U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

37–579 PDF 2007

PERSPECTIVES ON CLIMATE CHANGE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND AIR QUALITY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND

COMMERCE

AND THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND THE

ENVIRONMENT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND

TECHNOLOGY

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 21, 2007

Serial No. 110–23

(Committee on Energy and Commerce)

Serial No. 110–14

(Committee on Science and Technology)

(

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce

energycommerce.house.gov

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan, Chairman

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey

BART GORDON, Tennessee

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois

ANNA G. ESHOO, California

BART STUPAK, Michigan

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York

ALBERT R. WYNN, Maryland

GENE GREEN, Texas

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado

Vice Chairman

LOIS CAPPS, California

MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania

JANE HARMAN, California

TOM ALLEN, Maine

JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

HILDA L. SOLIS, California

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas

JAY INSLEE, Washington

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas

DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York

JIM MATHESON, Utah

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina

CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana

JOHN BARROW, Georgia

BARON P. HILL, Indiana

JOE BARTON, Texas

Ranking Member

RALPH M. HALL, Texas

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois

FRED UPTON, Michigan

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky

BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois

HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona

CHARLES W. ‘‘CHIP’’ PICKERING,

Mississippi

VITO FOSSELLA, New York

STEVE BUYER, Indiana

GEORGE RADANOVICH, California

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania

MARY BONO, California

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

MIKE FERGUSON, New Jersey

MIKE ROGERS, Michigan

SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

PROFESSIONAL STAFF

DENNIS B. FITZGIBBONS, Chief of Staff

GREGG A. ROTHSCHILD, Chief Counsel

SHARON E. DAVIS, Chief Clerk

BUD ALBRIGHT, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND AIR QUALITY

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia, Chairman

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina

Vice Chairman

CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana

JOHN BARROW, Georgia

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts

ALBERT R. WYNN, Maryland

MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania

JANE HARMAN, California

TOM ALLEN, Maine

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas

JAY INSLEE, Washington

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas

DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York

JIM MATHESON, Utah

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan (ex officio)

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois,

Ranking Member

RALPH M. HALL, Texas

FRED UPTON, Michigan

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona

CHARLES W. ‘‘CHIP’’ PICKERING,

Mississippi

STEVE BUYER, Indiana

MARY BONO, California

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

MIKE ROGERS, Michigan

SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas

JOE BARTON, Texas (ex officio)

(II)

(III)

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

HON. BART GORDON, Tennessee, Chairman

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas

LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California

MARK UDALL, Colorado

DAVID WU, Oregon

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois

NICK LAMPSON, Texas

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona

JERRY MCNERNEY, California

PAUL KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey

MICHAEL M. HONDA, California

JIM MATHESON, Utah

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri

CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana

BARON P. HILL, Indiana

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona

CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio

RALPH M. HALL, Texas

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER JR.,

Wisconsin

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas

DANA ROHRABACHER, California

KEN CALVERT, California

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

JO BONNER, Alabama

TOM FEENEY, Florida

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska

PROFESSIONAL STAFF

CHUCK ATKINS, Staff Director

JIM TURNER, Chief Counsel

DEBORAH L. SAMANTAR, Legislative Clerk

LESLEE GILBERT, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT

HON. NICK LAMPSON, Texas, Chairman

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois

LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona

JERRY MCNERNEY, California

MARK UDALL, Colorado

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington

PAUL KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

BART GORDON, Tennessee

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida

RALPH M. HALL, Texas

JEAN FRUCI, Democratic Professional Staff

CHRIS KING, Democratic Professional Staff Member

SHIMERE WILLIAMS, Democratic Professional Staff Member

ELAINE PAULIONIA, Democratic Professional Staff Member

STACEY STEEP, Research Assistant

MARGARET CARAVELLI, Republican Chief Counsel

AMY CARROLL, Republican Professional Staff

ELIZABETH STACK, Republican Professional Staff

(V)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hon. John D. Dingell, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, opening statement ....................................................................................... 1

Hon. Bart Gordon, a Representative in Congress from the State of Tennessee,

opening statement ................................................................................................ 7

WITNESSES

Hon. Al Gore, Jr., ..................................................................................................... 8

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 18

Bjorn Lomborg, adjunct professor, Copenhagen Consensus Center, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark .................................................... 52

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 60

SUBMITTED MATERIAL

Follow-up questions for the record to Mr. Gore, letter of June 5, 2007 .............. 138

Letter of March 6, 2007 from Mr. Barton and Mr. Hastert to His Excellency

Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic ................................................. 141

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 143

‘‘Ice Core Records of Atmospheric CO2 Around the Last Three Glacial Terminations’’, by Hubertus Fletcher et al., Science Magazine, March 12, 1999 ..... 147

‘‘400 Years of Sunspot Observations’’, submitted by Mr. Akin ............................ 150

(1)

PERSPECTIVES ON CLIMATE CHANGE

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY

AND AIR QUALITY, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE;

JOINT WITH THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND

ENVIRONMENT, COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 9:48 a.m., in room

2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Dingell (chairman

of the Committee on Energy and Commerce) presiding.

Present from the Committee on Energy and Commerce: Representatives Boucher (chairman, Subcommittee on Energy and Air

Quality); Butterfield, Melancon, Barrow, Waxman, Markey, Wynn,

Doyle, Harman, Allen, Gonzalez, Inslee, Baldwin, Ross, Hooley,

Weiner, Matheson, Barton, Hastert, Upton, Whitfield, Shimkus,

Shadegg, Pickering, Buyer, Bono, Walden, Rogers, Myrick, Sullivan, and Burgess.

Present from the Committee on Science and Technology: Representatives Gordon (chairman, Committee on Science and Technology) Lampson (chairman, Subcommittee on Energy and Environment); Costello, Woolsey, Lipinski, Giffords, McNerney, Udall,

Baird, Hall, Inglis, Bartlett, Biggert, Akin, Neugebauer, and

McCaul.

Staff present from the Committee on Energy and Commerce:

Dennis B. Fitzgibbons, Gregg A. Rothschild, Sharon E. Davis, Jonathan Cordone, Sue Sheridan, Lorie Schmidt, Bruce Harris, Chris

Treanor, David McCarthy, Kurt Bilas, Tom Hassenboehler, Matt

Johnson, and Peter Kielty.

Staff present from the Committee on Science and Technology:

Chuck Atkins, John Piazza, John Fruci, Louis Finkel, Deborah

Samantar, Leslee Gilbert, Margaret Caravelli, Amy Carroll, and

Elizabeth Stack.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN D. DINGELL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN

Chairman DINGELL. The committee will come to order.

The Committee on Energy and Commerce and our distinguished

friends from the Committee on Science and Technology are having

a joint hearing today amongst the two subcommittees which have

the responsibility of addressing the problem of climate change and

energy security.

The joint hearing held by the Subcommittee on Energy and Air

Quality and the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment of the

2

Committee on Science and Technology has been scheduled for a

goodly while. I want to welcome my colleagues from both of the

committees, especially our colleagues from across the hall, in particular Chairman Gordon and Subcommittee Chairman Lampson.

By agreement amongst the majority and the minority of both

committees, the hearing will be conducted under the Rules of the

Committee on Energy and Commerce. As such, Members who were

here when the committee was called to order will be recognized in

the order of seniority alternating between the two subcommittees,

and other Members will then be recognized in the order in which

they have arrived.

Members of both full committees who do not serve on the relevant subcommittees will not be able to participate in today’s hearing. Many of them are seated in the front row of the audience, and

I want to thank them for their efforts and their interest in these

important subjects. Under the rules of the committee, all written

statements of the Members will be inserted into the record, and all

Members may ask additional questions of the witnesses in writing

through the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

These questions will be included in the official hearing record

along with the response of the witness.

I am sure all will know that the committees will seek to see to

it that this matter is handled to the full satisfaction of all.

All will be notified in subsequent days of the proper procedures

for submitting statements and questions. By agreements with our

good friends and colleagues in the minority, only the chairmen and

ranking members of the full committees and relevant subcommittees will be recognized for opening statements.

Other Members will be permitted to make their opening statements which will be inserted in the record in proper fashion.

Our first witness has been dedicated to the issues of energy security and global warming throughout his career. We are delighted

to welcome him back to this room where he served with such distinction for so long.

His resume includes many impressive titles, including Academy

Award winner, most notably, and former member of the Committee

on Energy and Commerce, which is I think perhaps the most important of his accomplishments. And incidentally he also served as

Vice President of the United States, as we will all recall, for 8

years and was the Democratic nominee for the President of the

United States.

To allow the Vice President to interact with our members as

much as possible, the Chair will forgo his opening statement.

