Prepared Statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from Al Gore

Former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore went before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 28 to advocate President Obama’s spending plan for addressing the issue of global warming and to reiterate the importance of reducing carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutants implicated in the climate change crisis. His prepared statement was posted in The New York Times by John M. Broder in Gore Restates Climate Case in Senate.

Mr. Gore stated that the plan’s focus on four key areas—energy efficiency, renewables, a unified national energy smart grid, and movement toward cleaner cars¬—will result in a four-fold benefit of creating new jobs and hastening economic recovery while strengthening national security and addressing the effects of climate change.

The speech describes a triple crisis of climate change, a worsening economic situation, and the endangered state of our national security that is linked by a dangerous over-dependence on carbon-based fuels that shackles our society into a cycle of borrowing money from China to pay for oil from the Persian gulf so that we may burn it to pollute the planet, all at the whim of OPEC and its fluctuating oil prices. While we continue participating in this destructive cycle we are moving toward irreversible tipping points that will undermine the habitability of our planet and civilization as we know it.

Just as our ecological, economic, and security threats are entwined in a seeming Gordian knot, the solution to the crisis appears clear-cut to Mr. Gore: the acceptance of President Obama’s Recovery package in its entirety, as a bold first step. Mr. Gore challenged the belief that Americans must choose between the environment and our way of life and between moral duty and economic well-being. He believes that the Obama Plan is an effective strategy to address all three crises and the path to restoring our place as an economic and moral world leader, independent of ties that compromise our way of life. According to Mr. Gore, it is essential that the United States quickly expands its capacity to generate clean electricity so that we can move forward effectively in the plan.

The second step to solving these crises would be the institution of a cap-and-trade system for CO2 emissions that would also serve to restore our country’s credibility. As the Copenhagen treaty talks draw near, this action would place us on a more balanced footing with other countries and many states that have already instituted such a system, and allow us to take a leadership role in creating a fair, effective, and balanced structure for restoring the global environment. Mr. Gore outlined what he felt would be key elements to a successful agreement in Copenhagen, which included targets, timetables, solutions, and the need for accountability.

While the United States has remained inactive on the global climate scene, developing countries have assumed increasing leadership roles in calling for action in the world arena and taken bold initiatives in their own regions. Heads of state and even some corporate leaders have become involved in this movement. The American public is also becoming more aware and engaged in the scientific evidence for global warming. Mr. Gore stressed that this is a bipartisan issue that requires immediate and unprecedented action based on new scientific evidence and pointed to successes within the Reagan and Bush administrations that have helped pave the way to Copenhagen.

Making the change from a mentality of conquest to a philosophy of conservation has been a difficult challenge for Americans as a group. We have a love affair with our automobiles—they are an intrinsic part of our culture and our mythology. But it is time for us to move into the 21st century. While other countries have forged ahead with innovative green technologies, we have clung to old standards buttressed by the greed of large corporations like “The Big Three” who have systematically and deliberately extinguished the fires of green technologies such as the electric car and solar power. We have become obsolete, out of touch, as countries like Germany surpass even their own goals for attaining solar and wind energy, and some of us continue the shrill chant of “drill, drill, drill.”

I remember a television commercial from my childhood: a traditional Native American man standing by the roadside as cars drove by dumping litter at his feet, a single tear rolling down his sad face. How that commercial broke my heart each time! The Native American philosophy was to always consider how the actions of one generation would affect the lives of future generations. Modern Americans have became so short-sighted that we couldn’t even conceive of the possibility that our enemies would have the patience, foresight, and dedication to wait a decade or even a generation to strike at us. Out innocence and our arrogance took a big hit on 9/11.

Winston Churchill said, “Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities.” I believe that we have arrived at that point. Americans are resilient and innovative. We need to dig deep into our collective consciousness and dredge up some of that trademark American optimism that always gets us to the other side. This is a terrible time in our history. But it is also an opportunity for American ingenuity to shine once more and bring us back to a leadership role in the world.