WASHINGTON, DC, USA, July 18, 2008: “We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet,” said former Vice-President Al Gore on Thursday. “Every bit of that’s got to change.”
In his speech at an energy conference in Washington, Mr. Gore cited military-intelligence studies warning of “dangerous national security implications” tied to climate change, including the possibility of “hundreds of millions of climate refugees” causing instability around the world, and said the United States is dangerously vulnerable because of its reliance on foreign oil.
Mr. Gore called for the kind of concerted national effort that enabled Americans to walk on the moon 39 years ago this month, just eight years after President John F. Kennedy famously embraced that goal. He said the goal of producing all of the nation’s electricity from “renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources” within 10 years is not some farfetched vision, although he said it would require fundamental changes in political thinking and personal expectations.
“This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative,” Mr. Gore said in his remarks at the conference. He cited some scientists’ estimates that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth in 40 minutes to meet the world’s energy needs for a year, and that the winds that blow across the U.S. Midwest every day could meet the country’s daily electricity needs.