With that, it is now my privilege to recognize the ranking member of the full Committee on Energy and Commerce, the distinguished gentleman from Texas, our colleague, Mr. Barton, for 5

minutes.

Mr. BARTON. Mr. Chairman, before I do that, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Chairman DINGELL. The gentleman will state the parliamentary

inquiry.

Mr. BARTON. Mr. Chairman, as you may recall, when we adopted

the rules for this committee in the organizational meeting, you and

I entered into a colloquy which became a part of the rules package

3

that stated at hearings like this members of the committee that are

not a member of the subcommittee and members of other committees that wish to attend would be welcome to sit in.

I noticed that we have at least three members of the Energy and

Commerce Committee or the Science Committee in the audience,

and there may, I see several other Members I am not sure if they

are members of the Science Committee.

I would like to know why it is that they are not allowed to sit

up on the dais. I respect the right that they may not be able to ask

questions, because this is a joint hearing, but I do not understand

why we are violating the rules that we just adopted and they can’t

even sit at the dais with the other members of the committee that

they are a member of.

Chairman DINGELL. The Chair would advise my good friend and

colleague that that is a matter within the discretion of the Chair.

I have this matter under very careful consideration and there is a

fair probability that some subsequent action will be taken by the

Chair on this matter. I would note that we have here a gathering

of Members which is at least as large as either of the two committees. And there are problems with availability of seating. The Chair

will work the with the gentleman to try to resolve these questions

in a fashion——

Mr. BARTON. Further parliamentary inquiry.

Chairman DINGELL. The gentleman continues to be recognized.

Mr. BARTON. My understanding is that, once we adopted, after

the colloquy, the rules package, that it is not the prerogative of the

Chair, that if the Chair wishes to waive that rule, he has to ask

unanimous consent.

Mr. STUPAK. With all respect, the Chair is going to inform my

good friend that it is a prerogative of the Chair and the present occupant of the Chair deems it to be a prerogative of the Chair and

will act accordingly.

Now having said these things, the Chair is going to remind my

good friend, we have a lot of Members who are sitting here who

wish to be recognized and be heard. I don’t want to deny my good

friend the right to be heard on any points of concern.

I do want to remind him, however, though, that the time that he

and I are taking for these purposes are probably denying the Members the opportunity to be heard at a later time to ask questions.

Mr. BARTON. Well, I have two more parliamentary inquiries.

Chairman DINGELL. The gentleman is recognized.

Mr. BARTON. On this last parliamentary, I am not going to press

the point and ask for a actual parliamentary ruling and appeal the

ruling of the Chair because I support the fact that we are holding

this hearing. But I will ask the chairman if he is going to use his

good offices to try to find seats for the members of the full committee at the dais.

Chairman DINGELL. The Chair will inform the gentleman the

Chair is thinking very actively on this matter and will probably advise the gentleman shortly of any further decisions made.

Mr. BARTON. Further parliamentary inquiry.

Chairman DINGELL. The gentleman continues to be recognized.

Mr. BARTON. We have another rule. And I believe this is a rule

also of the Science Committee, and I think it is a rule of every comVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:51 Dec 13, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Q:\DOCS\110-23 SCOM1 PsN: SCOM1
4

mittee, that witnesses that voluntarily agree to testify are required

to have their testimony in writing 48 hours in advance. Now, Mr.

Gore is not only a former Vice President, he is a former Member

of the House, a former member of this committee, and I believe a

former subcommittee chairman of this committee.

We, on the minority received, his written testimony at about 7

o’clock this morning. It apparently got to the majority offices about

1 o’clock this morning.

How are we supposed to prepare questions for our esteemed witness when we are basically given testimony 2 hours before he

shows up? And that is a clear violation of the rules.

Chairman DINGELL. Well, if the gentleman would permit, the

Chair will respond.

First of all, it is not a violation because this is a matter which

is addressed again in the discretion of the Chair. And the Chair

has made the decision that we would not enforce this rule according to its absolute terms in view of the power of the Chair to act

in his discretion on this particular matter.

The Chair will note that I have observed the gentleman from

Texas and my colleagues on the Republican side, and have observed them to be members of great talent and ability.

I have watched them ask questions for many years. I have never

found them to be tongue tied or lacking in the ability to address

these questions. The statements are available. I am sure the gentleman knows how to ask questions. And I have great confidence

in him and the fact that he will ask good questions.

I also would note that we have a very fine copy of the Vice President’s book, ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth’’. If the gentleman wishes to

have a little reading that he may enjoy during the matter or at

later times, I would be happy to make my copy available to him.

Mr. BARTON. Further parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. WAXMAN. Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BARTON. I can do it in regular order. If you want to spend

2 hours and have an absolute cat fight, we will do it that way.

Chairman DINGELL. The Chair wants to accommodate my good

friend from Texas, and I am going to do my level best to see to it

that it is done. And the gentleman will continue to state his parliamentary inquiry, and the Chair will try to respond.

Mr. BARTON. Well, nowhere in the rules, as the minority reads

them is it prerogative of the Chair to waive written testimony.

That requires unanimous consent. Now, again, because of my affection for the esteemed chairman, I am not going to press that point

today because of the importance of this hearing. But this is the last

day that we are going to just let regular order be overridden.

Chairman DINGELL. Well, the Chair, again, with all respect and

great affection observes to the gentleman, my good friend from

Texas, that under rule 4(b)(1) of the rules of this committee, there

appears the language requirements for testimony. I quote, ‘‘The

chairman of the committee may waive the requirements of this

paragraph or any part thereof.’’

Under that provision, the Chair has waived the requirement with

regard to the production of books, papers and records and testimony on this particular time. At this particular time and we will

try to see to it that that is complied with to whenever the cirVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:51 Dec 13, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Q:\DOCS\110-23 SCOM1 PsN: SCOM1
5

cumstances permit. And I do want to accommodate my good friend

and have a harmonious consideration of the difficult questions before us.

Mr. BARTON. I have one more parliamentary inquiry, and this

will honestly be the last one.

Under the rules of the committee, individuals who waive their

right to opening statements are given that time in the question period. That is at the discretion of the chairman. What is your ruling

going to be on waiving opening statements if we get additional time

in the question period?

Chairman DINGELL. The Chair is going to respond this way.

This is a rule. It will be applied on the insistence of any Member.

The Chair reminds my good friend that we are in the position of

a fairly limited amount of time. We are going to see it to that we

try to see to it that the younger members get a full opportunity to

be heard. And for the more senior members to take advantage of

this is simply to deny the younger members the opportunity to ask

questions or to have an adequate amount of time for questions. So

the Chair will respect this. But I want to inform my good friend

that I think it would be unwise and perhaps unfair for us to do this

at this particular time.

So, does the gentleman seek recognition for any further purposes?

Mr. BARTON. No, sir.

Chairman DINGELL. Well, with respect and affection, then the

Chair thanks my good friend.

The Chair recognizes now the distinguished gentleman from

Texas, Mr. Barton, for such opening statements he chooses to give

for 5 minutes.

Mr. BARTON. Mr. Chairman, I am going to waive the opening

statement with the understanding that I will have that time in my

question period which has been the practice of this committee.

Chairman DINGELL. The gentleman asserts that right, and it will

be respected.

The Chair recognizes now my dear friend, the gentleman from

Tennessee, who is the chairman of the Science and Technology

Committee, for the purpose of introducing our guest. I would note

that the gentleman from Tennessee, is also the distinguished representative of the district of which, in which our former colleague

and good friend, the Vice President, lives. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.

Chairman GORDON. Thank you, Chairman Dingell, I waive my

opening statements so that Members will have more time to question later.

Chairman DINGELL. The Chair thanks the gentleman.

The Chair now recognizes the ranking member of the full Committee on Science and Technology, who is also a member of the

Committee on Energy and Commerce, our good friend, Mr. Hall of

Texas, for 5 minutes.

Mr. HALL. Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, the two committees, I thank you and thank you for holding this hearing. And

I hope that we all benefit from it.

Today we are witnessing an all out assault on all forms of fossil

fuels and all forms of nuclear energy. We have to be energy conVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:51 Dec 13, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Q:\DOCS\110-23 SCOM1 PsN: SCOM1
6

scious and sensible enough to know that fossil fuels will continue

to be the major source of energy in the near future. If we allow this

attack on energy to go unanswered and have it result in lessening

our domestic reliance on fossil fuels, we will force the reliance on

the OPEC from the dangers of 60 percent presently to a recklessly

dangerous and likely 80 percent of our total energy supply.

Forcing a continued reliance on OPEC will make our energy markets more unstable and dismantle jobs for workers, such as

drillers, tool pushers, rough necks and others who furnish the manpower and the woman power necessary to continue the search and

the capture of various sources of energy. It would also establish

OPEC countries as even more dominant than they are today. Abandoning America’s energy producers would result in the death of an

energy industry, an industry that helped win world wars and continues to fuel our energy interest today. It could also result in the

loss of a generation of young American men and women who would

have to fight for energy when and if the OPEC nations abandon

the U.S.A. by canceling all sales and casting their future with other

than Americans.

