Al Gore:Climate change-3 videos & scripts

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Video 1: Averting the climate crisis




Transcript: (unedited version) Thank you so much, Chris. And it's truly a great honorto have the opportunity to come to this stage twice. I'm extremely grateful.I have been blown away by this conference, and I want to thank all of you for the manynice comments about what I had to say the other night.And I say that sincerely, partly because -- (Mock sob) -- I need that! (Laughter)Put yourselves in my position!I flew on Air Force Two for eight years.Now I have to take off my shoes or boots to get on an airplane!(Laughter) (Applause) I'll tell you one quick story to illustrate what that's been like for me.It's a true story -- every bit of this is true.Soon after Tipper and I left the -- (Mock sob) -- White House -- (Laughter) --we were driving from our home in Nashville to a little farm we have50 miles east of Nashville --driving ourselves.I know it sounds like a little thing to you, but -- (Laughter) --I looked in the rearview mirror and all of a sudden it just hit me.There was no motorcade back there.You've heard of phantom limb pain? (Laughter)This was a rented Ford Taurus. It was dinnertime,and we started looking for a place to eat.We were on I-40. We got to Exit 238, Lebanon, Tennessee.We got off the exit, started looking for a -- we found a Shoney's restaurant.Low-cost family restaurant chain, for those of you who don't know it.We went in and sat down at the booth, and the waitress came over,made a big commotion over Tipper. (Laughter)She took our order, and then went to the couple in the booth next to us,and she lowered her voice so much I had to really strain to hear what she was saying.She said "Yes, that's former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper."And the man said, "He's come down a long way, hasn't he?" (Laughter) There's been kind of a series of epiphanies.The very next day, continuing a totally true story,I got on a G-5 to fly to Africa to make a speech in Nigeria,in the city of Lagos, on the topic of energy.I began the speech by telling them the story of what had just happenedthe day before in Nashville.I told it pretty much the same way I've just shared it with you:Tipper and I were driving ourselves, Shoney's, low-cost family restaurant chain,what the man said -- they laughed.I gave my speech, then went back out to the airport to fly back home.I fell asleep on the plane, until during the middle of the night,we landed on the Azores Islands for refueling.I woke up, they opened the door, I went out to get some fresh air,and I looked and there was a man running across the runway.And he was waving a piece of paper, and he was yelling,"Call Washington! Call Washington!"And I thought to myself, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the Atlantic,what in the world could be wrong in Washington?Then I remembered it could be a bunch of things.(Laughter) But what it turned out to be was that my staff was extremely upset becauseone of the wire services in Nigeria had already written a story about my speech.And it had already been printed in cities all across the United States of America-- it was printed in Monterey, I checked. And the story began,"Former Vice President Al Gore announced in Nigeria yesterday,'My wife Tipper and I have opened a low-cost family restaurant, named Shoney's,and we are running it ourselves.'" (Laughter)Before I could get back to U.S. soil,David Letterman and Jay Leno had already started in on-- one of them had me in a big white chef's hat,Tipper was saying, "One more burger, with fries!"Three days later, I got a nice, long, handwritten letter from my friend and partnerand colleague Bill Clinton saying, "Congratulations on the new restaurant, Al!"(Laughter)We like to celebrate each other's successes in life. I was going to talk about information ecology.But I was thinking that since I plan to make a lifelong habit of coming back to TED,that maybe I could talk about that another time. (Applause) Chris Anderson: It's a deal! Al Gore: I want to focus on what many of you have said you would like me to elaborate on.What can you do about the climate crisis? I want to start with --I'm going to show some new images, and I'm going to recapitulate just four or five.Now, the slide show. I update the slide show every time I give it.I add new images because I learn more about it every time I give it.It's like beachcombing, you know? Every time the tide comes in and out,you find some more shells.Just in the last two days, we got the new temperature records in January.This is just for the United States of America. Historical average forJanuary is 31 degrees. Last month was 39.5 degrees. Now, I know that you wanted some more bad news about the environment-- I'm kidding -- but these are the recapitulation slides,and then I'm going to go into new material about what you can do.But I wanted to elaborate on a couple of these.First of all, this is where we're projected to go with the U.S. contribution to global warming,under business as usual. Efficiency in end-use electricity and