NRC Handelsblad, The Netherlands

White House can do Little for the Environment

Al Gore rightly thinks that a change in public opinion about climate is more important than a change in presidents, believes…

… Mark Herstgaard

Translated by Dorian de Wind

January 16. Revised January 18, 2007

The Netherlands - NRC Handelsblad - Original Article (Dutch)

The first pre-elections are a fact. During that process, one man is noticeably absent: Al Gore. The man who in 2000 received more votes than George W. Bush, the man who for eight years was vice-president under Bill Clinton and whose movie about climate change was rewarded with an Oscar and the Nobel Prize for Peace, has refused to join the race.

For [inclusion in] the issue about the “Person of the Year,” Time asked Gore in 2007 if he did not have the “moral duty” to participate, in view of the unprecedented power of the White House and the urgency of the climate crisis. Gore gave the answers that he has been giving for months: although “he had not completely ruled out the possibility,” he did not expect to be a candidate; the best that he could do to fight climate change, was to keep striving towards a “change in public opinion.“

Some claim that Gore is shrewdly waiting for other candidates to stumble. I doubt that. I have been reporting for 15 years on Gore’s climate activism, since my first interview with him at the U.N. Earth Summit in 1992, and I believe that it is his honest conviction that a change in public opinion is more important than a change in presidents. Moreover, Gore has good reasons for such an unusual conclusion.

I had a two-hour interview with Gore just before “An Inconvenient Truth” was released. A large part of our conversation was about an unpleasant subject, one that seems to have eluded many people who now urge him to declare his candidacy; the last time that Gore bivouacked in the White House, he was not able to make any progress against earth warming.  During the eight years that the Clinton-Gore administration was in power, it introduced not a single, important piece of legislation against climate change. The administration signed the Kyoto protocol, but only after they weakened it with crippling loopholes. Thereafter, the administration decided not to exert any effort toward having the treaty ratified by the Senate.

In our conversation, Gore admitted to these shortcomings. But, according to him, the blame did not lie with him or Clinton, because according to Gore, he was “more than receptive”. Also, according to Gore, there was rather “an enormous resistance” by the two richest and most powerful industries in American history, the oil and auto industries. They were fiercely opposed to a reduction in emissions, as were the coal and electricity industries. Kyoto was “blocked by pressure from the polluters,” said Gore, and he added that Exxon-Mobil and other large industries deliberately confused people with tens of millions of dollars worth of advertising and lobbying that distorted and disparaged global warming science. This disinformation campaign promoted “a massive denial throughout the country” and “paved the way” in Washington for the eventual blockade against all reforms in Congress.

The lesson that Gore seems to have learned from his defeats in the White House is that in order to bring about real reforms, it is not sufficient to be president, especially if powerful interest are against you. The only way to defeat such opposition is to once again pave the way for the build-up of such an all-encompassing wave of public pressure that every elected politician will feel compelled to take action, even if Exxon-Mobil and their friends are disappointed.

The influence of trade and industry on Capitol Hill seems to be always very strong. Gore called the Warner-Lieberman legislation that the Senate will shortly consider, “inadequate”. He urges more radical (government) intervention, including a prohibition against new coal-fired power generating plants.

The three most prominent Democratic presidential candidates --Edwards, Clinton and Obama--are all deeply convinced of the climate problem and promise to take important measures in this area. This also applies, albeit to a lesser extent, to Republicans John McCain and Mike Huckabee. But, when one of them, as president, tries to turn around the disastrous Bush climate policy, he or she will owe an enormous thanks to Gore.

Mark Hertsgaard is author of among other “Earth Odyssey”. “Living Through the Storm: Surviving Our Future Under Global Warming” will appear shortly.

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