Our Choice, Al Gore’s new book on climate change, is as much a reference book as it is a call to action. Over its 400 pages it covers everything from the science and politics of climate change, to the abundant economic and environmental potential of the alternative energy technologies already at our disposal. But to sum it up like that glosses over the two elements that make the book stand out.
The first is the impressive level of detailed information and beautiful illustrations that the book contains. The second is the strength of Gore’s argument that beyond technology, this is a cultural movement on par with the great struggles of the twentieth century. Like the American civil rights movement of the 1960s this is, he argues convincingly, a struggle to shift both our values and our laws that can galvanize us as people to achieve something truly remarkable.
At first blush, urbanists may be disappointed with a book that focuses largely on the need for effective state level action (particularly to establish a price on carbon and reliable incentives for the shift to renewable energy sources). Where cities and urbanization are mentioned, the focus is on the problem of attempting to steer rapid urban growth down more sustainable paths. The fact remains though, that cities have an important role to play in many aspects of Gore’s plan to solve the climate crisis.
Sustainable Energy Transitions
At the core of Gore’s strategy is a shift to sustainable sources of energy. “Even taking into account all of the technical difficulties in capturing and using solar energy, it would take only seven days’ worth of sunlight hitting the earth to meet the annual energy needs of the planet.” Wind and Geothermal also present abundant opportunities. As we have seen with cities like Berkely, municipalities incentives effectively jump-start local sustainable energy transitions.
Gore also stresses to need for the construction of a smart grid of interconnected local energy generation, along with the drive to revamp our built spaces by retrofitting old buildings, developing new zero emissions standards, and correcting the perverse incentives that lead builders to offload the energy operating costs of inefficient buildings onto owners and tenants. In all these areas, cities have also shown the effectiveness of municipal policy (Toronto’s TAF and Portland’s Clean Energy Works program being two great examples). Cities, with the help of provincial or federal funding, often also hold the key to unlocking the many job opportunities that this energy shift has to offer.
The Carbon Bubble
But if cities aren’t well represented in Our Choice, it doesn’t mean that the book won’t be of interest to municipalities looking for a more sustainable path. The resources in the book offer a concentrated backgrounder on climate science, renewable energy technologies, and the types of policies that can catalyse rapid change. It also delves into the corrupt multi-million dollar cover up orchestrated by American oil and automotive makers (with ExxonMobil, for example, at one point offering $10,000 a pop for any papers disputing the scientific consensus on climate change) and the rapidly emerging potential of new information technologies to support widespread systems level change.
He also provides a worrying argument that carbon emissions have fundamentally undermined the stability of our economies. He draws an analogy here to the recent collapse of the subprime mortgage market:
“We now have several trillion dollars’ worth of subprime carbon assets owned by individuals, pension funds, and other institutional investors in the form of companies whose value is artificially inflated by dishonest misrepresentations concerning the need to sharply curtail the burning of carbon fuels …. [When] the appropriate actions are taken to curtail emissions have begun, the oil and coal ‘bubbles’ are likely to burst. The long we wait, the bigger those bubbles will grow.”
Most cities will find that large portions of their local economies are vulnerable to the bursting of the carbon bubble. All the more reason to begin the shift now, and put incentives in place to build a local economy based on renewables, and all the social, economic and environmental benefits that that brings with it.
