Al Gore Brings Climate Change Message to Beverly Hills
Al Gore took his climate change message to Beverly Hills on Thursday night with a summarization and signing of his new book, "Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis."
A capacity crowd filed into the Saban Theater's majestic auditorium clutching copies of the glossy illustrative tome, which came with the $40 ticket price.
Introduced by Temple of the Arts Rabbi David Baron, a wiser, at times more humorous (Homer Simpson and Taylor Swift references received laughs) and no less urgent Gore tubthumped his follow-up to "An Inconvenient Truth." Three and a half years ago his wake up call to the world mostly dealt with the daunting problem of climate change, but offered little in the way of solutions.
"Our Choice" is that call to action.
The former vice president addressed an audience that included his son who lives in Los Angeles, "Inconvenient Truth" producers Scott Burns and Lesley Chilcott, and even a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Gore outlined the main topics in his book, of which some may be surprised at his depth of knowledge. He spent the past three years leading "Solutions Summits" with top scientists, engineers and policy experts - all of whom are credited in the book and contributed greatly to the research.
Our unsustainable dependence on oil, coal and natural gas (perhaps a backhanded stab at the Pickens Plan?) was discussed as a three-pronged threat to the climate, our national security and the economy.
"The climate crisis, the security crisis and the economic crisis have a common thread running through them connecting them. And that common thread is our absurd overdependence on carbon-based fuels," said Gore. "If you grab hold of that thread and pull it hard all three of these crises begin to unravel and we hold in our hand the answer to all three. And that is a generational choice to switch from dirty, vulnerable, expensive, polluting fuels to fuels that are free forever."
Then Gore went over the clean alternative energy sources and the potential rewards and pitfalls of each. He was most enthusiastic about solar, wind and geothermal, especially enhanced geothermal, which he claimed could provide our annual energy usage for the next 35,000 years.
Less enthusiasm was directed towards biomass, carbon capture and sequestration, and nuclear power. The danger of nuclear proliferation and the fine line between enriching uranium for energy and creating a nuclear-tipped warhead was given as a warning against the nuclear option. Case in point: Iran.
Gore also discussed the implementation of the super smart grid to build transmission lines to tap into solar energy in the southwest United States and wind power in the mountain states.
Other topics included the dangers of industrial agriculture practices pulling carbon out of the topsoil and into the atmosphere, deforestation, population control, and the obstacles -- political, economic and thought processes -- to tackling climate change. Gore said that the largest carbon polluters have been spending roughly a billion dollars worldwide to "promote illusions and reinforce the dysfunctional pattern that we are still locked into."
"The way to remove these political obstacles is for you to be involved," said Gore. "It's important to change your light bulbs and windows. It's a lot more important to change the laws and policies."
-- Josh Marks
Video from the event:
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