end-use of all energyis the low-hanging fruit. Efficiency and conservation:it's not a cost; it's a profit. The sign is wrong.It's not negative; it's positive. These are investments that pay for themselves.But they are also very effective in deflecting our path. Cars and trucks -- I talked about that in the slideshow,but I want you to put it in perspective.It's an easy, visible target of concern, and it should be,but there is more global warming pollution that comes from buildingsthan from cars and trucks.Cars and trucks are very significant, and we have the lowest standards in the world,and so we should address that. But it's part of the puzzle.Other transportation efficiency is as important as cars and trucks!Renewables at the current levels of technological efficiencycan make this much difference, and with what Vinod, and John Doerr, and others,many of you here -- a lot of people directly involved in this-- this wedge is going to grow much more rapidly than the current projection shows it.Carbon Capture and Sequestration -- that's what CCS stands for-- is likely to become the killer appthat will enable us to continue to use fossil fuels in a way that is safe.Not quite there yet. OK. Now, what can you do? Reduce emissions in your home.Most of these expenditures are also profitable.Insulation, better design, buy green electricity where you can.I mentioned automobiles -- buy a hybrid. Use light rail.Figure out some of the other options that are much better. It's important. Be a green consumer. You have choices with everything you buy,between things that have a harsh effect or a much lessharsh effect on the global climate crisis.Consider this. Make a decision to live a carbon-neutral life.Those of you who are good at branding,I'd love to get your advice and help onhow to say this in a way that connects with the most people.It is easier than you think. It really is.A lot of us in here have made that decision and it is really pretty easy.It means: reduce your carbon dioxide emissions with the full range of choices that you make,and then purchase or acquire offsets for the remainder that you have notcompletely reduced. And what it means is elaborated at climatecrisis.net. There is a carbon calculator. Participant Productions convened,with my active involvement, the leading software writers in the worldon this arcane science of carbon calculation to construct aconsumer-friendly carbon calculator.You can very precisely calculate what your CO2 emissions are,and then you will be given options to reduce.And by the time the movie comes out in May, this will be updated to 2.0and we will have click-through purchases of offsets. Next, consider making your business carbon-neutral. Again, some of us have done that,and it's not as hard as you think. Integrate climate solutions into all of your innovations,whether you are from the technology, or entertainment,or design and architecture community.Invest sustainably. Majora mentioned this.Listen, if you have invested money with managers who youcompensate on the basis of their annual performance,don't ever again complain about quarterly report CEO management.Over time, people do what you pay them to do. And if they judge how muchthey're going to get paid on your capital that they've invested,based on the short-term returns, you're going to get short-term decisions.A lot more to be said about that. Become a catalyst of change. Teach others; learn about it; talk about it.The movie comes out -- the movie is a movie version of the slideshowI gave two nights ago, except it's a lot more entertaining. And it comes out in May.Many of you here have the opportunity to ensure that a lot of people see it.Consider sending somebody to Nashville. Pick well.And I am personally going to train people to give this slideshow, re-purposed,with some of the personal stories obviously replaced with a generic approach,and -- it's not just the slides, it's what they mean. And it's how they link together.And so I'm going to be conducting a course this summerfor a group of people that are nominated by different folks to come and then give it,en masse, in communities all across the country,and we're going to update the slideshow for all of them every single weekto keep it right on the cutting edge.Working with Larry Lessig, it will be, somewhere in that process,posted with tools and limited-use copyrights,so that young people can remix it and do it in their own way.