For the past 20 years, former Vice President Al Gore has been traveling the world speaking about global warming, a passion of his since college. In 2006, his lecture was made into the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which won an Academy Award® for Best Documentary. Now available on DVD, this is the third highest grossing documentary of all time. In his lectures, book and documentary, Gore explains that if we continue to ignore what we are doing to our planet, we risk destroying the very future of our civilization. And the former vice president says that we must act before it's too late. "Some of the leading scientists are now saying we may have as little as 10 years before we cross a kind of point-of-no-return, beyond which it's much more difficult to save the habitability of the planet in the future," Gore says. "I believe that everybody should see [An Inconvenient Truth]," Oprah says.
What causes global warming?It's been a hot topic lately, but what exactly is global warming? First, it's important to understand that the atmosphere is extremely thin. "The late Carl Sagan used to say if you had a globe with a coat of varnish, the thinness of that varnish relative to the globe is similar to the thinness of the atmosphere to the planet," Gore says. That atmosphere, which is just a few miles above the Earth's surface, traps some amount of the sun's energy, or light radiation, as it hits the Earth. "That's a good thing, the natural trapping of [the sun's radiation], because it keeps the temperatures within comfortable boundaries," Gore says. While other planets are either much too hot or much too cold, Earth is just like Goldilocks—just right for life. As humans add pollution like carbon dioxide (also known as CO2) into the air, the Earth's atmosphere becomes thicker. The thicker atmosphere traps more of the reflected radiation, raising overall temperature. This process is what we call "global warming." Other major factors adding to global warming, Gore says, include the burning of coal, oil, gasoline and forests.
The North PoleAs carbon dioxide levels explode all over the world, the effects are most obvious at the North and South Poles. For the past 50 years, the U.S. Navy has used submarines to patrol underneath the ice at the North Pole. These submarines can only surface where the ice shelf is less than three feet thick, so the Navy must routinely measure the thickness of the Arctic. Gore says their records show that "starting in the early '70s, [the ice shelf] started declining rapidly, both in the extent and the thickness. The North Pole is melting." One consequence of this, as shown in An Inconvenient Truth, is a decline in polar bear populations as they drown. "They live on the ice and now the ice is sometimes 60 miles from the land. And the distance between the ice floes is very large, and so for the first time now in significant numbers they're finding them dying by drowning. … Something similar is happening to the penguins near the South Pole." Additionally, the melting North Pole could lead to even more global warming. "It's also really dangerous for us to have this big expanse of open water at the top of our world," Gore says. "Normally that's like a giant mirror. It's one of the ways the planet cools itself. But as it melts, the open ocean absorbs all that heat."
One place that already feels the effects of the melting North Pole is Shishmaref, a small Alaskan village just south of the Arctic Circle. The Inupiak people have lived here for generations, but in the past 30 years, they've witnessed dramatic changes.
As illustrated in the documentary Everything's Cool, warming temperatures are causing the icy barriers that once protected Shishmaref to form later in the season. This leaves the village vulnerable to fierce waves that pummel and eat away at the coastline. As a result, entire foundations of houses have been destroyed as the ground has receded into the sea. Already 18 houses have been relocated to higher ground and rising water could eventually engulf the entire island. The estimated cost to relocate the village is $100 million.
Shismaref isn't alone. Gore says there are 180 towns in Alaska that face similar threats from rising sea levels.
If Greenland and Antarctica continue to melt, Gore says the maps of the world will need to be redrawn. Low-lying areas near southern Florida, Manhattan and the area surrounding the San Francisco Bay could end up under water, Gore warns. In the low countries of Western Europe—the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg—millions of people would need to relocate. In Beijing, 20 million people live in areas that would be flooded, and in Shanghai, the devastation would be even worse. Forty million Chinese citizens would become climate refugees.
The heat is onThe 10 hottest years ever recorded in the Earth's atmospheric record have all occurred in the past 14 years, Gore says. In the summer of 2003, Europe suffered through a scorching heat wave that was responsible for the deaths of 35,000 people. That same year, temperatures shot up to 122 degrees in India…and that wasn't even the hottest summer on record. According to scientists, 2005 was the hottest year in history. During the summer of 2006, Gore says many American cities out West set records of their own—some for all-time high temperatures and others for the number of consecutive days that reached 100 degrees or more. "It's not supposed to be 120 degrees in South Dakota," Gore says. Temperature increases are taking place all over the world, including in the oceans. Gore warns that when the oceans get warmer, storms get stronger.
Easy things everyone can do
You are not helpless in the fight against global warming. Gore goes inside a Lowe's Home Improvement store outside Nashville, Tennessee, to show you the five things you can buy that will help solve the climate crisis…and save you a few bucks!
-Compact fluorescent light bulbs: These energy-efficient bulbs cost less than $4 and are produced by major corporations like GE. If every household in America switched five regular light bulbs for five fluorescent bulbs, it would be the equivalent of taking 1 million cars off the highways for a full year.
-Outdoor solar lighting: These yard or patio lights cost less than $20, and they don't burn any electricity or produce any CO2.
-Programmable thermostats: Though these thermostats cost from $50 to $100, they can actually cut your heating and cooling costs. Set the setting so it's a little bit cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer when you're not in the house. A difference of 2 degrees can reduce a home's CO2 emissions by up to 9 percent over the course of a year.
-Air filters: Changing the air filters in your heating and cooling systems regularly can knock 2 percent off of your CO2 output each year.
-Electric hot water heater blanket: Hot water heaters use a lot of energy and generate a lot of CO2. A blanket costs less than $18 and can cut your home's CO2 emissions by almost 4 1/2 percent.
Gore says that when you're shopping for major home appliances, look for the Energy Star label. "This is a signal that you're getting an environmentally efficient appliance that's going to save you money at the same time," he says.
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