We must press for energy self-reliance and continue to pursue

technology to combat the threat of increased carbon dioxide. These

two goals are interconnected. If we tap into American ingenuity, we

not only unleash the power of our Nation’s competitiveness, but we

also find domestic solutions for our future that are affordable, that

are reliable and that are clean.

Republicans in Congress have taken this pro-growth approach

over the past several years. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 for instance, included numerous initiatives for greater energy efficiency

and alternative energy research and development. In the coming

weeks, I plan on introducing legislation that expands on many of

these initiatives so that we can continue to develop innovative solutions to our domestic energy needs.

I understand that Dr. Lomborg will be discussing the role of energy research and development and how this approach will cost a

lot less than the Kyoto-like policies and yet could potentially have

a much greater impact on our climate. These are the types of solutions our country needs, solutions that create jobs, foster American

innovation and allow our country to become more energy independent.

The legislation the present congressional leadership is advocating

brings about Kyoto-like policies that will cost our Nation a lot of

money and won’t stop global warming in the future. Moreover, it

is clear that other countries who are major polluters are not willing

to help offset the giant costs entailed in this type of legislation.

You can bring in testimony of expert after expert, all of whom

can say that global warming is a threat to world health, but not

one of them will discuss the cost of their recommendations and the

lack of the benefit gained at that cost. Yes, the Americans—and the

cost to all Americans—must be a part of this discussion.

Finally, the American people will not guess today at what mother

nature will do 100 or 1,000 years from now and will not be cajoled,

frightened, bullied or sullied into nor lead into a dangerous world

that envisions us without a reliable energy supply.

7

It is not going to happen because it can’t happen. Working Americans will not tolerate shipping our jobs to China, one of the world’s

worst polluters. We should not abandon our obligation to all Americans by allowing the renewed attack on energy by a handful of proKyoto self-styled experts who never mention the cost to be paid by

us, the American people—when China, Russia, Mexico, India and

others offer more and more pollution and not one penny for the

cleanup.

I have used the word ‘‘cost’’ eight times in this speech alone. I

have never heard the word used by the Kyoto-ites of this Congress.

This Congress will listen to Americans who realize that someone

has to pay the cost. I yield back my time.

Chairman DINGELL. The time of the gentleman has expired.

The Chair recognizes now the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the Committee on Energy

and Commerce who has been performing extraordinarily well in addressing in a very aggressive and responsible fashion the subcommittee’s review of these important matters. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Boucher.

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate

your comments. I, too, will waive an opening statement and reserve

my time for propounding questions.

Chairman DINGELL. Chair recognizes now the distinguished

ranking member of the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality,

the Committee on Energy and Commerce, our good friend and colleague, the former Speaker of the House, Mr. Hastert of Illinois, for

5 minutes.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say, thank you for

holding this hearing. I will waive my opening statement and reserve my time as an option in questions. Thank you.

Chairman DINGELL. Statement of the gentleman is waived.

The Chair recognizes now the chairman of the Subcommittee on

Energy and Environment of the Committee on Science and Technology, our good friend, Mr. Lampson of Texas, for 5 minutes.

Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, will waive my

comments and thank you for holding this hearing and, out of respect for both our witnesses and other members of our committee,

waive the statements at this time, thank you.

Chairman DINGELL. Chair thanks the gentleman. The Chair now

recognizes the distinguished ranking member of the Subcommittee

on Energy and Environment of the Committee on Science and

Technology, Mr. Inglis of South Carolina.

Mr. Inglis.

Mr. INGLIS. Mr. Chairman, I, too, waive my time and reserve it

for questions.

Chairman DINGELL. Gentleman has waived.

The Chair now recognizes our distinguished friend, our good

friend from Tennessee, Mr. Gordon, for the chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology for the privilege of introducing

Representative Gore, who happens to be a constituent of his.

The distinguished gentleman is recognized.

8

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BART GORDON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE

Chairman GORDON. Thank you, Mr. Dingell, in 1984, a young

Congressman from Tennessee, named Al Gore, Jr., with a lot of

help from his wife, Tipper, was elected to the United States Senate.

I was fortunate enough to succeed him in the Sixth Congressional

District. And for those first few weeks when I went around in the

congressional district, Al was really a legend. He was known for

constituency work. He was known for the work he did here legislatively as well as for his oversight.

And so everywhere I would go, people would say you have got

some big shoes to fill following Al Gore. Mighty big shoes. And they

were correct. But I finally got tired of hearing about it. And I said,

they ought not talk about Al’s feet that way.

And even though Al represented the entire State, we still shared

mutual constituents within the Sixth District, and one of those constituents was a lady named Barbara Mandrell, and it was about

that time that she had a song out entitled, ‘‘I was country when

country wasn’t cool.’’ Certainly Albert Gore has had a long passion

and dedication to make the world understand that global warming

was real and that it had consequences.

We all know that recently the IPCC report stated that with 100

percent certainty, there is global warming. This was unanimously

adopted by 113 nations, including the United States and by President Bush. But over 25 years ago, Congressman Albert Gore, Jr.,

had some of the first hearings on the climate change as chairman

of a subcommittee on the Science and Technology Committee. So

many hearings later, both in the Congress and the Senate, a few

books, an Oscar winning documentary, countless frequent flier

miles and literally hundreds of small group slide show presentations later, the world finally is paying attention.

And so, Mr. Vice President, I want to thank you for your passion

and dedication. I want to welcome you to this unprecedented joint

hearing, the Science and Technology Committee and the Energy

and Commerce Committee. And seeing Tipper Gore here, I have to

say one last thing, and that is that, my little red-headed daughter

Peyton’s birthday is today. And we are going to have a little party

for her tonight. And I doubt that she is going to ask me what I did

today to avert global warming, but I am sure that in the years

ahead she is going to ask me, was I a part of the problem, or was

I a part of the solution? And thanks to your leadership, I am going

to be a part of the solution.

Thank you for being here, and I yield such time as you may consume.

Mr. GORE. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman DINGELL. Other than to say welcome back, welcome

home. You served for a long time on this committee and in this

room. And I am sure that you feel comfortable and welcome, and

that is the way we want you to feel. Welcome back.

STATEMENT OF HON. AL GORE, JR.

Mr. GORE. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. It is an emotional

occasion for me to come back to this hearing room.

9

I learned a lot from you, Chairman Dingell, when I first came

here in the fall of 1976 and then became a member of this committee and was sworn-in in January 1977.

And, Chairman Gordon, thank you for your friendship all these

years and for your leadership on this issue and so many others and

thank you for calling me on the telephone in Tennessee the day

after the election last November, when it became clear that you

were going to be chairing the Science and Technology Committee

and you were the first to say, ‘‘I want you to come and talk about

this issue, and we want to work on it.’’ Chairman Dingell, thank

you for calling me and inviting me to come and testify as well.

And to the ranking members, thank you, Congressman Barton,

Congressman Hall, we were close friends before you went over to

what we jokingly refer to as ‘‘the dark side’’.

And we are friends still. And I want to acknowledge my friends

on both sides.

Mr. BARTON. He is threatening to come back over to your side.

Mr. GORE. He would be more than welcome. He would be more

than welcome. Always. East Texas and Tennessee have a lot in

common.

And Chairman Boucher, thank you. We worked just across the

State line for so many years. And I have many friends on both of

the committees that are represented here. And I am very grateful

for the opportunity to testify before two committees that I did in

fact have the privilege of serving on.

Congressman Dingell, I want to say a special word of thanks to

you, because our fathers served together. This is the second generation of friendship. And I was reflecting yesterday and doing, just

taking a pencil and paper, and at the time when your father and

my father served together in the House of Representatives, the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere up here on Capitol Hill and

all over the world were just about 300 parts per million. And they

really had never gone above 300 parts per million, at least as far

back as a million years in the ice record.

And yet, here we are today, and it is already 383 parts per million, just in that short span of time. And that ultimately is what

brings me here.

There is a sense of hope in this country that this United States

Congress will rise to the occasion and present meaningful solutions

to this crisis.

This is the greatest country on the face of this Earth. And the

hopes for freedom and the viability and efficacy of self-government

rests with the legislative branch of our government in this day and

time.

There have been times in the past when our Nation has been

called upon to rise above partisanship, above political calculations,

above the pressures that have always been present for two and a

quarter centuries from special interests of this, that or the other

kind, and reach across the aisle and do what history is calling upon

all of us as Americans to do.

America is the natural leader of the world. And our world faces

a true planetary emergency. I know the phrase sounds shrill. And

I know it is a challenge to the moral imagination to see and feel

10

and understand that the entire relationship between humanity and

our planet has been radically altered.