(Applause) Where did anybody get the idea that you ought to stay arm's length from politics?It doesn't mean that if you are a Republican that I'm trying to convince you to be aDemocrat. We need Republicans as well. This used to be a bipartisan issue,and I know that in this group it really is. Become politically active.Make our democracy work the way it's supposed to work.Support the idea of capping carbon dioxide emissions, global warming pollution,and trading it. Here's why: as long as the United States is out of the world system,it's not a closed system.Once it becomes a closed system, with U.S. participation,then everybody who's on a board of directors-- how many people here serve on the board of directors of a corporation?Once it's a closed system, you will have legal liability if you do not urge your CEOto get the maximum income from reducing and trading the carbon emissionsthat can be avoided. The market will work to solve this problem if we can accomplish this.Help with the mass persuasion campaign that will start this spring.We have to change the minds of the American people. Because presently thepoliticians do not have permission to do what needs to be done. And in our modern country, the role of logic and reason no longer includesmediating between wealth and power the way it once did.It's now repetition of short, hot-button, 30-second, 28-second television ads.We have to buy a lot of those ads.Let's rebrand global warming, as many of you have suggested.I like "climate crisis" instead of "climate collapse,"but again, those of you who are good at branding, I need your help on this.Somebody said the test we're facing now, a scientist told me,is whether the combination of an opposable thumband a neocortex is a viable combination.That's really true. I said the other night, and I'll repeat now: this is not a political issue.Again, the Republicans here, this shouldn't be partisan.You have more influence than some of us who are Democrats do.This is an opportunity. Not just this, but connected to the ideas that are here,to bring more coherence to them.We are one.Thank you very much, I appreciate it.(Applause) Video 2: New Thinking on the climate crisis Transcript: (unedited version) I have given the slide show that I gave here two years ago about 2,000 times.I'm giving a short slide show this morningthat I'm giving for the very first time, so --well it's -- I don't want or need to raise the bar,I'm actually trying to lower the bar.Because I've cobbled this togetherto try to meet the challenge of this session. And I was reminded by Karen Armstrong's fantastic presentationthat religion really properly understoodis not about belief, but about behavior.Perhaps we should say the same thing about optimism.How dare we be optimistic?Optimism is sometimes characterized as a belief, an intellectual posture.As Mahatma Gandhi famously said,"You must become the change you wish to see in the world."And the outcome about whichwe wish to be optimistic is not going to be createdby the belief alone, except to the extent that the beliefbrings about new behavior. But the word "behavior"is also, I think, sometimes misunderstood in this context.I'm a big advocate of changingthe lightbulbs and buying hybrids,and Tipper and I put 33 solar panels on our house,and dug the geothermal wells, and did all of that other stuff.But, as important as it is to change the lightbulbs,it is more important to change the laws.And when we change our behavior in our daily lives,we sometimes leave out the citizenship partand the democracy part. In order to be optimistic about this,we have to become incredibly active as citizens in our democracy.In order to solve the climate crisis,we have to solve the democracy crisis.And we have one. I have been trying to tell this story for a long time.I was reminded of that recently, by a womanwho walked past the table I was sitting at,just staring at me as she walked past. She was in her 70s,looked like she had a kind face. I thought nothing of ituntil I saw from the corner of my eyeshe was walking from the opposite direction,also just staring at me. And so I said, "How do you do?"And she said, "You know, if you dyed your hair black,you would look just like Al Gore." (Laughter) Many years ago, when I was a young congressman,I spent an awful lot of time dealing with the challengeof nuclear arms control -- the nuclear arms race.And the military historians taught me,during that quest, that military conflicts are typicallyput into three categories: local battles,regional or theater wars, and the rare but all-importantglobal, world war -- strategic conflicts.And each level of conflict requires a different allocation of resources,a different approach,a different organizational model.Environmental challenges fall into the same three categories,and most of what we think aboutare local environmental problems: air pollution, water pollution,hazardous waste dumps. But there are alsoregional environmental problems, like acid rainfrom the Midwest to the Northeast, and from Western Europeto the Arctic, and from the Midwestout the Mississippi into the dead zone of the Gulf of Mexico.And there are lots of those. But the climate crisisis the rare but all-importantglobal, or strategic, conflict.Everything is affected. And we have to organize our responseappropriately. We need a worldwide, global mobilizationfor renewable energy, conservation, efficiencyand a global transition to a low-carbon economy.We have work to do. And we can mobilize resourcesand political will. But the political willhas to be mobilized, in order to mobilize the resources. Let me show you these slides here.I thought I would start with the logo. What's missing here,of course, is the North Polar ice cap.Greenland remains. Twenty-eight years ago, this is what thepolar ice cap -- the North Polar ice cap -- looked