Complete speech (prepared text distributed by Mr. Gore's office):
A Generational Challenge to Repower America
D.A.R. Constitution Hall, Washington, D.C.
Ladies and gentlemen:
There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life
depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a
present danger. In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and
boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed
and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for whatever reason,
refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked
to step aside. This is such a moment.
The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk. And
even more – if more should be required – the future of human civilization is
at stake. I don't remember a time in our country when so many things seemed
to be going so wrong simultaneously. Our economy is in terrible shape and
getting worse, gasoline prices are increasing dramatically, and so are
electricity rates. Jobs are being outsourced. Home mortgages are in trouble.
Banks, automobile companies and other institutions we depend upon are under
growing pressure. Distinguished senior business leaders are telling us that
this is just the beginning unless we find the courage to make some major
changes quickly.
The climate crisis, in particular, is getting a lot worse – much more
quickly than predicted. Scientists with access to data from Navy submarines
traversing underneath the North polar ice cap have warned that there is now
a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire ice cap will
completely disappear during the summer months. This will further increase
the melting pressure on Greenland. According to experts, the Jakobshavn
glacier, one of Greenland's largest, is moving at a faster rate than ever
before, losing 20 million tons of ice every day, equivalent to the amount of
water used every year by the residents of New York City.
Two major studies from military intelligence experts have warned our leaders
about the dangerous national security implications of the climate crisis,
including the possibility of hundreds of millions of climate refugees
destabilizing nations around the world. Just two days ago, 27 senior
statesmen and retired military leaders warned of the national security
threat from an "energy tsunami" that would be triggered by a loss of our
access to foreign oil. Meanwhile, the war in Iraq continues, and now the war
in Afghanistan appears to be getting worse.
And by the way, our weather sure is getting strange, isn't it? There seem to
be more tornadoes than in living memory, longer droughts, bigger downpours
and record floods. Unprecedented fires are burning in California and
elsewhere in the American West. Higher temperatures lead to drier vegetation
that makes kindling for mega-fires of the kind that have been raging in
Canada, Greece, Russia, China, South America, Australia and Africa.
Scientists in the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science at Tel Aviv
University tell us that for every one degree increase in temperature,
lightning strikes will go up another 10 percent. And it is lightning, after
all, that is principally responsible for igniting the conflagration in
California today. Like a lot of people, it seems to me that all these
problems are bigger than any of the solutions that have thus far been
proposed for them, and that's been worrying me. I'm convinced that one
reason we've seemed paralyzed in the face of these crises is our tendency to
offer old solutions to each crisis separately – without taking the others
into
account. And these outdated proposals have not only been ineffective – they
almost always make the other crises even worse.
Yet when we look at all three of these seemingly intractable challenges at
the same time, we can see the common thread running through them, deeply
ironic in its simplicity: our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels
is at the core of all three of these challenges – the economic,
environmental and national security crises. We're borrowing money from China
to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet.
Every bit of that's got to change. But if we grab hold of that common thread
and pull it hard, all of these complex problems begin to unravel and we will
find that we're holding the answer to all of them right in our hand.
The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels. In my search for
genuinely effective answers to the climate crisis, I have held a series of
"solutions summits" with engineers, scientists, and CEOs. In those
discussions, one thing has become abundantly clear: when you connect the
dots, it turns out that the real solutions to the climate crisis are the
very same measures needed to renew our economy and escape the trap of
ever-rising energy prices. Moreover, they are also the very same solutions
we need to guarantee our national security without having to go to war in
the Persian Gulf.
What if we could use fuels that are not expensive, don't cause pollution and
are abundantly available right here at home? We have such fuels. Scientists
have confirmed that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth
every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world's energy needs for
a full year. Tapping just a small portion of this solar energy could provide
all of the electricity America uses. And enough wind power blows through the
Midwest corridor every day to also meet 100 percent of US electricity
demand. Geothermal energy, similarly, is capable of providing enormous
supplies of electricity for America.
The quickest, cheapest and best way to start using all this renewable energy
is in the production of electricity. In fact, we can start right now using
solar power, wind power and geothermal power to make electricity for our
homes and businesses. But to make this exciting potential a reality, and
truly solve our nation's problems, we need a new start.
That's why I'm proposing today a strategic initiative designed to free us
from the crises that are holding us down and to regain control of our own
destiny. It's not the only thing we need to do. But this strategic challenge
is the lynchpin of a bold new strategy needed to re-power America.
Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our
electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within
10 years. This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative. It
represents a challenge to all Americans – in every walk of life: to our
political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every
citizen.
A few years ago, it would not have been possible to issue such a challenge.
