By Andrew C. Revkin, Dot Earth
Former Vice President Al Gore gave a speech in Washington laying out his new approach to the entwined challenges of limiting risks from global warming and instability from rising energy prices and declining supplies of fossil fuels. He calls for the United States to produce all electricity from “carbon-free sources” by 2018. This represents quite a shift from his tight focus on the “climate crisis” as the great challenge of our time. The prepared text is below. Some Democrats in Congress weren’t thrilled with the timing, according to TheHill.com, given the focus now on pain at the pump.
In a Times article on the speech by John Broder, Mr. Gore implied that his timetable and targets for de-carbonizing the country’s electricity sources were intentionally super-sized: “I see my role as enlarging the political space in which Senator Obama or Senator McCain can confront this issue as president next year,” Mr. Gore said.