Al Gore calls for a green building revolution

Saying he "used to be the next president of the United States" and is now a "recovering politician," Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore spoke Wednesday night at Greenbuild, the world's largest sustainable design conference, calling for a green revolution to solve the country's problems.

"We have a climate crisis at the same time we have an economic crisis at the same time we have a national security crisis," Gore said to a cheering crowd of thousands at Chase Field in Phoenix. "We need to create millions of good new jobs. Well, I know where we can get at least 2.5 million good new jobs: by building green buildings and retrofitting."

Gore and wife Tipper live in a 100-year-old house in Nashville that they green retrofitted, winning them the first gold LEED standard in the state from the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. Gore's New York office is in the only platinum LEED skyscraper in that city, the Bank of America building.

"Almost 40% of the global-warming pollution in our country comes from old, inefficient, leaky buildings that don't have to be that way," said Gore, pointing out yet another inconvenient truth of American living to attendees of a conference that has drawn 28,000 this year and runs through Friday.

He pointed out that the U.S. market for green building products and services has grown from $7 billion in 2005 to $12 billion in 2007 to a projected $60 billion for 2010. He urged the green building movement to keep environmental standards high and to speak out against greenwashing. And he condoned continuing national legislation that would help homeowners pay the upfront costs of investments in green technologies.

"It's crucial to change the lights and windows, but it's even more important to change the laws and policies, so we as citizens have to speak out," he said. "Every single day in this world we're putting 90 million tons of global-warming pollution into the atmosphere. ... National academies of science in every major country have reaffirmed that finding, and they're shouting from the rooftops to say you have to do something."

Calling the environmental crisis "a challenge to our system of democracy," he also said Americans will be able to solve it.

"We have all the tools we need to solve three or four climate crises. We only need to solve one," he said.

Evoking the memory of John F. Kennedy's call to put a man on the moon in the 1960s, Gore said, "We as Americans have the capacity to do what we put our minds to. We have the ability to solve this crisis. We can do it."

-- Susan Carpenter in Phoenix

Photo: Al Gore at George Washington University in Washington, a previous stop on his speaking tour. Credit: Olivier Douliery / Abaca Press / MCT

Comments

[glenn r]

Hey Al:

Why don't you give up your huge home and excessive use of energy so that I can read this article with a straight face. A billionare hypocrite, so what's new?

[Mel]

Hey Glenn:

Until we go back to being hunter-gatherers, none of us can be perfect. We do what we can. Gore's house may be large, but it has solar panels, rainwater collection and geothermal heating. His family purchases green power. That's more than most of us do.

[Brittany]

Al Gore didnt invent the internet but he sure did make up global warming. This is just another way for democrats to take our money. Ther was been a few scientist that have proven global warming is a sham but when anything comes up disproving it those scientist get shut down. The whole go green idea is just for money
AND AS FOR OBAMA:

You youngsters, who want the Govenment to take care of you
Will be paying off Obama's Debt for the Rest of Your Lives !!!...

[Yes]

Green won't mean squat unless they abolish the Fed and break up Banking monopolies like Bank of America , Chase , BB & T , and the rest . All those billions available have been BORROWED from privately owned Banks AT INTEREST .

[justin]

Hey glenn. Maybe you should read the article again. Specifically the part about "first gold LEED standard in the state from the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program". He's putting his money where his mouth is and traveling the world being an evangelist for climate change action.

[Andrew Ferrick]

He is right with the green movement leading the charge. Inovative Americans have seen the profitability in manufacturing of green products. Such as solar panels. I got back from the solar convention in Anaheim two weeks ago and seen many US companies making solar panels, inverters and racking systems. Thus creating jobs that were never there before. I am a solar structure manufacture who was an electrical contractor with no work and finally no employees. So I looked for a profitable market to go to "solar". I invented Micro Grid Solar structures: Solar Cabana, Solar Palapa, Solar Bus Shelter, Solar charging Statin and many more. Now with this I have employees and a bright future with many sales leads. www.OffTheRoofSolar.com

Andrew Ferrick

[Mark Goldes]

Revolutionary new technologies promise to end our dependence on oil and coal. Implementing them as rapidly as is humanly possible will generate millions of well-paid jobs and restore automobile manufacturing.

They will also help to mitigate climate change.

See for example: 5 Steps to Revive the Auto Industry and the Economy on the website http://www.aesopinstitute.org

Gore is to be commended for supporting investment in green companies.

Electric cars that need no recharge and hybrids that need only to sip ordinary water as fuel are now on the horizon.

When parked, these advanced technologies can turn cars and trucks into power plants, selling power to local utilities.

Thus, future vehicle are likely to pay for themselves.

Who will not want to purchase such automobiles and trucks?

[VSN]

How many homes does this hypocrite own and how big are they? He is a fake and we all know it.