But here's what's changed: the sharp cost reductions now beginning to take
place in solar, wind, and geothermal power – coupled with the recent
dramatic price increases for oil and coal – have radically changed the
economics of energy.
When I first went to Congress 32 years ago, I listened to experts testify
that if oil ever got to $35 a barrel, then renewable sources of energy would
become competitive. Well, today, the price of oil is over $135 per barrel.
And sure enough, billions of dollars of new investment are flowing into the
development of concentrated solar thermal, photovoltaics, windmills,
geothermal plants, and a variety of ingenious new ways to improve our
efficiency and conserve presently wasted energy.
And as the demand for renewable energy grows, the costs will continue to
fall. Let me give you one revealing example: the price of the specialized
silicon used to make solar cells was recently as high as $300 per kilogram.
But the newest contracts have prices as low as $50 a kilogram.
You know, the same thing happened with computer chips – also made out of
silicon. The price paid for the same performance came down by 50 percent
every 18 months – year after year, and that's what's happened for 40 years
in a row. To those who argue that we do not yet have the technology to
accomplish these results with renewable energy: I ask them to come with me
to meet the entrepreneurs who will drive this revolution. I've seen what
they are doing and I have no doubt that we can meet this challenge.
To those who say the costs are still too high: I ask them to consider
whether the costs of oil and coal will ever stop increasing if we keep
relying on quickly depleting energy sources to feed a rapidly growing demand
all around the world. When demand for oil and coal increases, their price
goes up. When demand for solar cells increases, the price often comes down.
When we send money to foreign countries to buy nearly 70 percent of the oil
we use every day, they build new skyscrapers and we lose jobs. When we spend
that money building solar arrays and windmills, we build competitive
industries and gain jobs here at home.
Of course there are those who will tell us this can't be done. Some of the
voices we hear are the defenders of the status quo – the ones with a vested
interest in perpetuating the current system, no matter how high a price the
rest of us will have to pay. But even those who reap the profits of the
carbon age have to recognize the inevitability of its demise. As one OPEC
oil minister observed, "The Stone Age didn't end because of a shortage of
stones."
To those who say 10 years is not enough time, I respectfully ask them to
consider what the world's scientists are telling us about the risks we face
if we don't act in 10 years. The leading experts predict that we have less
than 10 years to make dramatic changes in our global warming pollution lest
we lose our ability to ever recover from this environmental crisis. When the
use of oil and coal goes up, pollution goes up. When the use of solar, wind
and geothermal increases, pollution comes down.
To those who say the challenge is not politically viable: I suggest they go
before the American people and try to defend the status quo. Then bear
witness to the people's appetite for change. I for one do not believe our
country can withstand 10 more years of the status quo. Our families cannot
stand 10 more years of gas price increases. Our workers cannot stand 10 more
years of job losses and outsourcing of factories. Our economy cannot stand
10 more years of sending $2 billion every 24 hours to foreign countries for
oil. And our soldiers and their families cannot take another 10 years of
repeated troop deployments to dangerous regions that just happen to have
large oil supplies.
What could we do instead for the next 10 years? What should we do during the
next 10 years? Some of our greatest accomplishments as a nation have
resulted from commitments to reach a goal that fell well beyond the next
election: the Marshall Plan, Social Security, the interstate highway system.
But a political promise to do something 40 years from now is universally
ignored because everyone knows that it's meaningless.
Ten years is about the maximum time that we as a nation can hold a steady
aim and hit our target. When President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation
to land a man on the moon and bring him back safely in 10 years, many people
doubted we could accomplish that goal. But 8 years and 2 months later, Neil
Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface of the moon.
To be sure, reaching the goal of 100 percent renewable and truly clean
electricity within 10 years will require us to overcome many obstacles. At
present, for example, we do not have a unified national grid that is
sufficiently advanced to link the areas where the sun shines and the wind
blows to the cities in the East and the West that need the electricity.
Our national electric grid is critical infrastructure, as vital to the
health and security of our economy as our highways and telecommunication
networks. Today, our grids are antiquated, fragile, and vulnerable to
cascading failure. Power outages and defects in the current grid system cost
US businesses more than $120 billion dollars a year. It has to be upgraded
anyway.
We could further increase the value and efficiency of a Unified National
Grid by helping our struggling auto giants switch to the manufacture of
plug-in electric cars. An electric vehicle fleet would sharply reduce the
cost of driving a car, reduce pollution, and increase the flexibility of our
electricity grid. At the same time, of course, we need to greatly improve
our commitment to efficiency and conservation. That's the best investment we
can make.