We quadrupled human population in less than one century from

1.6 billion in 1900 to 6.56 billion today. Population is stabilizing of

its own accord as girls are educated and women are empowered

and family planning that is culturally acceptable in country after

country becomes widely available and, most importantly, as child

survival rates increase and infant mortality decreases. When those

things happen and especially when literacy among women increases around the world, the birth rates come down. The death

rates come down, and then the birth rates come down. And it is

stabilizing.

But having multiplied by four the number of people on this planet—and we are going from over 6.5 now to over 9.1 almost certainly

within the next 40, 45 years—that in itself causes a big change in

the relationship between humanity and the planet.

Second, our technologies are thousands of times more powerful

than any our grandparents had at their disposal. And so we are

even more skillful and more effective in doing the things we have

always done, exploiting the Earth for sustenance and providing for

our families and going about productive lives. The side effects of

what we are doing sometimes now outstrip the development of

extra wisdom to make sure that we handle these new powers in a

way that doesn’t do unintended harm. And somehow we have also

adopted a kind of a short-term way of thinking that is also different from what our grandparents more commonly used.

In the markets, Congressman Bartlett said global warming is the

biggest market failure in history. I kind of agree with that. If you

look at the markets, the short-term focus is just dominant now.

Quarterly reports, day traders, if you look at the entertainment

business and the media business and even the news business, it is

overnight polls and how many eyeballs can you glue to the screen.

You know the phrases.

And in the honorable profession of politics back in that year

when I first came to serve on these two committees, I never took

a public opinion poll. And that was partly because, back in those

days, it wasn’t very common and also as Congressman Gordon

knows, it is largely a rural district and you get out and meet people. But that has all changed now. And by the time I left politics,

overnight polls were common. Now, as you all know, the so-called

dial meters, it is just one long continuous poll. And I don’t think

the results for our democracy are all that good.

But this short-term focus is a part of the problem that we call

the climate crisis. And we in the United States of America and you

in the Congress are the repository of the hopes and dreams of people all across this Earth.

It is an unusual time.

One of the popular movies out there now is 300, about the small

group that defended a pass at Thermopylae to save the prospects

for democracy.

There are times, rare though they be, when a relatively small

group is called upon to make decisions and show courage because

the results of what they do will shape the prospects not only for

11

themselves and for their kin, but for all future generations. This

Congress is now the 535; really and truly, it is one of those times.

Congressman Dingell, you are perhaps the youngest member of

the Greatest Generation having thought fought in World War II as

a very young man. And we owe you and your generation—as we

have all acknowledged many times—a great debt. But you were

part of a relatively small group that saved the world.

And when you and your colleagues, on the ground and at sea and

in the air, won the struggle against global fascism in the Atlantic

and the Pacific simultaneously, your generation came back home

transformed, no longer 19-, 20-, 21-year olds, having walked

through the fire, having emerged victorious; you came home with

a different capacity for vision, a deeper moral authority.

And when your wartime leaders, like George Marshall, said, we

ought to lift up our adversaries from their knees and walk with

them from the battlefield toward peace and prosperity, we need a

European Recovery Program, that became known as the Marshall

Plan. Your generation said, yes, we don’t want to have a repetition

of these world wars coming out of Europe, but you knew it took vision and a 50-year time frame.

The United Nations was established. Taxes were involved. The

‘‘GI’s General’’ Omar Bradley, said ‘‘It is time that we steered by

the stars and not by the lights of every passing ship.’’ And your

generation said, yes, that’s right.

And here in the Congress, Republicans, Arthur Vandenberg and

others, stood up and reached across the aisle and said, we are

Americans first. And Democrats reached across from the other side.

And under Presidents of both parties, we stood down communism.

And for 50 years, we were faithful to that mandate.

I say all that, Mr. Chairman, because what we are facing now

is a crisis that is by far the most serious we have ever faced. And

the way we are going to solve it is by asking you on both sides of

the aisle to do what some people have, as you know, begun to fear

we don’t have the capacity to do any more. I know they are wrong.

I know that politics can seem frustratingly slow, like it doesn’t

move but an inch a year. But when there are enough people who

become seized of the gravity of the challenge and talk with you and

you yourselves immerse yourselves in it and learn what is at stake,

all of a sudden it can move very quickly.

I came here today, Mr. Chairman, with some messages to the

Congress. And they will be delivered to your offices. They are from

516,000 people who just in the last few days have responded to an

e-mail request that I sent out to say this hearing has been scheduled and I would like to be able to tell the members of these committees that I am not here by myself, there are lots of Americans

who feel as strongly as I do. And so the folks that have contacted

Algore.com, we have been getting 100 new contacts per second in

the last couple of days. We just started this a short time ago.

This is building. And it is building in both parties. The faith communities, the evangelical communities, the business leaders, ten of

the CEOs of the biggest corporations in America just the day before

the State of the Union Address last month, most of them in their

personal lives have been supporters of President Bush. That is irrelevant to this issue. They had a press conference the day before

12

the State of the Union Address calling on you to act, adopt legislation that will address this crisis. These are not normal times.

Congressman Gordon, I want you to tell Peyton happy birthday,

and I felt the emotion in your voice as you got to the end of your

statement. I have felt that, too.

Because I promise you, I say this to each of you as individuals,

I promise you, the day will come when our children and grandchildren will look back. And they will ask one of two questions. Either they will ask, what in God’s name were they doing? Didn’t

they see the evidence? Didn’t they realize that four times in 15

years, the entire scientific community of this world issued unanimous reports calling upon them to act? What was wrong them?

Were they too blinded and numbed by the business of political life

or daily life to take a deep breath and look at the reality of what

we are facing? Did they think it was perfectly all right to keep

dumping 70 million tons every single day of global warming pollution into this Earth’s atmosphere? Did they think all of the scientists were wrong? What were they thinking?

Or they will ask another question. They may look back, and they

will say, how did they find the uncommon moral courage to rise

above politics and redeem the promise of American democracy and

do what some said was impossible and shake things up and tell the

special interests, OK, we have heard you and we are going to do

the best we can to take your considerations into account, but we

are going to do what is right?

I am going to do my part to make sure that you have all the support that I and lots of other folks can muster for you in both parties when you do the right thing. If some of you in tough districts

face pressures that just are overwhelming, I would ask you to walk

through that fire.

I have got a few specific suggestions that I would like to make

and thank you for the courtesy of giving me a longer than normal

opening statement.

First of all, the new evidence, let it be said here, that has come

out just in the last few months shows that this may well be even

worse than has been described. Three days ago, two new studies

were reported in the peer-reviewed science journal, Journal of

Science magazine. One of them shows that the arctic ice cap is

melting more rapidly than had been predicted. One of them shows

that it could completely disappear in summertime in as little as 34

years. Most of the computer runs—and this is a respected computer

modeling group, peer-reviewed—stretch it out 35, 45, 55, could be

as little as 34 years.

This problem is burning a hole in the top of the world in the ice

cover that is one of the principal ways our planet cools itself. If it

goes, it won’t come back on any time scale relevant to the human

species.

Another study shows that the Earth is shaking because of what

is going on in Greenland. Glacial earthquakes, seismographers all

over the planet are hearing them; 1993, there were seven of them,

between 4.5 and 5 on the Richter scale; by 1999, the number doubled to 14. This past year, there were 32 between 4.6 and 5.1 on

the Richter Scale.

13

One of the science magazine articles I referred to points out in

detail why the international scientific report decided that it was

impossible to include the fate of Greenland and west Antarctica in

their projections because they don’t understand how this could be

happening so quickly.

Another study shows that among the billions of tons of frozen

methane in the Tundra areas that have locked it up in ice, melting

is proceeding more quickly than anyone had predicted. Methane is

much more powerful as a global warming gas than CO2, about 23

times, they say, as powerful. We need to turn the thermostat back

down before that melts.

Fires, some of you all from the west have had a terrible time

with fires. New study correlates it precisely with the warming temperatures; and not just the warming temperatures, the earlier

spring, the earlier melting of the snow pack and the decreased precipitation available. You have got the study there, Congressman.

Thank you.

And what it shows is that the drier soils lead to drier vegetation.

And that means kindling. And the incidents of large fires in the

west, in Russia, in Australia, they have what some are calling a

thousand year drought now. It is correlated with these warming

temperatures. There are many other signs that we do not have

time to play around with this. We do not have the luxury of making it a political football and exercising politics as usual.

Here is what I think we should do. Number 1, I think we should

immediately freeze CO2 emissions in the United States of America

and then begin a program of sharp reductions to reach at least 90

percent reductions by 2050. All of the complex formulas of how we

might start reductions years from now and have a little bit in the

first year and a little bit more in the second year, I think we need

to freeze it right now, and then start the reductions.

