The Fighting 44s

A genuine problem for us all. I still can’t believe people don’t recognize that human industry is the source of global warming. We all must do everything we can to direct our lives towards becoming more environmentally conscious.

The one thing that gave me a chuckle from this article was how Gore was mistakenly referred to as, “Mr. President”. Oh, if only.

 March 21, 2007
Gore Warns Congress of ‘Planetary Emergency’
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/washington/
21cnd-gore.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

By FELICITY BARRINGER and ANDREW C. REVKIN
Former Vice President Al Gore, rejecting complaints by Republican lawmakers that he was waging an alarmist war on coal and oil use, insisted before Congressional panels today that human-caused global warming constitutes a “planetary emergency” requiring an aggressive federal response.

Mr. Gore, accompanied by his wife, Tipper, delivered the same blunt message to a joint meeting of two House subcommittees this morning and in written testimony prepared for a Senate hearing this afternoon: Humans are artificially warming the world, the risks of inaction are great, and meaningful cuts in emissions linked to warming will only happen if the United States takes the lead.

Evoking the hit movie “300,” about the ancient Spartans’ stand at Thermopylae, Mr. Gore called on Congress to put aside partisan differences, accept the scientific consensus on global warming as unambiguous and become “the 535,” a reference to the number of seats in the House and Senate.

Democrats and Republicans, he said, should emulate their British counterparts and compete to see how best to curb emissions of smokestack and tailpipe “greenhouse” gases that scientists have now firmly linked to a global warming trend.

Mr. Gore also proposed a 10-point legislative program, calling for everything from a tax on carbon emissions to a ban on incandescent light bulbs and a new national mortgage program to promote the use of energy-saving technologies in homes.

Sounding at times like a professor addressing a class and at others like a revivalist preacher, Mr. Gore arrived at the Rayburn House Office Building in his new black Mercury Mariner hybrid sports utility vehicle, gave a quick summary of the most recent science and statistics, then punctuated his mini-lecture with exhortations from his witness’s pulpit.

Waving his finger at some 40 House members, he said, “A day will come when our children and grandchildren will look back and they’ll ask one of two questions.”

Either, he said, “they will ask: what in God’s name were they doing?” or “they may look back and say: how did they find the uncommon moral courage to rise above politics and redeem the promise of American democracy?”

The hearing that followed was partially a reunion — Mr. Gore had served on the House Energy and Commerce committee as a young congressman in the 1980s — and in part an opportunity for the vice president’s Republican detractors to question the science of climate change and argue about the cost of Mr. Gore’s proposed solutions.

There were no references to the 2000 election, which Mr. Gore conceded to President Bush after a monthlong battle, except perhaps the small slip by Representative John D. Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who referred to Mr. Gore as “Mr. President.”

But there were plenty of references to Mr. Gore’s Academy Award-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Representative Bob Inglis, Republican of South Carolina, said he had paid to see it, while Republicans like Representative Joe Barton of Texas, the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, challenged its conclusions.

Mr. Gore, facing a litany of criticisms of his portrayal of the science from Mr. Barton, threw out his hands and smiled in exasperation. Mr. Barton, however, appeared out of step with some of his Republican colleagues, several of whom, including Representative J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, the former House speaker, accepted the scientific consensus that humans are warming the climate.

A few minutes later, Mr. Gore said, “The planet has a fever. “If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor.” He added, “If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don’t say ‘I read a science fiction novel that says it’s not a problem.’ You take action.”

He credited hundreds of mayors and many states for moving ahead with pledges or laws limiting carbon emissions, but said regional actions were insufficient.

Mr. Gore also conceded that without meaningful shifts in energy use in countries with the world’s fastest-growing economies, warming would not be curtailed, but said that the United States, the main source of the gases so far, still had to act first.

“The best way — and the only way — to get China and India on board is for the U.S. to demonstrate real leadership,” he said in written testimony prepared for both hearings. “As the world’s largest economy and greatest superpower, we are uniquely situated to tackle a problem of this magnitude.”

Representative Ralph Hall, Republican of Texas, said that calls for cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases amounted to an “all-out assault on all forms of fossil fuels” that could eliminate jobs and hurt the economy.

In written testimony for the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish statistician and author critical of people who present environmental problems as a crisis, asserted that Mr. Gore’s portrayal of global warming as a problem and his prescription for solving it were both deeply flawed.

Mr. Lomborg said that “global warming is real and man-made,” but that a focus on intensified energy research would be more effective and far cheaper than caps or taxes on greenhouse gas emissions or energy sources that produce them.

“Statements about the strong, ominous and immediate consequences of global warming are often wildly exaggerated,” he said. “We need a stronger focus on smart solutions rather than excessive if well-intentioned efforts.”

Felicity Barringer reported from Washington, and Andrew C. Revkin from New York.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 at 4:25 pm and is filed under Environment, News, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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