America's transition to renewable energy sources must also include adequate
provisions to assist those Americans who would unfairly face hardship. For
example, we must recognize those who have toiled in dangerous conditions to
bring us our present energy supply. We should guarantee good jobs in the
fresh air and sunshine for any coal miner displaced by impacts on the coal
industry. Every single one of them.
Of course, we could and should speed up this transition by insisting that
the price of carbon-based energy include the costs of the environmental
damage it causes. I have long supported a sharp reduction in payroll taxes
with the difference made up in CO2 taxes. We should tax what we burn, not
what we earn. This is the single most important policy change we can make.
In order to foster international cooperation, it is also essential that the
United States rejoin the global community and lead efforts to secure an
international treaty at Copenhagen in December of next year that includes a
cap on CO2 emissions and a global partnership that recognizes the necessity
of addressing the threats of extreme poverty and disease as part of the
world's agenda for solving the climate crisis.
Of course the greatest obstacle to meeting the challenge of 100 percent
renewable electricity in 10 years may be the deep dysfunction of our
politics and our self-governing system as it exists today. In recent years,
our politics has tended toward incremental proposals made up of small
policies designed to avoid offending special interests, alternating with
occasional baby steps in the right direction. Our democracy has become
sclerotic at a time when these crises require boldness. It is only a truly
dysfunctional system that would buy into the perverse logic that the
short-term answer to high gasoline prices is drilling for more oil ten years
from now.
Am I the only one who finds it strange that our government so often adopts a
so-called solution that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem it is
supposed to address? When people rightly complain about higher gasoline
prices, we propose to give more money to the oil companies and pretend that
they're going to bring gasoline prices down.
It will do nothing of the sort, and everyone knows it. If we keep going back
to the same policies that have never ever worked in the past and have served
only to produce the highest gasoline prices in history alongside the
greatest oil company profits in history, nobody should be surprised if we
get the same result over and over again. But the Congress may be poised to
move in that direction anyway because some of them are being stampeded by
lobbyists for special interests that know how to make the system work for
them instead of the American people.
If you want to know the truth about gasoline prices, here it is: the
exploding demand for oil, especially in places like China, is overwhelming
the rate of new discoveries by so much that oil prices are almost certain to
continue upward over time no matter what the oil companies promise. And
politicians cannot bring gasoline prices down in the short term.
However, there actually is one extremely effective way to bring the costs of
driving a car way down within a few short years. The way to bring gas prices
down is to end our dependence on oil and use the renewable sources that can
give us the equivalent of $1 per gallon gasoline.
Many Americans have begun to wonder whether or not we've simply lost our
appetite for bold policy solutions. And folks who claim to know how our
system works these days have told us we might as well forget about our
political system doing anything bold, especially if it is contrary to the
wishes of special interests. And I've got to admit, that sure seems to be
the way things have been going. But I've begun to hear different voices in
this country from people who are not only tired of baby steps and special
interest
politics, but are hungry for a new, different and bold approach.
We are on the eve of a presidential election. We are in the midst of an
international climate treaty process that will conclude its work before the
end of the first year of the new president's term. It is a great error to
say that the United States must wait for others to join us in this matter.
In fact, we must move first, because that is the key to getting others to
follow; and because moving first is in our own national interest.
So I ask you to join with me to call on every candidate, at every level, to
accept this challenge – for America to be running on 100 percent zero-carbon
electricity in 10 years. It's time for us to move beyond empty rhetoric. We
need to act now.
This is a generational moment. A moment when we decide our own path and our
collective fate. I'm asking you – each of you – to join me and build this
future. Please join the WE campaign at wecansolveit.org. We need you. And we
need you now. We're committed to changing not just light bulbs, but laws.
And laws will only change with leadership.
On July 16, 1969, the United States of America was finally ready to meet
President Kennedy's challenge of landing Americans on the moon. I will never
forget standing beside my father a few miles from the launch site, waiting
for the giant Saturn 5 rocket to lift Apollo 11 into the sky. I was a young
man, 21 years old, who had graduated from college a month before and was
enlisting in the United States Army three weeks later.
I will never forget the inspiration of those minutes. The power and the
vibration of the giant rocket's engines shook my entire body. As I watched
the rocket rise, slowly at first and then with great speed, the sound was
deafening. We craned our necks to follow its path until we were looking
straight up into the air. And then four days later, I watched along with
hundreds of millions of others around the world as Neil Armstrong took one
small step to the surface of the moon and changed the history of the human
race.
We must now lift our nation to reach another goal that will change history.
Our entire civilization depends upon us now embarking on a new journey of
exploration and discovery. Our success depends on our willingness as a
people to undertake this journey and to complete it within 10 years. Once
again, we have an opportunity to take a giant leap for humankind.