Second, I believe—and I know how difficult this is to contemplate—but I believe that we should start using the Tax Code

to reduce taxes on employment and production, and make up the

difference with pollution taxes, principally CO2. Now I fully understand that this is considered politically impossible. But part of our

challenge is to expand the limits of what is possible. Right now we

are discouraging work and encouraging the destruction of the planet’s habitability.

We are also in a new world, Mr. Chairman. We have talked

many times about the competitive challenges that America faces in

an outsourcing world. And with information-technology empowering these developing countries with large and fast-growing populations and lower wage rates, our biggest disadvantage is in the

area of our high wage rates. We don’t want to lower our wages, but

we shouldn’t worsen that disadvantage by stacking on top of the

wages the full cost of our health and welfare and social programs.

I understand this is a longer-term shift. But we ought to start

making that shift. It would make us more competitive. It would

also discourage pollution while encouraging work.

I understand how difficult it is, I will say again, but carbon pollution is not presently priced into the marketplace. It does not have

a price tag. It is considered an externality. And there are reasons

for that. But if you think about the externalities, they include air

14

and water. I internalize air and water, as most of us do. And I

think the economic system should, too. And I think that one way

to do it is by this revenue-neutral tax shift.

Third, a portion of those revenues must be earmarked for those

in lower-income groups who will have a more difficult time making

this transition unless you in the Congress make sure that we are

giving them the assistance that they need.

Fourth, we need to be part of a strong global treaty. Now, I am

in favor of Kyoto, but I fully understand that Kyoto, as a brand if

you will, has been demonized. I remember, Mr. Chairman, when I

first came to this Congress, one of the issues I worked on was nuclear arms control. Some of the Members here I worked with closely. In those years, Former President Carter had a treaty pending

the SALT II treaty. And for a variety of reasons, including the invasion of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union, it was withdrawn, and the name itself became a political liability.

President Reagan was elected. And I worked across the aisle

with President Reagan on arms control. And after only a couple of

years in office, he came to a realization, we need nuclear arms control. He had been against it but the realities of the situation made

it clear that we needed to move forward.

And he came up with even deeper reductions and a new name

called the START Treaty, and people who had been opposed to

SALT II all of a sudden were in favor of the START Treaty.

I think that we should work toward de facto compliance with

Kyoto. If we can ratify it, fine. But, again, I understand the difficulty. But we should work toward de facto compliance.

And here is my formal proposal. We ought to move forward the

starting date of the next treaty now scheduled to begin in 2012, to

2010 so that whoever is elected President and is sworn-in in January 2009 can use his or her political chips, if you will, all of the

good will that comes out of that election campaign and the new inauguration, not just on trying to fight a rear guard action in a bitter battle to ratify a treaty that will expire by the time it is ratified, but to work toward de facto compliance and then start an all

out sprint to negotiate and ratify a new tougher treaty that will

begin in 2010.

And we have to find a creative way to build more confidence that

China and India and the developing nations will be a party to that

treaty sooner rather than later. Land cover and methane and soot

may be opportunities to have provisions that are binding upon

them sooner rather than later, but some creative way must be

found to make them a part of this effort.

Next, this Congress should enact a moratorium on the construction of any new coal-fired power plant that is not compatible with

carbon capture and sequestration. And that means that we should

have an all-out push to develop carbon capture and sequestration.

Next, I believe, Mr. Chairman, that just as this committee and

the Science and Technology Committee were instrumental in the

early years of assisting the scientists and engineers to take what

was then known as ARPA-Net and DARPA Net and develop the

new switches and the new high-performance computers and assist

them in their creation of what became the Internet, that I believe

this Congress should develop an ElectroNet, a smart grid. Just as

15

the widely distributed processing of information everywhere in this

country and around the world led to the biggest new surge of productivity that we have ever seen in this Nation, we ought to have

a law that allows homeowners and small business people, to put up

photable generators and small wind mills and any other new

sources of widely distributed generation that they can come up

with and allow them to sell that electricity into the grid without

any artificial caps at a rate that is determined, not by a monopsony—as you know, that is the flip side of a monopoly. You can

have the tyranny of a single seller; you can also have the tyranny

of a single buyer. And if a utility sets the price, it will never get

off the ground. But if it is a tariff, if it is regulated according to

the market for electricity the same way public utility commissions

do it now, then you may not ever need another central station generating plant. In the same way that the Internet took off and stimulated the information revolution, we could see a revolution all

across this country with small-scale generation of electricity everywhere. And let people sell it. Don’t reserve it for the single big seller.

Next, I believe that we should raise the CAFE standards, and I

support your initiative, Congressman Markey. But I support your

idea, Chairman Dingell, as well, that it ought to be part of a comprehensive package. And I have taken note of your statements and

also some of the automobile industry statements that as long as it

is part of a comprehensive package that includes the utilities and

includes buildings and all the other sources—don’t single out cars

and trucks and pretend that that is all the problem. It is only a

slice of the problem. And it is not even the biggest part of it. But

it is a big part of it.

Make it a part of the comprehensive solution. But let’s not bring

up the rear anymore on these auto standards. Basically, the problem is cars, coal and buildings, so you have got to address all three

of them in an intelligent way.

Next, I believe that, along with using the tax system and a cap

and trade treaty approach, you should also not shy away from

using the regulatory power. And I believe that this Congress

should set a date in the future for the ban on incandescent light

bulbs, give the industry enough time to make sure they have got

all of the socket sizes worked out and all of the different features,

like dimmers and the rest that people want and to improve the

quality of life. They will do it. You set the date.

Tell them we are not going to be able to sell that old, inefficient,

wasteful kind at a set date in the future. They will adjust. As long

as everybody plays by the same rules, they will adjust, and they

will surprise you.

Next, where buildings are concerned, I would like to see you pass

a law that I call Connie Mae, a carbon-neutral mortgage association and here’s why. I used to be, in a small way, in the homebuilding business when I came back from the Army and before I

was elected to the Congress. And the selling price of a new house

is something the market is very sensitive to. Some of you all know

this a lot better than I do because you have been in the business

in a bigger way. And so the selling price is what people look at,

both the sellers and the buyers. But all of the things that we need

16

to do to cut back down on carbon emissions are things that add to

the selling price but don’t pay for themselves until a couple or 3

years have passed.

And so the appropriate thing of insulation, the window treatments, the improvements that will sharply reduce the operating

costs of that home or building is routinely excluded from the initial

purchase price because the market discriminates against it.

We ought to set up a carbon-neutral mortgage association where

all of those costs are set aside. They will pay for themselves. But

just like Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, put them in an instrument

that is separate from the purchase price, and when you go to closing on a house, you sign the mortgage, and they will say, well, now

here is your Connie Mae home improvement package here. You

don’t have to worry about paying for that because it will pay for

itself. The Congress of the United States has made sure of that. I

recommend that strongly.

Next, I think that you ought to require this committee, the Commerce Committee oversees financial services. I think the FCC

ought to require disclosure of carbon emissions in the corporate reporting. Just the day before yesterday, the largest pension funds in

this country, $4 trillion worth of assets managed by them, called

upon the FCC and the Congress to require disclosure because it is

a material risk. There are lots of companies where investors need

to know if there is an exposure to carbon constraints, if they are

going to be in real trouble because of some aspect of the climate

crisis that they are not disclosing to their investors. Stockholders

ought to know that, and those disclosures ought to be required.

Now I want to close, Mr. Chairman, and thank you and thank

all of you again for the courtesy of allowing me to present these

ideas to you.

I would like to close by referring back to the unprecedented nature of the challenge. As many of you know, the way the Chinese

and the Japanese, both of whom use the so-called Kanji characters,

express the concept of crisis, they use two symbols together. And

the first one means danger, and the second one means opportunity.

This is the most dangerous crisis we have ever faced. But it is also

the greatest opportunity we have ever been confronted with.

And there are people who look around the world, Mr. Chairman,

and look at the genocide in Darfur and the chronic civil wars and,

in places like the Congo, fought by child soldiers; and they look at

the tens of millions that die of easily preventable diseases and the

destruction of the Asian fisheries and the rain forest and these

other things; and they say, we just have all of these problems, isn’t

it terrible?

Well, there were problems back in those days after World War

II as well. But when your generation rose to meet them, the vision

they acquired in facing down fascism served them well in giving

them the ability to see that these other challenges were not political problems; they were moral imperatives. And that is what our

opportunity is today, not only to solve this and to say to the future

generations, we did our part, this was our Thermopylae, and we defended civilization’s gate, and we rose to the challenge; but to also

say, in the process, we dug deeply, and we found a capacity we

didn’t know we had. It is there. We all know that. And that is what

17

will give us the ability to successfully solve these other crises. That

is the greatest opportunity of all that comes out of this climate crisis.

