We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change

Long Island had one of the snowiest winters in years! Leading many citizens to question if climate change is a real concern. Former Vice President Al Gore debunks the so-called email controversy and explains why this year’s harsh winter is consistent with global warming effects which in some regions like the North East of the USA will result in greater precipitation. VP Gore also explains the wide range of catastrophic impacts that we can expect. For example, sea level rise will likely submerge low lying coastal areas. And Long Islanders know that could include much of our south shore. The former VP goes on to explain how the US economy will decline if we fail to forcefully enter the economic race with China, and other countries, to achieve a sustainability economy and energy independence. Mr. Gore believes that the current political stalemate in Washington DC has slowed the world’s shift away from dirty cheap fossil fuels as the world continues to use the earth’s atmosphere as an open sewer.

It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it. Of course, we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil. And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy — the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century.

Read the rest of Al Gore’s Op-Ed at NYTimes.com.