"We are facing a planetary emergency"

At a Senate hearing, former Vice President Al Gore gives his recommendations on how to stop global warming, and faces some harsh questioning.

Editor's note: Following are excerpts from Wednesday's hearing of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, at which former Vice President Al Gore spoke about global warming. Included is a confrontation between Gore, global warming skeptic Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and committee chair Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

Read more: Al Gore, Politics, Barbara Boxer, News, Global Warming, James Inhofe, Primary sources

March 22, 2007 | GORE: For most of human history we lived on the harvested energy that came from the sun, and it was a net energy balance. And then with the beginning of the use of coal and then oil and other fossil fuel supplies, we began to use the accumulated reservoirs of the hundreds of millions of years worth of accumulated solar energy. And, of course, that meant returning carbon to the atmosphere in very large quantities.

And from the early days of that period, there were a few scientists who said, "Wait a minute. That's going to have some consequences." And it did. And it has now reached a point where we've literally changed the radiated balance between the earth and the sun. ...

This is not a normal time. We are facing a planetary emergency, and I'm fully aware that that phrase sounds shrill to many people's ears. But it is accurate. The relationship between humankind and planet Earth has been radically altered in a very short period of time. What would make us believe that we could go through these changes and not have an impact on the planet? ...

The 10 hottest years every measured in the record have been since 1990. Twenty of the 21 hottest years have been in the last 25 years. The hottest year of all was 2005. The hottest year of all in the U.S. was 2006. The hottest winter ever measured worldwide was this winter: December, and then January and February of this year -- last month. This is going on right now. And it's continuing to increase. ...

The consequences are bad and will be catastrophic unless we act. We can act, we can solve it, there's still time, and we have everything we need to get started. Those points are in agreement. One of the leading scientific experts said the consensus supporting this view on global warming is as strong as anything in science, with the possible exception of gravity. ...

I want to talk to you a little about some ideas that I believe could hopefully help in your deliberations. First of all, I think that we ought to have an immediate freeze on CO2 emissions and start the reductions from there. All the time that we've been talking about prospective cuts, the emissions have continued to increase. I think we ought to have an immediate freeze. ...

Secondly, I think that we ought to use the tax code not to increase taxes, Senator Inhofe. I'm not for that. And what I'm about to propose to you, I'm fully aware, is considered way outside the range of what's considered politically feasible, so I advise you not to spend too much of your ammunition on it because people don't yet think it's going to be on the agenda.

But here's what I think we should do. I think we ought to cut taxes on employment and take that burden off employees and employers and make up the difference with pollution taxes, principally CO2 taxes. Some other countries are talking about it seriously, because in the developed world we're now in a new competitive global environment, and our big disadvantage is these developing countries with big populations still growing significantly with low wage rates all of a sudden have access in an IT-empowered world to the best technology and container shipping, and we're competing with them.

And we don't want to lower our wages, but we don't have to pile on top of the wages the full cost of our health and welfare and Social Security and social programs. We ought to be encouraging employment and small business and discouraging pollution instead of the other around, and we ought to use some of that revenue to help the poor with the adjustments that are coming forward.

The third suggestion. I'm in favor of cap-and-trade as part of the freeze -- very strongly in favor of it. And I've supported Kyoto, but I understand the realities of the situation. And I think the new president who takes office in January of 2009 should take office at a time when our country has a bipartisan commitment to de facto compliance with Kyoto, and then I think we should move the starting date of the next treaty period -- now due to begin in 2012 -- forward two years to 2010. And we ought to start a sprint to negotiate and ratify a new tougher treaty that starts in 2010.

And we need to find a creative way to get China and India involved sooner rather than later. That's a tough challenge, and an important one for many reasons, not least because China's emission will be larger than those of the United States in another couple of years. And it has to be a negotiation. ...

Third [sic], I believe that we ought to have a moratorium on any new coal plants that are not fixed with carbon capture and sequestration technology. It is simply irresponsible to go forward without carbon capture and sequestration.

Fifth, I believe that this Congress, this Senate should fix a date in the future beyond which incandescent light bulbs are banned. And there may be some other technologies that fall in that category. Give the industry time to make sure all the sockets are worked out and all the dimmers and all the things that people want, but then tell them by date certain you're going to have to sell this other kind, and they'll do it. They'll make money at it. It's like WalMart. WalMart's not taken on the climate crisis simply out of the goodness of their heart. They care about it, but they're making money at it. And if we set the standards, our economy will work for us.

Sixth, the creative power of the information revolution was unlocked by the Internet, and when the scientific and engineering pioneers came up with Arbinet, and this Senate empowered them with the legislative framework and research and development funds, all of a sudden people just developed it amazingly.

Next page: "We can ... tell the future generation that we were up to the challenge"