Gore calls scientists to action at AAAS meeting

CHICAGO — Former vice president Al Gore issued a passionate appeal last Friday directly to scientists to use their expertise and reputations to fight for a cleaner environment.

Gore addressed the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago, emphasizing that this knowledgeable audience had the ability to combat global warming more effectively than most.

After presenting an updated mini-version of his Oscar-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth" about worsening climate change, Gore told his audience, "I’m asking you for help.

"The survival of our civilization is at risk, and the solution to this crisis is in the form of rapid understanding from the world of science into the world of policy and politics," he said. "I believe strongly that scientists can no longer, in good conscience, accept this division between the work you do and the civilization in which you live."

His video presentation included a television commercial produced last year by the coal industry, in which little animated pieces of coal sing a Christmas carol about clean coal.

According to Gore, the coal industry has spent $500 million in such efforts to promote its cleaner technology. But in reality, he said, there is no such thing as clean coal.

To counter the singing coal carolers, he played a commercial produced by The Reality Coalition, a group of organizations opposed to coal pollution.

The United States now faces three crises, Gore said. First is the economic crisis, which was detonated by the subprime mortgage meltdown. The national security crisis includes the war in the Persian Gulf, a region with the world’s largest oil reserves. The climate crisis rounds out the trio.

Gore said the three are interconnected.

"The assumption was that there was no risk in these subprime mortgages. But that assumption suddenly collapsed, and the crisis of confidence in the credit markets spread rapidly," he said. "We now have $7 trillion worth of subprime carbon assets whose value is based on the assumption that it’s perfectly alright to put 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the thin-shelled atmosphere surrounding our planet. And that assumption is in the process of collapsing."

He warned that the stakes have never been higher and the need for cooperation more urgent.

There were chuckles as he retold an old African proverb that says: If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

"We have to go far quickly," Gore said. "And the only way that’s going to happen is if those of you who are in a position to communicate your understanding of what this is all about, make a decision to get actively involved. We need you."

But he also expressed a bit of optimism in the face of the changing political landscape. "While the stakes have never been higher, we now have the knowledge. We have the emerging technology. We have new leadership. We have cabinet members and science advisers and policymakers in all the important positions who are your colleagues and who have taken the time to go and be part of public service. And in many cases, they’ve done so because of this challenge. Keep your connections to them. Become a part of this struggle."

Summing up, he said, "If I could find a way, I would communicate the sense of urgency that I feel so passionately straight from my heart to yours. If I could, I would motivate you to leave this city after this meeting, and start getting involved in politics. Keep your day job. But start getting involved in this historic debate."

Because, he repeated, "We need you."