Mr. Gore Goes to Houston

Everyone from the CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp. to the oil minister of Saudi Arabia has stopped by the Hilton Americas-Houston for a speech.  Energy was back on the menu last week, but this time Al Gore was here with an urgent call for change.

Over three days in a city with deep ties to fossil fuel companies, the former U.S. vice president warned that failing to slash our use of coal, oil and natural gas and to rein in carbon dioxide emissions clears the path to rising temperatures and natural disasters.

"My own view is that we should move as quickly as possible away from all fossil fuels, including gas," said Gore, 68, in an interview on the last day of his Climate Reality Project tour in Houston.

By now, Gore's message is familiar to climate activists:  photos of floods and fires; charts of rising temperatures; warnings about food and water shortages, rising sea levels and the spread of disease.  Every storm is different in a "warmer and wetter world," Gore said, pointing to this month's 1,000-year flood in Louisiana and damaging rains in Houston.

At other moments, he sought to be hopeful and inspiring.  He essentially asked 600 or so attendees to go out and make waves themselves by changing the minds of people who don't grasp the climate challenge.  Speakers portrayed last year's climate accord in Paris as an important step toward global action.
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Stranded assets?
The 1992 publication of Al Gore's bestseller Earth in the Balance elevated Gore's stature as a public figure with environmental chops. But his 2006 documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" catapulted Gore into mega-stardom as the foremost climate evangelist.

"Most people in the oil and gas and coal and pipeline industries actually do know that it's real," Gore said.  "There's a shift underway.  It's not occurring as fast as I would like, but I think there's a shift underway."

Gore likened the potential for "unburnable carbon reserves" to the subprime mortgage crisis last decade.  Private companies and national oil companies are holding onto oil reserves that won't get burned in a carbon-constrained world.

"It's going to be a little bit like what happened when the holders of those subprime mortgages suddenly realized, 'Oh, wait a minute, this is worthless,' and the market collapsed," Gore said.
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"I fully understand the seriousness of the economic challenge that faces the industry as they begin to recognize that this climate crisis is an existential threat to the human future," Gore said.

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