It really is up to this Congress, and Mr. Chairman, and to all of

you, I cannot possibly overstate the strength of the hope and good

feeling that people all over this country have about this Congress

and the new approach that they feel is being taken here. And I am

going to be out there, as I said, trying to stir up as much support

for you all doing the right thing as I possibly can. I wish you well

as you undertake this historic challenge.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gore follows:]

18

19

20

21

Chairman DINGELL. The committee thanks you for your presence

and for your very valuable statement and for your help.

I want to welcome you back. We have worked together in this

room for a lot of years, you and I, and you have made a valuable

contribution to the public in this room for which we are all thankful, and I want to appreciate your recalling the friendship that has

existed between our two families for more years than I think either

of us can remember. And I want to tell you my personal appreciation.

The Chair will note that I am going to defer on questions, and

I am going to begin by recognizing my colleagues for questions for

5 minutes. We are going to adhere to those 5-minute limitations

very carefully.

The distinguished gentleman from Tennessee, the chairman of

the Science and Technology Committee.

Chairman GORDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BARTON. When we deferred, at least I understood that we

would have that additional opening statement time to ask questions. Have you changed your mind about that?

Chairman DINGELL. I haven’t changed my mind at all. If the gentleman wishes, he could have that additional 5 minutes. The Chair

does remind him, however, that 5 minutes at this level is going to

deny members at the other levels 5 minutes as the gentleman is

fully entitled to take his time, and we will respect that. Some of

us will probably respect it more than others.

The Chair recognizes now the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Boucher.

Did you want your 5 minutes?

Chairman GORDON. Yes, sir.

Chairman DINGELL. The Chair apologizes, and the gentleman

from Tennessee is recognized for 5 minutes.

Chairman GORDON. I want to recognize Sherie Boehlert, the

former chairman of the Science Committee in our audience today,

and I think Sherry represents how this really can be and should

be a bipartisan solution. Sherry has been a long advocate of the

concerns about climate change, and we are glad you are here.

My friend and ranking member on the Science Committee, Mr.

Hall, raised a good question earlier, and so I want to follow up on

that. And that is the cost. What is going to be the cost associated?

And I notice, Mr. Vice President, in your written statement, you

made the following statement, and I quote, ‘‘There are some who

will say that acting to solve this crisis will be costly. I don’t agree.

If we solve it the right way, we will save money and boost productivity.’’

Would you mind elaborating on that?

Mr. GORE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I meant to acknowledge Chairman Boehlert, and I want to thank him publicly

for agreeing to work with me on the Alliance for Climate Protection, which is a bipartisan group. Larry Schweiger with the National Wildlife Foundation, another board member, is here. Brent

Scowcroft is on the board. Lee Thomas, President Reagan’s former

EPA head, is on the board.

On July 7, we will launch a 3-year mass persuasion campaign,

completely bipartisan in nature. It will involve television and radio

22

advertisements in all of your districts, a very active net-based campaign. This is not going away. The problem is not going away. It

is getting worse. The efforts to build public support for a solution

to it are going to be increasing steadily, and I thank former Congressman Boehlert for his part in that.

Now, on the cost, I remember back on the Science and Technology Committee, we used to get testimony from this fellow at the

Rocky Mountain Institute Amory Levins. He is one of these guys

that is so smart, you feel like you are drinking out of two fire hoses

at the same time. And he doesn’t get as much attraction for his

ideas as he should because people can’t keep up with him, can’t understand him always. But he has been right for 30 years on a lot

of this.

And one of the things he used to say in talking about the cost

of this, the alleged cost, the solutions he said, ‘‘They have got the

sign wrong. They have got the sign wrong.’’ Well, see, I thought he

was so smart, I thought he was talking about trigonometry with

cosigns and whatever the rest of that stuff is. And then I realized,

no, no. He has brought it down to where I can get to it. He is talking about a plus sign and a minus sign, and what he means is that

if you go about this in the right way instead of putting a minus

sign in front of the expenditures that are needed to solve this crisis, you need to put a plus sign in the sense that it is going to save

you money, and it is going to help make the economy stronger.

Harry Truman once said, when he was President, he said, ‘‘I

spend 95 percent of my time trying to convince people to do things

that they ought to damn well do for their own benefit anyway.’’

And sometimes the people who really work with the details of the

solutions of the climate crisis feel exactly the same way.

Now it is not that easy because when you look really closely at

it, there are some solutions that have minus signs as well as plus

signs.

But let us take, for example, in Sweden, they have this program

to have zero-carbon buildings. OK. And in some areas, you can’t do

it unless it is zero-carbon. Well, the people that do that, they put

in the expenditures for more insulation in the window treatments,

and they use the new computer-assisted design to orient to the sun

just right, and there are things they can do now that are fairly simple once they understand what they are doing. And it ends up

being zero-carbon. Well, it more than pays for itself. And that is

an example of a plus sign where we are going to benefit from the

expenditures.

There are some other approaches that would be costly. But if we

pick and choose correctly, we can improve our economy’s productivity and performance and save money.

Now this is not some alchemy or some mysterious process. Pollution is waste. You have got to buy raw materials in order to make

pollution. And if you can figure out how to be more productive and

put more of those raw materials into your product and less into the

waste stream, you are going to save money in the process.

Now the Stern report came out in the United Kingdom, and I

was asked to serve as an adviser to the government over there. It

has been an interesting process. And incidentally, I just came back

from there this past week. And I will say this to my friends on the

23

Republican side of the committee, over there, the Tories and the

Labour Party are all on the same side on this. They are competing

with one another vigorously. But they are competing on the basis

of who can present the most effective solutions for it. They don’t

argue about the science. The debate on science is over with.

And so now the Stern report, which came out of there, said that

the cost to our economy of not solving this crisis would be devastating. And so if we go about it in the right way, we can save money.

If we don’t confront the problem, the cost to the economy would be

enormous.

I am sorry to take up your time.

Chairman DINGELL. The time of the gentleman has expired.

The Chair recognizes now the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Barton, for 5 minutes.

Mr. BARTON. Mr. Chairman, I would like the additional 5 minutes.

Chairman DINGELL. The gentleman will be recognized for 10

minutes.

Mr. BARTON. First. I do want to again welcome the Vice President. I sincerely don’t agree with your conclusions, but I sincerely

appreciate your passion and your willingness to try to make a difference. I honestly commend you for standing up for what you believe in and being willing to put your considerable prestige on the

line.

Mr. GORE. Thank you, Congressman.

Mr. BARTON. I will point out in passing that your actual testimony bears little resemblance to your written statement. I would

hope that we could get your legislative recommendations, which

were numerous, in writing so that we could actually study them.

Will that be possible?

Mr. GORE. Could I have permission to revise and extend for the

record?

Mr. BARTON. Yes, sir.

Mr. GORE. I will put all of this in written form.

Mr. BARTON. At least the legislative proposal.

Chairman DINGELL. If the gentleman would yield, the Chair is

going to see to it that we leave the record open and that suggestion, Mr. Vice President it would be very much appreciated by the

committee if you would be able to assist us in.

The gentleman from Texas.

Mr. BARTON. Thank you.

The first thing that I want to address is the science of global

warming as portrayed in the Vice President’s film, ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth’’. This is something that I think we absolutely have to

get right. Even the mainstream media, Mr. Vice President, are now

noticing that global warming science is uneven and evolving. We

need to be deliberative and careful when we talk about so-called

scientific facts.

In your movie, you display over a time line of temperature and

compare it to CO2 levels over a 650-year period as reconstructed

from ice core samples. You indicate that this is conclusive proof of

the link of increase CO2 emissions in global warming. A closer examination of these facts reveal something entirely different.

24

I have an article from the Science Magazine, which I will put

into the record at the appropriate time, that explains historically

a rise in CO2 concentrations did not precede a rise in temperatures

but actually lagged temperatures by 200 to 1,000 years. Yes,

lagged. CO2 levels went up after the temperature rose. It appears

that the temperature appears to drive CO2, not vice versa.

On this point, Mr. Vice President, you are not just off a little; you

are totally wrong. And it is not just this one article. The president

of the National Academy of Sciences agreed under oath last summer in an O&I Subcommittee hearing on this very point.

We know that CO2 levels have historically and repeatedly far exceeded the levels of concentrations that we are now experiencing,

which you, in your opening statement, correctly said was 380 parts

per million. Indeed, CO2 levels in the past have exceeded over a

thousand parts per million, and the average Earth temperatures

have been much higher than they are today. We know these things.

But because some of these levels occurred millions of years ago, reliable data regarding the details of these is limited. We do not

know whether the temperature rose before or after the rise in CO2

levels that far back.

But it remains a fact, and it is clear from the data that we do

have that, for hundreds of thousands of years, CO2 levels have followed temperature rise, not the other way around as you preach.

You have also asserted that global warming is going to cause sea

levels to rise by over 20 feet. Twenty feet. The recent IPCC report

indicates a rise of at most 23 inches. Inches. Twelve inches equals

a foot.

