Newsweek: Gore-Why America & Bush Are At Tipping Point On Global Warming

[kpete]

NEWSWEEK
'At Some Point, Reality Has Its Day'
Al Gore on why America—and even George Bush—is close to a tipping point on global warming.
Al Gore Speaks To Eleanor Clift

Ms. Clift:
What do you say to President Bush and others who still suggest we need more study?

Mr. Gore:
Well, the title “An Inconvenient Truth” is a way of highlighting the reasons why some people, including the president, don’t seem to accept the truth. It’s inconvenient. This administration, as has been abundantly documented, is quite responsive to the oil and coal industry and, by the way, to the least responsible companies within those industries. And they do not want anything done on global warming.

Ms. Clift:
Because it would cut into their profits?

Mr. Gore:
I think there are three reasons. One is they genuinely believed that in the past there has been hyperbole used to stampede the Congress or the people to adopt some measure that later turned out to be excessive—they fear that might be happening again—so there’s a reflexive us and them. I’m trying to give them credit.

Secondly, though, I think that it’s an example of the Upton Sinclair quote that “It’s hard to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding.” The behavior of ExxonMobil is disgraceful. They finance in whole or in part 40 organizations that put out disinformation on global warming designed to confuse the American people. There has emerged in the last couple of decades a lobbying strategy that is based on trying to control perceptions. In some sense it’s not new, but it’s new in the sophistication and the amount of resources they devote to it. It’s not new in the sense it’s the same thing the tobacco industry did after the surgeon general’s report of 1964, and that is a major part of the reason why the Bush administration doesn’t do anything. The president put their chief guy in charge of environmental policy in the White House.

But you know the temptation to reject the truth and try to manufacture your own reality is what got us into Iraq—it’s what got us into these deficits. At some point, reality has its day. I hope they’ll change. I think there is a chance they’ll change. You know Winston Churchill once said that the American people generally do the right thing after first exhausting every other alternative. And maybe after exhausting every other alternative, Bush will do the right thing on this. I’m not going to hold my breath, but I do think that there’s a chance. And after all, as I said last night, if the scientists turn out to be right and we only have 10 years, we can’t give up two and a half years out of 10 to wait for this guy to accept reality. You know there are 218 U.S. cities that have adopted Kyoto on their own, a lot of grass-roots initiatives that are very impressive, and all that’s going to continue. I’m not Pollyannish about it, but I’m optimistic.


4 pages of Gore at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12535460/site/newsweek/