cover of episode Al Gore on the Climate Crisis: “We Have a Switch We Can Flip”

Al Gore on the Climate Crisis: “We Have a Switch We Can Flip”

2023/10/6
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Al Gore: 气候危机可以通过类似“拨动开关”的方式解决，关键在于停止增加温室气体排放。一旦达到净零排放，地球温度将几乎立即停止上升。虽然一些气候变化的影响不可逆转，但我们可以立即阻止温度上升。解决气候危机需要摆脱对化石燃料的依赖，而化石燃料行业通过政治和经济影响力阻碍了气候行动。化石燃料公司利用广告影响政治环境，以获得继续生产和销售化石燃料的许可。要解决气候危机，必须关注民主危机，因为污染者对政府施加了过大的控制。议员们为了竞选资金而向游说者寻求帮助，这阻碍了气候行动。可再生能源投资超过化石燃料，全球可再生能源发电量快速增长。《通胀削减法案》是历史上任何国家元首在气候立法方面取得的最非凡的成就，但美国政府仍在允许在公共土地上进行化石燃料生产。碳税在政治上难以通过，但未来可能会有所改变。年轻的共和党人对气候变化的立场与老一辈共和党人不同。田纳西州的立法机构仍然受化石燃料行业的影响，但公众意识正在提高。极端天气事件正在唤醒人们对气候变化的意识。尽管气候危机仍在恶化，但解决问题的势头正在增强。绝望是气候变化否认的另一种形式，我们没有时间绝望。气候变化导致的气候移民可能威胁到国家的自理能力。美国的民主危机并非始于近期，而是长期积累的结果。人们对自由和自治的热爱正在复苏，民主将最终战胜。 David Remnick: 对戈尔观点的回应和追问，包括对政治现状、民主危机、以及化石燃料行业影响的讨论。

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Al Gore discusses the concept of a metaphorical 'switch' that represents achieving net zero emissions, which would halt the rise in global temperatures almost immediately.

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Despite months of discouraging news about extreme weather conditions, the former vice-president Al Gore still believes that there is a solution to the climate crisis clearly in sight. “We have a switch we can flip,” he tells David Remnick. The problem, as Gore sees it, is that a powerful legacy network of political and financial spheres of influence are stubbornly standing in the way. “When ExxonMobil or Chevron put their ads on the air, the purpose is not for a husband and wife to say, ‘Oh, let’s go down to the store and buy some motor oil.’ The purpose is to condition the political space so that they have a continued license to keep producing and selling more and more fossil fuels,” Gore says. But it’s also what he describes as our ongoing “democracy crisis” that’s playing a factor as well. He believes lawmakers who know better are turning a blind eye to incontrovertible data for short-term political gain. “The average congressman spends an average of five hours a day on the telephone, and at cocktail parties and dinners begging lobbyists for money to finance their campaigns,” Gore says. Still, Gore says he is cautiously optimistic. “What Joe Biden did last year in passing the so-called Inflation Reduction Act . . . was the most extraordinary legislative achievement of any head of state of any country in history,” Gore says, adding that temperatures will stop going up “almost immediately” if we reach a true net zero in fossil-fuel emissions. “Half of all the human-caused greenhouse-gas pollution will have fallen out of the atmosphere in as little as twenty-five to thirty years.”