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Gore returns to warn Congress of global peril

It was part science class, part policy wonk paradise, part politics and all theater as former US vice president Al Gore came to Congress on Wednesday to insist that global warming constitutes a "planetary emergency" requiring an aggressive federal response.

Gore, accompanied by his wife, Tipper, delivered the same blunt message to a joint meeting of two House subcommittees in the morning and a Senate panel in the afternoon: Humans are artificially warming the world, the risks of inaction are great, and meaningful cuts in emissions linked to warming will happen only if the US takes the lead.

While sparring with Representative Joe Barton, who was critical of his message, Gore resorted to a simple metaphor to make his point.

"The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor," he said adding, "If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say `I read a science fiction novel that says it's not a problem.' You take action."

In the House, there was little debate about the underlying science; the atmosphere was more that of a college lecture hall than a legislative give-and-take. But in the Senate, Senator James Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, set a pugilistic tone, challenging Gore about the dangers of climate change from hurricanes and melting ice in Antarctica.

"It is my perspective that your global warming alarmist pronouncements are now and have always been filled with inaccuracies and misleading statements," Inhofe said to Gore.

Beneath the carefully groomed surface of the House and Senate committees' scripted production, a growing rift was evident. Republican committee leaders, including Barton in the House and Inhofe in the Senate, seemed somewhat isolated from their rank-and-file colleagues, who appeared more receptive to Gore's message and the scientific consensus on the issue. Even Republican Representative Dennis Hastert, former House speaker, seemed to accept the scientific consensus.

Panels of climate experts have concluded with growing accord in recent months that human-generated greenhouse gases are the dominant driver of recent global warming and that centuries of rising temperatures and seas lie ahead if emissions are not curbed.

Instead of challenging the science, many Republicans focused on strategic questions of how to attack the problem in the US, tending to favor nuclear power -- which Gore said should be no more than a "small part" of any solution -- and asking what to do about the emissions of large developing economies like China and India.

Senator John Warner, who briefly considered trying to replace Inhofe as the ranking member on the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, expressed concern about how to coax China into reversing its build-out of coal-fired power plants, which are heavy emitters of carbon dioxide, the most prevalent heat-trapping gas associated with global warming.

"When we lead, they will be a part of it," Gore replied, adding that two recent speeches by Chinese leaders indicate "there's excellent evidence that they" are concerned about the effects of climate change.

Gore also proposed a 10-point program, calling for initiatives like a tax on carbon emissions, a ban on incandescent light bulbs and another on new coal-fired power plants that cannot be designed to capture carbon. He also called for a new national mortgage program to underwrite the use of energy-saving technologies in homes.
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