likeat the end of the summer, at the fall equinox.This last fall, I went to the Snow and Ice Data Centerin Boulder, Colorado, and talked to the researchershere in Monterey at the Naval Postgraduate Laboratory.This is what's happened in the last 28 years.To put it in perspective, 2005 was the previous record.Here's what happened last fallthat has really unnerved the researchers.The North Polar ice cap is the same size geographically --doesn't look quite the same size --but it is exactly the same size as the United States,minus an area roughly equal to the state of Arizona.The amount that disappeared in 2005was equivalent to everything east of the Mississippi.The extra amount that disappeared last fallwas equivalent to this much. It comes back in the winter,but not as permanent ice, as thin ice --vulnerable. The amount remaining could be completely gonein summer in as little as five years.That puts a lot of pressure on Greenland.Already, around the Arctic Circle --this is a famous village in Alaska. This is a townin Newfoundland. Antarctica. Latest studies from NASA.The amount of a moderate-to-severe snow meltingof an area equivalent to the size of California. "They were the best of times,they were the worst of times": the most famous opening sentencein English literature. I want to share brieflya tale of two planets. Earth and Venusare exactly the same size. Earth's diameteris about 400 kilometers larger, but essentially the same size.They have exactly the same amount of carbon.But the difference is, on Earth, most of the carbonhas been leeched over time out of the atmosphere,deposited in the ground as coal, oil,natural gas, etc. On Venus, most of itis in the atmosphere. The difference is that our temperatureis 59 degrees on average. On Venus,it's 855. This is relevant to our current strategyof taking as much carbon out of the ground as quickly as possible,and putting it into the atmosphere.It's not because Venus is slightly closer to the Sun.It's three times hotter than Mercury,which is right next to the Sun. Now, briefly,here's an image you've seen, as one of the only old images,but I show it because I want to briefly give you CSI: Climate. The global scientific community says:man-made global warming pollution, put into the atmosphere,thickening this, is trapping more of the outgoing infrared.You all know that. At the lastIPCC summary, the scientists wanted to say,"How certain are you?" They wanted to answer that "99 percent."The Chinese objected, and so the compromise was"more than 90 percent."Now, the skeptics say, "Oh, wait a minute,this could be variations in this energycoming in from the sun." If that were true,the stratosphere would be heated as well as thelower atmosphere, if it's more coming in.If it's more being trapped on the way out, then you wouldexpect it to be warmer here and cooler here. Here is the lower atmosphere.Here's the stratosphere: cooler.CSI: Climate. Now, here's the good news. Sixty-eight percent of Americans now believethat human activity is responsiblefor global warming. Sixty-nine percent believe that the Earth is heating upin a significant way. There has been progress,but here is the key: when given a listof challenges to confront, global warming is still listed at near the bottom.What is missing is a sense of urgency.If you agree with the factual analysis,but you don't feel the sense of urgency,where does that leave you?Well, the Alliance for Climate Protection, which I headin conjunction with Current TV -- who did this pro bono --did a worldwide contest to do commercials on how to communicate this.This is the winner. NBC -- I'll show all of the networks here -- the top journalistsfor NBC asked 956 questions in 2007of the presidential candidates: two of them were aboutthe climate crisis. ABC: 844 questions, two about the climate crisis.Fox: two. CNN: two. CBS: zero.From laughs to tears -- this is one of the oldertobacco commercials.So here's what we're doing.This is gasoline consumption in all of these countries. And us.But it's not just the developed nations.The developing countries are now following usand accelerating their pace. And actually,their cumulative emissions this year are the equivalentto where we were in 1965. And they're catching upvery dramatically. The total concentrations:by 2025, they will be essentially where we were in 1985.If the wealthy countries were completely missingfrom the picture, we would still have this crisis.But we have given to the developing countriesthe technologies and the ways of thinkingthat are creating the crisis. This is in Bolivia --over thirty years. This is peak fishing in a few seconds. The '60s.'70s. '80s. '90s. We have to stop this. And the good news is that we can.We have the technologies.We have to have a unified view of how to go about this:the struggle against poverty in the worldand the challenge of cutting wealthy country emissions,all has a single, very simple solution. People say, "What's the solution?" Here it is.Put a price on carbon. We need a CO2 tax, revenue neutral,to replace taxation on employment, which was invented by Bismarck --and some things have changedsince