7gen Bloc

Finally. Someone's said what had to be said about climate change, energy, and the future of human civilization, and, quite naturally, that person was our hero, Al Gore. Last week, before a packed house at George Washington University’s Constitution Hall, the Goracle laid it on the line.

"We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that has to change,” the winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace prize said. "The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk, And even more — if more should be required — the future of human civilization is at stake."

The solution, said Gore, was a mammoth national effort, an Apollo program for energy independence that in ten years would see every kilowatt hour of electricity America requires come from carbon-free, non-polluting renewable sources like wind and solar.

I’ve been calling for that very thing for years. But I don't quite have Al’s audience so it’s good to see someone who can garner scads of national attention lead us in this challenge.

Two things need to be understood: First, this thing of which Al speaks, this great national call to arms, is not optional. The choice before us is simple: change or perish. Just once, let’s not sugarcoat it. Let’s speak the truth about the climate crisis, which is this: By every indication, according to every estimate, based on our planet’s own prior climate record, the dramatically warmer world we’re heading toward will be a grim place in which we struggle to survive. That’s the truth. And it should be on everyone's lips.

Second, we can absolutely do this. It's neither crazy nor impossible. We can go carbon-free in 10 years and get all the energy we want and need from sources that don't threaten our national security or kill our world. According to the experts, it’s doable in every sense. We just need the money and the will, and we've shown before that we can summon both on demand.

On May 25, 1961, John Kennedy announced a goal of landing an American on the moon within eight and a half years. Ordinary citizens were thrilled. Scientists were appalled. They didn’t even know if a human being could be sent past the stratosphere without their eyes bursting. Half the rockets being tested for space flight were exploding on liftoff. The majority of materials needed to put people on another heavenly body hadn’t even been invented yet. And the necessary technologies were not even on the drawing board. It was like directing the Wright Brothers to build a 747.

Yet 39 years ago, astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins fulfilled our national dream with a few months to spare. Now it’s time to dream again. If we can go from Sputnik to the Sea of Tranquility in eight and half years, we can go from hydrocarbons to renewables in 10. It’s not even as big a leap to take because we've already got most of the technology we need and know how to get the rest. From a technical perspective, it’s close to a no-brainer.

Today, there will no doubt be a lot of voices, especially on the right side of the equation, deriding our man Al as a ridiculous romantic and saying such an energy transformation is too impossible and too expensive. We’ve had nearly eight years of that kind of unimaginative recalcitrance and look where it's gotten us. Now it's time for eight years of something new. Yes, it will cost some cash, but at the end of the day we really have only one question to ask ourselves: what is the cost of doing nothing?