Though we're pumping more global warming pollutants into the air, fewer of us believe we're really changing the climate. And the prospects for agreements within and among nations to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide keep getting delayed.
Now the person most responsible for raising public consciousness on climate change, Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore, is touring the country to tell us how to avert the calamities he has long projected.
In Portland Wednesday to speak, Gore proved that he can be as controversial as his message – and protesters raised a ruckus outside the Keller Auditoriumin advance of and during his presentation.
The Oregonian is blogging from Gore's speech here.
In an effort to better understand his solutions and how they play out in the Northwest, however, The Oregonian sat down for an interview with Gore.
Q: Evidence of human-caused climate change continues to accumulate, but according to recent polls American belief in it is eroding. Why is that?
"I'm not sure it really has eroded. The overall pattern of public opinion polling for the last 20 years has been pretty clear. There's been a very solid and slowly growing majority over 60 percent acknowledging the science, accepting the science, saying we should do something about it, saying we should support legislation. But when you ask Americans to rank climate in their concerns, it comes out down in the bottom quarter."
"I think there are fairly well understood reasons for that. First of all, this crisis is unprecedented in its scope and in its magnitude, and its impacts are distributed globally. Secondly, the time between the cause and consequences extends past the time period that we are used to dealing with. It gives the illusion that we have the luxury of time. Third, there has been a well organized and lavishly funded campaign by some of the largest carbon polluter to systematically sow doubts about the scientific consensus. Fourth, I think garden variety denial plays a role."
Q: You're a polarizing figure – there are a number of protests and counter-protests assembling right now in downtown Portland – so with your high profile, do you help or hurt your cause?
"Well, I certainly hope that I help. Inconvenient truths, to coin a phrase, are not always welcome. And some that don't want to hear them or deal with them would certainly like me to stop speaking out. But placing this issue on the agenda is important to do. And it's not unusual for somebody who is pushing an agenda of reform and change to generate opposition."
Q: How do you bridge the gap between yourself and those who aren't inclined to hear you out because you're perceived as a partisan figure?
"I ask them first of all to look at the scientific consensus, held not only by the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] but endorsed by every National Academy of Sciences of every major country in the world. But second, I ask them, even if they disagree with that consensus, to help us reduce our dependence on foreign oil."
Q: In past visits to Oregon, you said the state was a model for climate action. Yet our greenhouse gas emissions are up over 40 percent since 1990. If Oregon can't cut back, who can?
"This is a tough problem. But it simply highlights the need for some of the changes that Portland his pioneered. Light rail, for example, and innovative financing policies to encourage urban and suburban planning in ways that reduce the impact of commuting on commuters and make transportation more affordable and enjoyable. Oregon is already moving on wind power, and of course solar power is coming along in its wake."
Q: Half of Oregon is forest, and most of that is federal land. Should we manage our public forests to maximize their carbon storage potential even if that comes as the expense of other values, like ecosystem health or logging?
"I think that having been a veteran of the Northwest Forest Plan out here, I feel as if I learned lot about the need for balance and common sense in forest management. I think the balance we struck back in the day with the Northwest Forest Plan is still in broad outline the appropriate balance to strike."
Q: You write that the climate crisis poses a threat "to our assumptions about the ability of democracy and capitalism to recognize this threat for what it is and respond with appropriate boldness, scope and urgency." What did you mean by that?
"The way we measure value in markets always needs attention. Pollution has often been classified as an externality, which basically means forget about it. [Carbon dioxide] is tasteless, odorless and invisible, and it has no price tag, so in order to use the market as a constructive ally to limit that pollution, we need to find a way to integrate a price for CO2 into the market system. As for democracy, the old cliché from Winston Churchill always applies: It's the worst system except for any other system that's ever been tried."