Nature the most powerful messenger
When you were vice president of the USA, all these environmental interests of yours were not really mentioned. What happened? What changed? There are many of us who have worked hard to deliver the message of the climate crisis but I think the most powerful messenger has been Mother Nature. The temperatures have been rising, the weather patterns have been scrambled, the seasons have been changed, the ice caps are melting. Rapid changes All of the changes that the scientists predicted have begun to occur, many of them more rapidly than the scientists believed possible. The people are ahead of the politicians, at least in my country, and I think in many countries. There is a conversation between grandparents and grandchildren, where the grandparents say: «It’s never been like this for as long as I can remember,» and the children realize they are going to have to live with the consequences, and they’re putting pressure on their elders to do something about it. But we’re still not where we need to be. There has to be a worldwide movement. Do you think this campaign of yours has impacted on the political process? I think that it’s beginning to have a small impact but we are nowhere close to where we need to be, and in my country and in many countries, the political leaders have been paralyzed and unable to act effectively because our whole way of life is bound up in the burning of carbon-based fuel. Actually, the changes we need to make are ones that will make our lives better, make our jobs better, make our businesses more profitable,but the change always seems difficult, even when it’s good for us. As you know, there has been some criticism about your assumptions in the book, «An Inconvenient Truth.» Some say they are perhaps too extremist, too alarmist. How do you respond to that? The scientists who are at the top of their fields say that science is absolutely accurate and, in fact, the predictions that the scientists had made years ago are now being exceeded by the actual results, and there are many, including some distinguished scientists, who are very pessimistic and whose forecasts are much more extreme than the ones in this book. I believe this is the middle-of-the-road best estimate possible, in consultation with the scientific community, and, as I say, the scientific community has validated this. Have you encountered any sort of counter-campaigns by the oil industry? Do they see you as an enemy? Yes, of course – and not all of the oil companies, by the way, a few of them are doing the right thing, and some of the coal companies are doing the right thing – but some of the biggest carbon polluters, which include some oil companies and electric utility companies, have been spending around $10 million per year – US dollars – to finance front groups that put out false scientific, pseudo-scientific claims that have only one purpose: an effort to confuse people into believing that scientists are arguing among themselves, and, therefore, the only sensible thing to do is to wait and do nothing until the scientists stop arguing. Most all of the scientists have long sensed they’ve reached a conclusion on this, and when some of the large polluters give money to pseudo-scientists to create a pretense of disagreement, it’s an unethical act. The G8 summit President Bush, as you know, made some proposals right before the G8 meeting. Is that too little, too late in your opinion? Well, worse than that, it was an effort to divert attention away from the United Nations process into a make-believe process that the White House would completely control, and he was, apparently, worried that the unanimity among the other G8 leaders would leave him in a difficult position if he didn’t do something, and so he came up with a completely different alternative process that is aimed at words alone and voluntary actions that would start after he leaves office. During the G8 meeting, the other leaders tried to avoid embarrassment, and serious disagreement was often smoothed over, so they came up with language that accomplished that result and proclaimed it progress. I am not very objective when it comes to President Bush, so you will have to find someone else to give you a fair estimate of whether it really was progress or not, but I will tell you that I think it was a charade. You’re going to do some worldwide concerts on July 7. Tell me a bit about what you have in mind for this campaign. On July 7, the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year, we will have a 24-hour concert on all seven continents, and nine cities will participate in holding official events, and that will be New York City – or, actually, The Meadowlands – New York City, London, Hamburg, Istanbul, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Johanesburg, Tokyo and Sidney. And there will be some smaller concerts in some other locations, but those are the nine main ones. Largest world concert This will be the largest concert in the history of the world; 2 billion people are expected to be in the audience. It will be available worldwide and it is designed to be a wake-up call to deliver the message «SOS – the climate is in distress,» and ask people to answer the call. It will be the beginning of a multi-year campaign to spread awareness of the climate crisis and awareness of the solutions to the climate crisis to everyone in the world. Did you think that this was going to be life after politics? One of the truths of the human condition is that we often learn the most from the most painful experiences, and I wish that were not the case, but it is. Most people have found that to be true in their own lives and it certainly has been true in my life. There’s an old saying in the USA that «what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger» – I’m not sure it should be a popular saying – but I think there is a grain of truth to it.