You state that there will be more and stronger hurricanes because of global warming. The IPCC report does not support this

claim.

You have also stated that malaria has been exacerbated in

Nairobi because of global warming. The World Health Organization

report does not support this allegation. In fact, malaria is not an

exclusively warm weather disease. Inhabitants in Siberia have long

experienced malaria outbreaks.

Your ideas aren’t all bad, Mr. Vice President. You list a number

of thoughtful responses to global climate change for this committee

to consider. They include: more efficient use of electricity in heating, cooling appliances and lighting; more energy-efficient buildings

and businesses; more fuel-efficient cars, both hybrid and fuel-cell

cars; better designed cities, mass transit; and fuel-efficient trucks;

increased use of renewables and carbon-capture and sequestration.

These are good ideas. They are not just reasonable responses to climate change, but they are good energy policies as well.

We have before us one of your tables from your book, I believe,

and I am happy to report that, in the last Congress, under the

chairmanship of myself with the strong and able support of Mr.

Dingell, the current chairman, we reported out and passed into law

the Energy Policy Act of 2005 on a bipartisan basis. If we look at

that piece of legislation, we will see that many of the things that

you recommended, we have already done.

You want more efficient heating and cooling systems, lighting,

appliances and electronic equipment. In the Energy Policy Act, we

did that in titles I, IX, and XIII. You want end-use efficiency design

25

of buildings and businesses to use far less energy than they currently do. We did that in titles I, IX and XIII.

You want increased vehicle efficiency cars that run on less gas,

and more hybrid and fuel-cell cars. We attempted to start that

process in EPAct titles VII, VIII, IX, XIII and XV.

You want to make other changes in transportation efficiency, better use of mass transit systems and heavy trucks. We do that in

title VII and IX.

You want increased renewable energy, wind, solar biofuels. We

do that in EPA title II, VII, VIII, IX, XII, XIII, XV, XVI, XVII and

XVIII.

And, finally, you think that we need to research and try to capture and store carbon from power plants and factories. We start

that process in EPA titles IV, IX and XVII.

So, in many of the things that you recommend, we not only agree

with you; we have already done it.

Some of your ideas, though, Mr. Vice President, I think are just

flawed.

Your suggestion of a carbon tax is something that would harm

our competitiveness, raise costs to American families, export jobs

and actually do very little to improve our environment. Likewise,

a Kyoto state cap and trade system for CO2 will mainly increase

the price of electricity while providing few, if any, environmental

benefits. These proposals, especially considering that neither of

them includes large emitters of greenhouse gasses, such as China

and India, fail the commonsense test that any legislation should

meet. They provide little benefit at a huge cost.

Instilling a carbon tax on the American people or instituting a

cap on carbon without the participation of nations like China and

India is an attempt to reverse global warming similar to a doctor

telling an overweight and sedentary chain smoker that he or she

needs to wear a seatbelt. China is adding a coal power plant a

week and will add more coal-fired electricity generation this year

than the entire State of Texas currently has.

When you were Vice President and you jetted into Kyoto to sign

the Kyoto Protocol, you rejected requests of people like myself and

Chairman Dingell to insist that China and the developing nations

be included in that same protocol.

Let us look at what has happened in Europe as they have tried

to instigate their carbon cap and trade. In Germany, electricity

wholesale rates have risen 30 to 40 percent, and they are facing

huge job losses. Despite all of the efforts of the European nations

that signed Kyoto, almost none of those countries are on target to

meet their Kyoto obligations. Cap and trade isn’t working in Europe. It will not even be tried in Asia, and it should not be unilaterally imposed in the United States of America.

You just gave us an idea for a flat straight CO2 freeze, if I heard

you correctly. I think that is an idea that is flawed. If you take that

literally, we can add no new industry, no new cars and trucks on

the streets and apparently no new people because people are mobile source emitters. Every person emits 0.2 tons of CO2 a year. So

an absolute true freeze, no new industry, no new people and no

new cars.

26

I think we need to approach a legislative initiative in these areas

with an eye on four basic principles: we first want to be sure that

it actually helps the environment. We want to keep our lights on

at an affordable price. We want to keep the American economy

strong, and we want to keep American jobs here in America. And,

finally, we can’t get out in front of things that are not technologically possible with at the current time, as I have noted.

On some of your ideas, we agree and we have already taken action. And hopefully in this Congress, we will take additional action.

Now I want to ask, in my last 19 seconds, this question. You said

that you support a CAFE increase. Do you support the CAFE increase like they have in Japan that is over 45 miles per gallon, or

do you support a CAFE increase more like they have in China

which is around 35 miles per gallon, and what is your time frame

for this increase that you do support?

Mr. GORE. Well, thank you very much, Congressman. I would

like to respond to several of the things that you asked me about.

First of all, I think that the committees should be under no illusion about what the scientific consensus is. The National Academy

of Science, not only in this country but in every major country in

the world, has endorsed the scientific consensus and is calling upon

you to act.

The IPCC, the most extensive and elaborate in-depth highestquality international scientific collaboration in all of history, has

now four times in the last 15 years, as recently as 6 weeks ago,

unanimously endorsed the consensus.

Scientific American had a special issue in September saying the

debate on global warming is over. The editor-in-chief of Science

Magazine said it is very rare to have a consensus in science as

strong as this one. One of the leading experts said it is a stronger

consensus than on practically anything except perhaps gravity. So

I think the consensus is, it is something that we ought to acknowledge and accept.

Now the fact that more CO2 traps more heat in the lower parts

of the Earth atmosphere is really beyond dispute. I mean, that is

not me saying that. That is what the scientists have known for 180

years. And for a hundred years, they have done the calculations on

pretty much exactly what the magnitude of the heating effect is.

And you know, for those who say that there may be some kind

of magic solar system phenomena at work here, how come it is getting cooler in the stratosphere at the same time it is getting warmer in the troposphere, the lower atmosphere? That is exactly what

the models predict.

Mr. BARTON. My time expired 2 minutes ago.

Mr. GORE. But if I could complete my response, Congressman.

Mr. BARTON. I hope there is an answer in this.

Mr. GORE. May I?

Mr. BARTON. I would like to have an answer to the straight question.

Mr. GORE. Well, you asked quite a few of them, and I am doing

my best.

Now, on CO2 and temperature, when CO2 goes up, temperature

goes up. That is why 20 of the 21 hottest years ever measured in

the human record have been in the last 25 years. The 10 hottest

27

have been since 1990. The hottest was 2005. The hottest in the

United States of America was 2006. The hottest winter ever measured globally was December of last year and January and February

of this year, last month. This is going on right now. The planet has

a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor

says, you need to intervene here, you don’t say, well, I read a scientific magazine that tells me it is not a problem. If the crib is on

fire, you don’t speculate that the baby is flame retardant. You take

action.

The planet has a fever. And 5 degrees may not sound like much

the range it is in the range that is projected, but the difference between 98.6 and 103.6 is 5 degrees. We have to take action on this.

Now in the ice core record, as I have said every time I give my

slide show, it is a coupled system. They go up and down together,

and indeed, there have been times since the entire interglacial

record is driven, the scientists tell us, by these cycles, the Earth

orbits around the sun, gets thinner and wider. On a 100,000-year

cycle, the tilt oscillates a degree and a half. On a 41,000-year cycle,

there is a wobble called presession. On a 22,000-year cycle—and

when those three overlap, it creates that historic pattern. That has

been true for 3 million years.

Mr. BARTON. The temperature goes up before the sea level goes

up.

Mr. GORE. Sometimes that has been true in the past. The opposite has also been true in the past. But what is happening now is

that we, because of human action, are overwhelming all of those cycles.

Just a couple more brief points, if I could, Mr. Chairman.

There is no consensus linking the frequency of hurricanes to

global warming, and I have never said there is. It is the intensity

of hurricanes. It is also true the scientists say you can’t take an

individual storm and say, this is caused by global warming. But

the odds of stronger storms are going up.

I see the gavel, and I would like to respond to the other three

questions you asked, but in courtesy to the other members, I will

try to weave them into other—I ask your direction, Mr. Chairman.

Do you want me to briefly answer them now?

Chairman DINGELL. The Chair is in a pickle. I have a lot of

Members that have to be heard.

Mr. GORE. I understand. I will answer the other questions for the

record if that is OK.

Chairman DINGELL. That would be splendid. Without objection,

so ordered.

We are going to see to it that there is broad opportunity for insertions in the record by all Members and by our distinguished witness.

The Chair recognizes now the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Boucher, for 5 minutes.

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

And Mr. Vice President, we welcome you here this morning.

Thank you for taking time with us and thank you, also, for the

groundbreaking work that you have done in drawing global attention to the human contribution to climate change and the need to

28

control greenhouse gas emissions. We congratulate you on that

work.

Mr. GORE. Thank you.

