Al Gore talks 'Climate Reality,' regrets and hopes for the grandkids.
In an era when mounting disasters made worse by the warming climate raise fears for the Earth’s future, Al Gore could simply say “I told you so.”
Instead, the silver-haired grandfather regrets not pushing even harder to raise awareness during his more than four decades of trying to warn the world about the dangers of climate change. “I guess I could have done more, wish I had done more I guess,” Gore told USA TODAY in an exclusive interview last week.
Derided by climate change skeptics and pundits for decades, and subjected to memes making light of his concern about global warming, Gore soldiers on.
On April 12, the founder and chairman of The Climate Reality Project will launch his 55th Climate Reality Leadership Training in New York City. The trainings have taken place around the world, aiming to help advocates acquire the skills to advance climate solutions in their communities.
The workshops are for “anyone who wants to become more skilled at communicating, better connected to networks of like-minded advocates and equip themselves with the latest and best science on the causes and the solutions to the climate crisis,” Gore says.
The application period for the April 12-14 training in New York is open until March 24. More than half those who attend the trainings are women and some 47% are under the age of 40.
Gore remains hopeful, and encouraged by the world’s progress toward reversing the upward trend in warming temperatures that are shrinking sea ice, melting glaciers and increasingly flooding coastal communities around the globe.
Gore held the first subcommittee hearing on man-made climate change in the U.S. House of Representatives as a young congressman representing Tennessee in 1981. “I naively thought that my colleagues on the dais would have the same epiphany that I had and of course that didn’t happen,” Gore says now, with wry laughter.
He went on to serve eight years in the House, eight years in the U.S. Senate and eight years as vice president with President Bill Clinton. In 2000, he narrowly lost his bid for the White House to George W. Bush. He won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College.
Gore founded the climate project in 2006, the same year his Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" was released. The film featured dramatic footage of a submarine breaking through a thinning layer of ice in the Arctic. Gore, narrating, said scientists projected the Arctic sea ice could be "completely gone" in the summertime within 50 to 70 years.
The latest study, published by a group of scientists in early March, projects the Arctic could be ice-free in the summer within just a decade.
Gore talked with USA TODAY about his work on climate change over more than 43 years. His answers, edited for brevity, are below:
What do you see as the greatest need at this moment in time to address the public perception about climate change?
Answer: I would say the greatest need is for more grassroots advocates because the most persuasive advocates are those in your own community, people who you know, people whose reputation you can vouch for when they arm themselves with the facts. And you know, if they have the passion connected to advocacy, that's really the most important thing.
Of course Mother Nature is the most powerful advocate. I often say that every night on the TV news is like a nature ride through the Book of Revelation and indeed almost every day now we see these extreme climate-related events all around the world.
Visualizing climate change: Global warming's dire impact on Earth explored
What do you see as the biggest success of The Climate Reality Project?
We have had 55 trainings all around the world and we have had a lot of people go through this training who have gone on to make a big difference in the world. I could cite a number of examples. Christiana Figueres (a Costa Rican diplomat) went through one of the early trainings and went on to run the Paris Conference, which got the most important international agreement.
One of our graduates, Steven Miles, was just elected premier of Queensland in Australia. We had a 13-year-old named Taylor Francis in California go through the training years ago. … Now he started a business that focuses on helping to solve the climate crisis. (Francis completed the training in 2006 and now heads Watershed, a platform to help companies measure, report and reduce their carbon emissions.)
There were more than 300 graduates who were parts of their respective national delegations at COP 28 in Dubai, and they're often the most vigorous and vocal and active members of their respective delegations.
Was there one person or one event that turned you on to climate change?
Yes indeed. First of all, when I was a young child growing up my parents took time to educate me. I remember my mother reading Silent Spring at the dinner table to me and my sister. But the real turning point on climate came when I was an undergraduate in college (at Harvard).
I walked into a course. … It was taught by a man named Roger Revelle who was one of the – I didn't know it at the time – one of the greatest climate scientists in history. (Revelle worked with colleagues at Scripps Institution for Oceanography to develop the project that started measuring CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere on top of Mauna Loa, Hawaii’s largest active volcano.)
He presented to our small class, the first few years worth of results from that Keeling Curve. He was a genius, a legend. ... That’s what really opened my eyes to this. He was a masterful teacher.
What's your biggest frustration?
Well, that we haven't made more progress, and that some of the fossil fuel companies have been shameless in providing, continuing to provide lavish funding for disinformation and misinformation.
What’s at stake is so incredible. You know on our watch we are seeing so much damage being done and so many reckless risks being taken for the future. I mean they could shut down the Gulf Stream for goodness sake, and that sounds like a science fiction movie, in fact it was a science fiction movie. ("Day After Tomorrow," May 2004.)
But now the scientists are really, seriously concerned about that and many other negative tipping point risks that are out there but I like to put the emphasis on the good news.
We’re going to solve this. We definitely are, but the remaining question is whether we'll do it soon enough, whether we'll do it in time to avoid crossing some of these negative tipping points the scientists are warning us about.
Do you have any regrets?
You know, I sleep well at night knowing that I have put every ounce of energy that I have into this. I'm sure there are things I could have done better, could have done sooner, but I've really gone all out on this.
I was pretty slow to recognize how important the massive funding of anti-climate messaging was going on. I underestimated the power of greed in the fossil fuel industry, the shamelessness in putting out the lies. … They are continuing to do similar things today to try to fool people and pull the wool over people's eyes just in the name of greed. You know anger is not a great emotion to feel, and I try to get around it and get past it and just focus on getting the right message out.
I am heartened by how many people have joined this movement. I think that worldwide if you look at all of the different groups, not only Climate Reality, but all of the ones around the world, it's probably the biggest grassroots movement in the history of the world, and it is beginning to get real results.
The warning signs of climate change What humanity knew and when.
What’s your hope for your grandchildren?
My hope is that they will grow up in a world where they are able to look back on this dangerous passage through this narrows of history and say "Wow, humanity really did step up and meet this challenge in time," and I hope they'll feel great about it.
We’ve got all the solutions we need right now to cut emissions in half before the end of this decade. We've got a clear line of sight to how we can cut the other 50% of emissions by mid century. We know how to do this. It's better in every single way. ... We are gaining on this, we’re gaining momentum and soon we'll be gaining on the crisis itself.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Al Gore speaks with USA TODAY about 'Climate Reality,' regrets