the 19th century.In the poor world, we have to integrate the responsesto poverty with the solutions to the climate crisis.Plans to fight poverty in Ugandaare mooted, if we do not solve the climate crisis. But responses can actually make a huge differencein the poor countries. This is a proposalthat has been talked about a lot in Europe.This was from Nature magazine. These are concentratingsolar, renewable energy plants, linked in a so-called "supergrid"to supply all of the electrical powerto Europe, largely from developing countries -- high-voltage DC currents.This is not pie in the sky; this can be done. We need to do it for our own economy.The latest figures show that the old modelis not working. There are a lot of great investmentsthat you can make. If you are investing in tar sandsor shale oil, then you have a portfoliothat is crammed with sub-prime carbon assets.And it is based on an old model.Junkies find veins in their toes when the onesin their arms and their legs collapse. Developing tar sandsand coal shale is the equivalent. Here are just a few of the investmentsthat I personally think make sense.I have a stake in these, so I'll have a disclaimer there.But geothermal, concentrating solar,advanced photovoltaics, efficiency and conservation. You've seen this slide before, but there's a change.The only two countries that didn't ratify-- and now there's only one. Australia had an election.And there was a campaign in Australiathat involved television and Internet and radio commercialsto lift the sense of urgency for the people there.And we trained 250 people to give the slide showin every town and village and city in Australia.Lot of other things contributed to it,but the new Prime Minister announced thathis very first priority would be to change Australia's positionon Kyoto, and he has. Now, they came to an awarenesspartly because of the horrible drought that they have had.This is Lake Lanier. My friend Heidi Cullensaid that if we gave droughts names the way we give hurricanes names,we'd call the one in the southeast now Katrina,and we would say it's headed toward Atlanta.We can't wait for the kind of droughtAustralia had to change our political culture.Here's more good news. The cities supporting Kyoto in the U.S.are up to 780 -- and I thought I saw one go by there,just to localize this -- which is good news. Now, to close, we heard a couple of days agoabout the value of making individual heroism so commonplacethat it becomes banal or routine.What we need is another hero generation. Those of us who are alivein the United States of Americatoday especially, but also the rest of the world,have to somehow understand that historyhas presented us with a choice -- just as Jill [Bolte] Taylor was figuring outhow to save her life while she was distractedby the amazing experience that she was going through.We now have a culture of distraction.But we have a planetary emergency.And we have to find a way to create,in the generation of those alive today, a sense of generational mission.I wish I could find the words to convey this.This was another hero generationthat brought democracy to the planet.Another that ended slavery. And that gave women the right to vote.We can do this. Don't tell me that we don't have the capacity to do it.If we had just one week's worth of what we spend on the Iraq War,we could be well on the way to solving this challenge.We have the capacity to do it. One final point: I'm optimistic, because I believewe have the capacity, at moments of great challenge,to set aside the causes of distraction and rise to the challengethat history is presenting to us.Sometimes I hear people respond to the disturbing facts of the climate crisisby saying, "Oh, this is so terrible.What a burden we have." I would like to ask youto reframe that. How many generationsin all of human history have had the opportunityto rise to a challenge that is worthy of our best efforts?A challenge that can pull from usmore than we knew we could do? I think we ought to approachthis challenge with a sense of profound joyand gratitude that we are the generationabout which, a thousand years from now,philharmonic orchestras and poets and singers will celebrateby saying, they were the ones that found it within themselvesto solve this crisis and lay the basisfor a bright and optimistic human future. Let's do that. Thank you very much. Chris Anderson: For so many people at TED, there is deep painthat basically a design issueon a voting form --one bad design issue meant that your voice wasn't being heardlike that in the last eight years in a positionwhere you could make these things come true.That hurts. Al Gore: You have no idea. (Laughter) CA: When you look at what the leading candidatesin your own party are doing now -- I mean, there's --are you excited by their plans on global warming? AG: The answer to the question is hard for mebecause, on the one hand, I think thatwe should feel really great about the factthat the Republican nominee -- certain nominee --John McCain, and both of the finalistsfor the Democratic nomination -- all three have a very differentand forward-leaning