Al Gore is not just a former vice president, according to a Saturday CNN chyron, he is also an “eco-warrior.” Such was the context for Gore’s appearance with Christiane Amanpour as the two demanded “some massively radical thing” to be done about the supposed horror of fossil fuel usage.
Amanpour wondered, “I just want to ask you, James Hansen, the NASA expert who was one of the first on climate warnings, has warned that, you know, unless there's some massively radical thing to happen very soon, the magic 1.5 degrees number will, you know, will be surpassed and there seems to be a struggle over the experts over that. Where do you come down on that?”
When Amanpour says “radical,” she means it. In a previous interview with Gore, Amanpour decried British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pushing the date banning all new gas-powered cars from 2030 to 2035. For Gore, this, along with not raising airport taxes and pushing heat pump installations back to 2035 from 2026, was tantamount to being “stabbed in the back.”
As for Gore’s current response, he decried the focus on such an academic point, “Well, I have the deepest respect for Jim Hansen and also for his colleagues who have a slightly different view, but they agree on most things. You know, half of the calendar days in 2023 were actually above 1.5, and in November there were two days above a two degree margin above the pre-industrial temperature.”
After claiming “we’re running out of time to solve this in time,” Gore got to the point, “They're all saying the same thing, we've got to switch away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible and stop using the sky as an open sewer.”
Naturally, Amanpour and Gore never provided details on how this rapid transition is supposed to work. If they are upset that countries that have gone all in on the need to transition to the green utopia are finding that they have to keep pushing back their target dates then what exactly is it that they demand we do?
Here is a transcript for the February 3 show:
CNN The Amanpour Hour
2/3/2024
11:23 AM ET
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: So, I just want to ask you, James Hansen, the NASA expert who was one of the first on climate warnings, has warned that, you know, unless there's some massively radical thing to happen very soon, the magic 1.5 degrees number will, you know, will be surpassed and there seems to be a struggle over the experts over that. Where do you come down on that?
AL GORE: Well, I have the deepest respect for Jim Hansen and also for his colleagues who have a slightly different view, but they agree on most things. You know, half of the calendar days in 2023 were actually above 1.5, and in November there were two days above a 2 degree margin above the pre-industrial temperature.
So, yes, we're running out of time to solve this in time, and we're running some unacceptably high risks with large global systems that are important for the flourishing of humanity that are now being destabilized. So the sooner the better.
The issue you're referring to is over how sensitive the climate is to more and more greenhouse gas pollution, and ultimately they agree on far more than they disagree. They're all saying the same thing, we've got to switch away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible and stop using the sky as an open sewer, that's the basic problem, we're putting 162 million tons up there every day and the accumulated amount, it stays on average, each molecule, for about 100 years.
