WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON - Former Vice President Al Gore said yesterday that Americans must abandon fossil fuels within a decade and rely on the sun, the winds and other environmentally friendly sources of power, or risk losing their national security as well as their creature comforts.
"The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk," Gore said in a speech to an energy conference here. "The future of human civilization is at stake."
Gore called for the kind of concerted national effort that enabled Americans to walk on the moon 39 years ago this month, just eight years after President John F. Kennedy famously embraced that goal. He said the goal of producing all of the nation's electricity from "renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources" within 10 years is not some farfetched vision, although he said it would require fundamental changes in political thinking and personal expectations.
"This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative," Gore said in remarks prepared for the conference. "It represents a challenge to all Americans, in every walk of life - to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen."
Although Gore has made global warming and energy conservation his signature issues, winning a Nobel Prize for his efforts, his speech yesterday argued that the reasons for renouncing fossil fuels go beyond concern for the climate.
In it, he cited military-intelligence studies warning of "dangerous national security implications" tied to climate change, including the possibility of "hundreds of millions of climate refugees" causing instability around the world, and said that the United States is dangerously vulnerable because of its reliance on foreign oil.
Doubtless aware that his remarks would be met with skepticism, or even ridicule, in some quarters, Gore insisted in his speech that the goal of carbon-free power is not only achievable but practical, and that businesses would embrace it once they saw that it made fundamental economic sense.
Gore said the most important policy change in the transformation would be taxes on carbon dioxide production, with an accompanying reduction in payroll taxes. "We should tax what we burn, not what we earn," his prepared remarks said.