positionon the climate crisis. All three have offered leadership,and all three are very different from the approach takenby the current administration. And I thinkthat all three have also been responsible inputting forward plans and proposals. But the campaign dialogue that --as illustrated by the questions --that was put together by theLeague of Conservation Voters, by the way, the analysis of all the questions --and, by the way, the debates have all beensponsored by something that goes by the Orwellian label,"Clean Coal." Has anybody noticed that?Every single debate has been sponsored by "Clean Coal.""Now, even lower emissions!" The richness and fullness of the dialoguein our democracy has not laid the basisfor the kind of bold initiative that is really needed.So they're saying the right things and they may --whichever of them is elected -- may do the right thing,but let me tell you: when I came back from Kyotoin 1997, with a feeling of great happinessthat we'd gotten that breakthrough there,and then confronted the United States Senate,only one out of 100 senators was willing to voteto confirm, to ratify that treaty. Whatever the candidates sayhas to be laid alongside what the people say. This challenge is part of the fabricof our whole civilization.CO2 is the exhaling breath of our civilization, literally.And now we mechanized that process. Changing that patternrequires a scope, a scale, a speed of changethat is beyond what we have done in the past.So that's why I began by saying,be optimistic in what you do, but be an active citizen.Demand -- change the light bulbs,but change the laws. Change the global treaties.We have to speak up. We have to solve this democracy -- this --We have sclerosis in our democracy. And we have to change that.Use the Internet. Go on the Internet.Connect with people. Become very active as citizens.Have a moratorium -- we shouldn'thave any new coal-fired generating plantsthat aren't able to capture and store CO2, which means we have toquickly build these renewable sources.Now, nobody is talking on that scale. But I do believethat between now and November, it is possible.This Alliance for Climate Protectionis going to launch a nationwide campaign --grassroots mobilization, television ads, Internet ads,radio, newspaper -- with partnerships with everybodyfrom the Girl Scouts to the hunters and fishermen. We need help. We need help. CA: In terms of your own personal role going forward,Al, is there something more than thatyou would like to be doing? AG: I have prayed that I would be able to find the answerto that question. What can I do?Buckminster Fuller once wrote, "If the futureof all human civilization depended on me, what would I do?How would I be?" It does depend on all of us,but again, not just with the light bulbs.We, most of us here, are Americans. We have a democracy.We can change things, but we have to actively change.What's needed really is a higher level of consciousness.And that's hard to --that's hard to create -- but it is coming.There's an old African proverb that some of you knowthat says, "If you want to go quickly, go alone;if you want to go far, go together." We have to go far, quickly.So we have to have a change in consciousness.A change in commitment. A new sense of urgency.A new appreciation for the privilegethat we have of undertaking this challenge. CA: Al Gore, thank you so much for coming to TED. AG: Thank you. Thank you very much. Video 3: Al Gore warns on latest climate trends Transcript: (unedited version) Last year I showed these two slides so thatdemonstrate that the arctic ice cap,which for most of the last three million yearshas been the size of the lower 48 states,has shrunk by 40 percent.But this understates the seriousness of this particular problembecause it doesn't show the thickness of the ice.The arctic ice cap is, in a sense,the beating heart of the global climate system.It expands in winter and contracts in summer.The next slide I show you will bea rapid fast-forward of what's happened over the last 25 years.The permanent ice is marked in red.As you see, it expands to the dark blue --that's the annual ice in winter,and it contracts in summer.The so-called permanent ice, five years old or older,you can see is almost like blood,spilling out of the body here.In 25 years it's gone from this, to this. This is a problem because the warmingheats up the frozen ground around the Arctic Ocean,where there is a massive amount of frozen carbonwhich, when it thaws, is turned into methane by microbes.Compared to the total amount of global warming pollution in the atmosphere,that amount could double if we cross this tipping point.Already in some shallow lakes in Alaska,methane is actively bubbling up out of the water.Professor Katey Walter from the University of Alaskawent out with another team to another shallow lake last winter.Video: Whoa! (Laughter)Al Gore: She's okay. The question is whether we will be. And one reason is, this enormous heat sinkheats up Greenland from the north.This is an annual melting river.But the volumes are much larger than ever.This is the Kangerlussuaq River in southwest Greenland.If