theWheel

It is no secret that I’ve long been a political supporter of Al Gore.  In 2007 and 2008 the only thing that kept me off of Barack Obama’s electoral bandwagon was the possibility that Gore might yet get in the race.  I believe the United States Supreme Court made a ploitical decision to deprive Gore of the presidency in December 2000, and I’m still pissed off about it.

No, I’m not going to get over it.

Al Gore has published an article about climate change and this political moment in the Atlantic.  It is very definitely worth a read. This stuff is real.

The continuing undersea gusher of oil 50 miles off the shores of Louisiana is not the only source of dangerous uncontrolled pollution spewing into the environment. Worldwide, the amount of man-made CO2 being spilled every three seconds into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding the planet equals the highest current estimate of the amount of oil spilling from the Macondo well every day. Indeed, the average American coal-fired power generating plant gushes more than three times as much global-warming pollution into the atmosphere each day—and there are over 1,400 of them.

Just as the oil companies told us that deep-water drilling was safe, they tell us that it’s perfectly all right to dump 90 million tons of CO2 into the air of the world every 24 hours. Even as the oil spill continues to grow—even as BP warns that the flow could increase multi-fold, to 60,000 barrels per day, and that it may continue for months—the head of the American Petroleum Institute, Jack Gerard, says, “Nothing has changed. When we get back to the politics of energy, oil and natural gas are essential to the economy and our way of life.” His reaction reminds me of the day Elvis Presley died. Upon hearing the tragic news, Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, said, “This changes nothing.”