In this morning's first panel discussion at the Clinton Global Initiative, former President Bill Clinton and his VP, Al Gore, talked about how the nation's financial situation might have played out differently if we'd dealt intelligently with energy issues years ago -- a theme Clinton has sounded several times this week.
Gore said that the climate crisis and the financial meltdown are based on similar assumptions. "The current economic crisis was triggered, of course, by the sudden collapse of an assumption," said Gore. Now another assumption is collapsing: "The world has several trillion dollars in sub-prime carbon assets, based on the assumption that it is perfectly alright to put 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every 24 hours."
Gore went more into depth about the financial meltdown, climate solutions, and why the crises are related:
The current economic crisis was triggered of course by the sudden collapse of an assumption. The so-called subprime mortgages were many of them without collateral -- that people weren't expected to pay back. The assumption was that if you lumped them together and securitize them, and magically that is going to remove the risk ... That assumption just went splat, and things began to unravel. And now in the midst of this frenetic effort to find a bailout, many are saying we should have prevented this. We should have realized that the short-term greed was overcoming a clear vision of what the risk was. Well, now is the time to prevent a much worse catastrophe, because the world has several trillion dollars in sub-prime carbon assets, based on the assumption that it is perfectly alright to put 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every 24 hours.
Since we met here last year, the world has lost ground in the climate crisis. This is a rout -- we're losing badly. The water supply is partly held in the ice packs of the mountains and the glaciers. They're disappearing. Haiti was ravaged by four different hurricanes, and of course the devastation came after the environment had been devastated with all the trees had been cut down. There are still people in Galveston waiting for food, for water, and medicine. A half a million people were evacuated from their homes in California because of record fires. The University of Tel Aviv just published research showing that for every one degree of warming, there will be a 10 percent increase in lightning strikes all over this planet, with drier vegetation in a warmer world and more dead vegetation because beetles are no longer held back by frost.
The fires are out of control on every front -- the strength of the storm, the depth of the drought, the movement of tropical diseases into areas that never experienced them before. This is the result of a dysfunctional, insane global system that we have to change. For the first time in all of human history, we as a species have to make a decision. If we make the right decision ... the answer to the economic crisis can truly provide an opportunity to make the right kinds of change.
He also took coal companies to task for promoting what he called the "lie" of "clean coal":
We should stop burning coal without sequestering the CO2. The coal and oil companies have spent in the United States alone half a billion dollars in the first 8 months of this year promoting the lie that there is such a thing as "clean coal." "Clean coal" is like "healthy cigarettes" -- it does not exist. It could theoretically exist. The only demonstration plant was canceled. How many such plants are there? Zero. How many blueprints? Zero.
He also criticized Congress for allowing the moratorium on oil-shale development to expire:
Today the U.S. Congress is talking about energy. They are, without debate and without a single hearing, preparing to lift the moratorium on the development of oil shale, which would vastly multiply the amount of CO2 from every gallon of gasoline. This is utter insanity, and it demonstrates that the wealth and power and influence of the entrenched carbon lobby, that twists policy and puts out illusory impressions, is overwhelming the free debate. We need to stop this.
Gore argued that the fossil-fuels industry is committing "stock fraud" by selling shares of their companies and continuing to deny the reality of climate change:
I believe that for a carbon company to spend money convincing the stock-buying public that there's no risk from the global climate crisis represents a form of stock fraud, because they are misrepresenting a material fact. If you're a carbon company and you're going out there and trying to convince people to buy your stock and that the climate crisis isn't that big a deal, and you're superstitiously giving money to these phony think-tanks that go out and try to gin up phony arguments while the entire scientific community has put out five unanimous reports in the past years practically screaming from the rooftops about how we need to solve this -- if you're a carbon company doing this, in my opinion you're guilty of a form of stock fraud, and I hope the state attorneys general around the country will try to take some action on that.
He also said that young people should be out protesting the construction of new coal plants:
And if you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what's being done now, I believe we've reached the stage where it's time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal-fired power plants that do not have sequestration.
Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success
Comments
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Delay And Deny Posted 7:06 am
24 Sep 2008
The central problem in the financial crises is the imposition by Liberals of centralized enslavement institutions to drain the populace of its wealth and force it to live in dense urban housing with low efficiency lifestyles rather than in agrarian or exurban bliss.
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infp Posted 8:23 am
24 Sep 2008
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 9:08 am
24 Sep 2008
HOW ABOUT $700 BILLION DOLLARS TO PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT AND PRESERVE THE EARTH?
In light of the increasing number of emergent and convergent, human-driven challenges that appear before the family of humanity on the far horizon, I believe it is vital for the climate blogging community to come together and, if only for a few moments, "get real" about what our species is doing, here and now, in these early years of Century XXI, to extirpate biodiversity, degrade the environment, dissipate Earth's resources and threaten the very existence of life as we know it.
Once the economy has been bailed out, I would like the self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe among us, the ones with hundred of millions of dollars in their priviate bank accounts, who are so adamant and urgent in their appeals to save the economy, to turn their attention, energy and vast wealth to the task of saving Earth and its environs from ruination.
After all, what is the point of choosing to save the economy now if that choice means we could inadvertently ravage the Earth, upon which any manmade construction, even the colossal global economy, depends for its existence?
What kind of economy can function without adequate resources and ecosystem services only the Earth provides?
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php
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racc Posted 9:53 am
24 Sep 2008
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Duggles Posted 12:44 pm
24 Sep 2008
A plutocracy.
(Guess I'm just a cynic)
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:05 pm
24 Sep 2008
Al Gore drained 300 million from the U.S. economy all in the name of a false ideology. Now the Earth is cooling. How dare he show his face.
Want to stop the crisis, Al?
Put the money back in the pockets of the people you stole it from!
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MAD MAC Posted 2:38 pm
24 Sep 2008
OK Chairman Mao, thank you so much for your deep insight. Thank Christ you aren't anywhere near some real power or we might end up with another version of the Khmer Rouge running the country. Their thought process was right in line with yours.
Victory in Pattani
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:43 pm
24 Sep 2008
Same thing with Bono.
His last good album was like 1989.
Yet somehow U-2 became "too big to fail".
No matter what crap they released, they kept draining in money. Just like Lehman Brothers.
Finally, they hooked up with the perfect deal -- a guy who took a $20 piece of technology and sold it for $650.
There's the drain...and it's connected to Bono's wallet.
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:44 pm
24 Sep 2008
That's right, use a lot of irrelevant labels.
Then curl up with your master's boots.
No. Not in the Bono mansion...in the tiny doghouse that you pay $1200 a month for.
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:46 pm
24 Sep 2008
http://gristmill.grist.org/user/MAD%20MAC/comments
They seem to consist entirely of criticisms of me.
Word to Mad Mac.
Originality.
Try it some time.
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MAD MAC Posted 2:58 pm
24 Sep 2008
Agrarian Utopia is a fantasy. Without modern medicine (not available in "agrarian utopias") life becomes, to quote my old friend Hobbs, harsh, brutish and short.
An agrarian Utopia looks like my wife's village did 30 years ago. Dusty, dirty streets. Back breaking work from dusk to dawn, usually with enough to eat, but not enough to buy real clothes (guess you wouldn't buy anything without money though anyway right? My wife had one dress, two pairs of underwear and no shoes for her first ten years of life in the agrarian utopia - her father is a farmer). If you or you wife or child get sick, hope they get better. Because medical care is not to be had. Appendicitis or pneumonia meant you were probably going to die. Ditto dengue fever, so popular in these parts.
Your posts are low on substance, not thought through, and rich on negativism for the existing socio-economic system that has served us well. You write like someone who has never lived in impoverished "agrarian utopias" to have a close up look of what that actually means.
Victory in Pattani
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serflorus Posted 10:34 pm
24 Sep 2008
It outlines, among other things, why we need coal and other nasties temporarily to get ourselves out of this hedonistic energy mess we've made. I'd be interested to hear what my learned blogging peers have to say about the book.
Hey, Mr. Gore, Mr. McCain, Mr. Obama, Mr. Biden and (especially) Ms. Palin, how about reading it too...
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