With a new book called Our Choice, Al Gore is back on the
climate-change campaign trail. It appears to be a direct response to a point
that was consistently made about his earlier book and film, An
Inconvenient Truth. That project, many reviewers and campaigners said,
was big on problems but short on solutions. So here is the other side of the
story, set out as a plan of action to keep climate change within manageable
proportions.
I have the feeling that Gore judged (correctly) that, despite the high profile
of the issue in recent years, a high level of public confusion and ignorance
still prevails. With this in mind the book works hard to be accessible and
jargon-free, while often tackling really quite technical issues. It is
packed full of up-to-date information backed with excellent drawings and
pull-out boxes and mini-features. The photographs are stunning.
The material in the book covers all the basics, but also takes the reader into
some of the more nuanced debates that lie behind the headlines that
increasingly bombard us on this sprawling subject.
Although there is still a rump of denial about the reality of human-induced
climate change, this book reflects the shift in the debate in recent years
towards what we do about the problem, rather than whether we have one. That
said, and although we have the technologies and information needed to make
change, few of the choices are straightforward, and many are still
contested. But because it lays out the issues clearly and in some depth, I
expect this book to be influential in shaping the policies that we choose.
Gore presents his judgments on where the right choices lie. For example, he
backs genetically modified crops as a way of boosting the productivity of
biofuels, while casting doubt about the viability of carbon capture and
storage technology (CCS). I would present the opposite case, however,
putting hope in CCS while expressing continuing doubt about the potential
for genetic modification. Yet I do agree with Gore’s scepticism about the
role of nuclear power.
The stark realities of waste management, cost, weapons proliferation and
practical questions around construction remind us that there is no nuclear
silver bullet that can get us on to a low-emissions path quickly. Gore tells
us that after more than 50 years the world has only 436 active nuclear
reactors supplying about 3 per cent of global primary energy demand. With 52
plants under construction globally it is clear that we cannot expect a major
impact on emissions from this quarter. By contrast, many renewable
technologies are showing double-digit annual growth.
In making his judgments, Gore is commendably honest about some of his
motivations. As a congressman and senator he backed genetically modified
plant traits in the emerging biofuels industry because he wanted to advance
policies that would help farmers.
There are solid accounts of the potential for different renewable power
sources, including wind and solar technologies. He examines in some depth
the more efficient technologies that could make better use of the energy
that we generate and provides an excellent introduction to the emerging
discussion about the “smart grids” that could enable a huge increase in
renewable power systems.
However, Gore takes the debate beyond a series of technological choices. He
devotes considerable space to the continuing vast problem of deforestation
and the impact of modern farming methods. Deforestation is second only to
fossil-fuel combustion as a source of emissions and is greater than the
entire global transport sector. One recent estimate cited by Gore suggests
that about 40 per cent of the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today
comes from past deforestation.
The huge challenge of deforestation has been on the agenda for years, and we
are reminded of some of the political and economic issues involved. Tax
breaks and other incentives have been used in the West to encourage
biofuels, hastening deforestation in developing countries, including
Indonesia, where vast oil palm plantations have been expanded in part to
meet international demand for alternatives to mineral oil.
As for food production, the message is that this, too, is a big part of the
problem. One estimate suggests that modern industrial farming methods use
ten calories of fossil fuels for every single calorie of food produced. That
is an utterly unsustainable energy balance, never mind the impact on the
climate, and underlines how vulnerable our economies have become to the
effects of dwindling natural resources.
By contrast, Gore sets out the climatic benefits of organic farming, not only
in terms of how it relies on fewer inputs and therefore less fossil fuel,
but also how it leads to considerably more organic matter accumulating in
the soil, and therefore more carbon being retained there and less going into
the atmosphere.
Then there is the challenge of population growth. With a world population that
quadrupled during the 20th century, and which shows every sign of growing 50
per cent more, to about 9 billion, by the middle of the 21st century, it is
clear that part of the climate-change squeeze will come from a simple
increase in human numbers.
Gore takes the debate beyond the obvious point that better access to
reproductive healthcare would help, to talk about the empowerment of women
and the education of girls. Educated young women have fewer children —
especially if they are confident that their offspring are likely to survive
because of access to good medical facilities. The question then becomes one
of how it will be possible to equip 9 billion of us with decent health,
education and all the rest of what we Westerners take for granted, but doing
it with at least 80 per cent less carbon dioxide being released as a result.
And that is the key question — how it will be possible for all of us to have
a good life, while maintaining the Earth’s critical environmental services,
including a stable climate.
Alongside technology, land-use change and steps to slow down population
growth, Gore points out that a major part of the problem is down to how we
think; human psychology is an increasingly important aspect of the debate
and it is good to see human psychology flagged up as a core question to be
faced in planning our lowcarbon future. Modern economic systems are fatally
flawed in assuming that people are rational in making economic choices. We
are not. Gore says that “virtually every Pavlovian trigger in the human
brain is now pulled by advertisers”, helping to boost consumption in some
Western societies to “absurd levels”. Changing how we think (including how
we approach economics and correcting the monumental market failures that are
causing the climate to rapidly change) is thus flagged as a fundamental part
of the challenge. Making such changes, for example in pricing fossil fuel
use to correct market failures, will go against the short-term interests of
a great many entrenched groups, and here the challenge is more about
politics than it is about technology.
Our Choice thus paints a vivid and comprehensive picture of the
transformations needed, which touch just about every aspect of how we now
live and challenge how we judge our collective success as a species. While
this message will be resisted by many, Our Choice takes it as a
positive challenge that will result in economic opportunities and the
potential to create millions of jobs in the cutting-edge clean industries of
the future.
Gore is well known for his views on the need for action to address climate
change, but Our Choice is not preachy and the matter-of-fact tone
will help to convince the reader. This is a timely and stark reminder of the
scale of change needed to avoid what increasingly looks like an impending
catastrophe. Gore manages to remain optimistic and inspiring. Anyone with an
interest in the future of humankind should read it.
BIOGRAPHY
Early life Albert Gore Jr was born in 1948 in Washington. His father
was a US representative and senator and his mother a lawyer. Gore married
his childhood sweetheart Mary Elizabeth Agnes “Tipper” in 1970, with whom he
has four children. He earned a degree with high honours in government from
Harvard, where he shared a room with Tommy Lee Jones and took an interest in
climate science. Gore opposed the Vietnam war but said he enrolled out of
civic duty and became one of the few Harvard graduates to be sent to fight.
In 1971 he was given an honourable discharge.
Political years He quit law school to run for the US House for
Tennessee in 1976. In 1992 he became Bill Clinton’s running mate and was
Vice-President for two terms. He wrote the bestselling Earth in the
Balance and continued to voice environmental concerns. After disputed
voting procedures, he conceded defeat to George W. Bush in his 2000
presidential campaign.
Green machine Gore has helped to set up Generation Investment
Management and the Alliance for Climate Protection. His documentary An
Inconvenient Truth boosted his popularity and in 2007 he won the Nobel
Peace Prize for his efforts to counteract climate change.
Our Choice — A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis by Al Gore (Bloomsbury,
£16.99; Buy
this book; 416pp)
To order books at discounted prices and with free p&p call 0845 2712134
Tony Juniper is an independent environmental adviser, a former director
of Friends of the Earth, and the Green Party’s general election candidate
for Cambridge
Your Comments
Order By: