arctic is the change in the ocean flow..A cycle that has been occuring since before we existed.
I want to re-point out that the 'data' showing man is responsible for any form of climate change is coming almost completely from Friends of Earth, the IPCC, and Hansen over at nasa..All of whom have been brought up on, or are currently being brought up on charges for falsifying data.