you want to know how sea level risesfrom land-base ice meltingthis is where it reaches the sea.These flows are increasing very rapidly.At the other end of the planet, Antarcticathe largest mass of ice on the planet.Last month scientists reported the entire continentis now in negative ice balance.And west Antarctica cropped up on top some under-sea islands,is particularly rapid in its melting.That's equal to 20 feet of sea level, as is Greenland. In the Himalayas, the third largest mass of ice:at the top you see new lakes, which a few years ago were glaciers.40 percent of all the people in the worldget half of their drinking water from that melting flow.In the Andes, this glacier is thesource of drinking water for this city.The flows have increased.But when they go away, so does much of the drinking water.In California there has been a 40 percentdecline in the Sierra snowpack.This is hitting the reservoirs.And the predictions, as you've read, are serious. This drying around the world has lead toa dramatic increase in fires.And the disasters around the worldhave been increasing at an absolutely extraordinaryand unprecedented rate.Four times as many in the last 30 yearsas in the previous 75.This is a completely unsustainable pattern.If you look at in the context of historyyou can see what this is doing. In the last five yearswe've added 70 million tons of CO2every 24 hours --25 million tons every day to the oceans.Look carefully at the area of the eastern Pacific,from the Americas, extending westward,and on either side of the Indian subcontinent,where there is a radical depletion of oxygen in the oceans.The biggest single cause of global warming,along with deforestation, which is 20 percent of it, is the burning of fossil fuels.Oil is a problem, and coal is the most serious problem.The United States is one of the twolargest emitters, along with China.And the proposal has been to build a lot more coal plants. But we're beginning to see a sea change.Here are the ones that have been cancelled in the last few yearswith some green alternatives proposed.(Applause)However there is a political battlein our country.And the coal industries and the oil industriesspent a quarter of a billion dollars in the last calendar yearpromoting clean coal,which is an oxymoron.That image reminded me of something.(Laughter)Around Christmas, in my home in Tennessee,a billion gallons of coal sludge was spilled.You probably saw it on the news.This, all over the country, is the second largest waste stream in America.This happened around Christmas.One of the coal industry's ads around Christmas was this one. Video: ♪♫ Frosty the coal man is a jolly, happy soul.He's abundant here in America,and he helps our economy grow.Frosty the coal man is getting cleaner everyday.He's affordable and adorable, and workers keep their pay. Al Gore: This is the source of much of the coal in West Virginia.The largest mountaintop miner is the head of Massey Coal. Video: Don Blankenship: Let me be clear about it. Al Gore,Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, they don't know what they're talking about. Al Gore: So the Alliance for Climate Protectionhas launched two campaigns.This is one of them, part of one of them. Video: Actor: At COALergy we view climate change as a very seriousthreat to our business.That's why we've made it our primary goalto spend a large sum of moneyon an advertising effort to help bring out and complicatethe truth about coal.The fact is, coal isn't dirty.We think it's clean --smells good, too.So don't worry about climate change.Leave that up to us.(Laughter) Video: Actor: Clean coal -- you've heard a lot about it.So let's take a tour of this state-of-the-art clean coal facility.Amazing! The machinery is kind of loud.But that's the sound of clean coal technology.And while burning coal is one of the leading causes of global warming,the remarkable clean coal technology you see herechanges everything.Take a good long look: this is today's clean coal technology. Al Gore: Finally, the positive alternativemeshes with our economic challengeand our national security challenge. Video: Narrator: America is in crisis -- the economy,national security, the climate crisis.The thread that links them all:our addiction to carbon based fuels,like dirty coal and foreign oil.But now there is a bold new solution to get us out of this mess.Repower America with 100 percent clean electricitywithin 10 years.A plan to put America back to work,make us more secure, and help stop global warming.Finally, a solution that's big enough to solve our problems.Repower America. Find out more. Al Gore: This is the last one. Video: Narrator: It's about repowering America.One of the fastest ways to cut our dependenceon old dirty fuels that are killing our planet.Man: Future's over here. Wind, sun, a new energy grid.Man #2: New investments to create high-paying jobs.Narrator: Repower America. It's time to get real. Al Gore: There is an old African proverb that says,"If you want to go quickly, go alone.If you want to go far, go together."We need to go far, quickly.Thank you very much.(Applause) Source: www.ted.com