Mr. BOUCHER. We are planning in our committee for later this

spring the drafting of a greenhouse gas control measure. We have

not made decisions as of this point about the control methodology.

And we are evaluating a number of different alternatives that

could achieve significant reductions.

I would welcome your advice today on what those various methodologies might be. You mentioned in your testimony the possibility of a cap on greenhouse gas emissions followed by some form of

emission trading program: We adopted such a program in 1990 in

our Clean Air Act amendments applicable to sulfur dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, and that program has been a

sterling success. In fact, it succeeded far better than even those of

us responsible for drafting that thought that it would.

The European Union, on the strength of that success, decided to

apply a cap and trade regime so it is—to satisfy in the Kyoto Treaty obligation on greenhouse gasses. But I think the consensus now

after several years of experience with that in Europe is that their

program was flawed. And so I would welcome your views this

morning on what the Europeans did properly with regard to their

cap and trade; what they did not do properly; and what could have

been done better; and your evaluation of whether cap and trade is

an approach that we should seriously consider for adoption here in

the U.S. as we devise an approach to greenhouse gas controls.

Mr. GORE. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is a great question, and I do recommend a cap and trade approach, and when the

first President Bush first proposed the sulfur dioxide cap and trade

system, I was a supporter of it, but you are right. Even the most

enthusiastic supporters underestimated how effective that was. We

got much sharper reductions at much lower costs. Trust the market. Make it work for us instead of against us.

Now the European system is in fact working, and it is beginning

to work extremely well. I disagree respectfully that they are not

meeting their targets. It is a Europe-wide target, and they are

going to be on track to meet it. It is not individual countries. Some

of them are ahead of their internal targets. Others are behind. As

a region, they are not only meeting them; they just adopted binding

targets last week when I was over there that go much deeper than

their obligations under Kyoto, a 20 percent reduction, and they will

take it to 30 percent if we join in the regime. So they are finding

that it is much easier to do, and they are moving more quickly.

Now here is what they did wrong when they started. They miscalculated their base year, and so, since all of the reductions have

to be measured against the base year, it matters a lot if they get

that wrong. They also had a first phase, a start-up period that was

way too long. Now they have recognized that, and they have adjusted both of those things. They are really on this case. At the

prime minister level, they had all of them meeting just last week.

This is the number one issue over there in lots of those countries,

and again, as in the UK, it is bipartisan. It is across the party

lines, and people are up in arms about it. And the business leaders

29

are demanding that the government act, and the governments are

acting. So I think they fixed the two problems that they had.

Now, the U.S. is about 23 percent of the ongoing annual carbon

emissions. On a historic basis, we are responsible for about 30 percent of the CO2 that is up there, and if we stop completely tomorrow, it would be a hundred years before half of it fell out. So it is

a difficult challenge. But since we are not participating in the cap

and trade system, it is a little bit like a bucket with a hole in it.

You can still use a bucket with a hole in it, but it will be a lot more

efficient if that 23 percent hole is plugged. Then what you will find

is the global market in carbon trading will reach much higher levels of efficiency.

Now, here is what it is doing at the company level. I gave the

keynote speech last week at a conference called Point Carbon,

where they had companies from all over the world, simultaneous

translation through Japanese, that and the other. And they are focused on how this trading system works.

A year ago, at the same conference, they did a study of the thousands of companies represented there and asked them how many

of these companies are reducing internally their carbon and managing it. It was 15 percent. Last week, this year, 65 percent. So,

just in 1 year’s time, you have had that big increase. And I think

the same thing is beginning to happen here in this country.

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

Chairman DINGELL. The time of the gentleman has expired.

The Chair recognizes now the distinguished gentleman from

Texas, Mr. Hall, for 5 minutes.

Mr. HALL. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

And Al, I do respect you and your great family, and I am older

than Mr. Dingell, and I remember the services of your father that

worked alongside our Sam Rayburn. And I have read of and some

people think I remember Sam Houston, another great Tennessean.

Mr. GORE. Also from Tennessee.

Mr. HALL. And Bart Gordon is really helping me. I don’t know

that he really realizes it or not, but he is a great guy and a Tennessean, and I never met a Tennessean that I didn’t like, honestly.

Barton says that every time somebody left Tennessee and came to

Texas, it raised the character in both States. That is a good statement to make.

But I have to differ with you on some things, and let me tell you.

I have admired you. We sat right side by side on these committees

and worked together. We held a conference one time, a hearing on

my boat out in front of Thomas Jefferson’s home there.

Mr. GORE. Yes.

Mr. HALL. And when your little one was injured, you had the

prayers of everybody up here.

Mr. GORE. Thank you.

Mr. HALL. And you are dear to us, but I just don’t agree with

you on this. But Bart mentioned, and I want to thank him for mentioning it, he mentioned it himself, I heard him say cost. That is

12 times that we heard it here in just a little bit. If you say it costs

nothing now, and I think you said ‘‘There are some who will say

that acting to solve this crisis will be costly; I don’t agree.’’ Then

you go on to say some ways to where it won’t be costly, but I think

30

that you are going to—we are going to hear from Dr. Lomborg here

in just a little bit. In his testimony, he said, and we are talking

about the Kyoto Protocol, which even if it had been successfully

adopted by all signatories, including the United States and Australia, and even if it had been adhered to throughout the century,

it would postpone warming by just 5 years in 2100. That is 90

years from now; 89 years from now, I believe. I am not good at

math. At a cost of $180 billion annually, and it would hold off global warming 4 years. That doesn’t look like a very good deal to me,

and who is going to pay for it?

Ask China what they think about paying for it. Ask Mexico. Ask

India. Ask a number of other countries. My question, though, to get

around to my question is that, if the United States and China and

India do not incur the cost of reducing their emissions—at the

same time, are you concerned that the United States will be at a

competitive disadvantage?

Let me go a little further. If developing countries are not required to take action at the same time as the United States, what

will happen to the United States manufacturing sector when you

add in the costs of reducing emissions to the products produced domestically versus those products produced overseas that do not

incur such costs at the same time?

I guess my question is, how would you prevent the United States

manufacturers from being harmed?

Mr. GORE. Well, Congressman Hall, Ralph, if I may, thank you

so much.

I was thinking, remembering fondly that evening on your boat

out there, and I would love to do that again some time.

Mr. HALL. We will do it any time you want to.

Mr. GORE. Thank you. I enjoyed working with you when we were

on the committee together, and I really do believe what I said earlier, Ralph, that we have got to find a way to reach across the aisle

on this and recreate what used to be a bipartisan consensus in support of the environment here in this Congress, and even when

these measures, like the ones we are talking about here, are involved.

Now, on China and India, it is a very serious challenge and here

is the reality of it: Every single global treaty since the end of World

War II has had the same basic design. The countries that have

higher per capita incomes are put in one category, and the countries that have, just one one-hundredths in some cases, of what the

per capita income in Europe, Japan, the U.S. is, they are in another category. And they say, look, we don’t have the ability to bear

that burden in the same way. We don’t have the technologies, and

you all created this problem. You start, and then we will come

along.

And in every treaty that has been written since 1945, that has

been the approach that has had to be taken. I wish it to be otherwise. But in a negotiation, when you have got all of these power

countries banding together, nobody has found a way to crack that

walnut open with another kind of formula. The way to improve the

odds that they are going to come on board is for the United States

to take the lead.

31

Now we have got something else going for us, and that is that

these countries now are beginning to understand very clearly that

they have to act in their own self interest. You take China, for example. Both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River originate on

the ice fields on the Tibetan Plateau. They are having terrible

water shortages in many parts of China, particularly northern

China. They are having terrible pollution problems related to their

coal expenditures. They now have these mass demonstrations over

there, believe it or not. They are not covered in their news media,

of course, but they are really having a difficult time. That is why

their two top leaders have both made important speeches just in

the last 2 weeks saying that they have got to address this; they

have expressed their determination, too.

I don’t put much stock in those words until they follow it up, but

the way to improve the odds, if they do, is for us to show the leadership. And I think most of what we do is going to make us more

competitive with them.

Mr. HALL. My time is up, but I just want to tell you that negotiations spawn treaties, and every negotiation we have had from

China, Lord knows, I have heard the word no when it comes to talk

about cost.

Chairman DINGELL. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. HALL. And I yield back my time.

Chairman DINGELL. You owe us about 15 seconds.

The Chair recognizes the distinguished chairman, Mr. Lampson.

Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for joining us

today. Your public service is most appreciated.

In 1945, the United States Army published a book cautioning our

country about our reliance on fossil fuels. It has been 62 years

since that message was published, since that statement was published. Even you with your message, your positions that you have

held have been—you have had a very difficult time getting the

message out to the rest of this world, but your relentlessness is

hopefully going to pay off, and I thank you for that.

I have two questions if I can get them both in.

First, if we take action to address our climate change challenges,

don’t we also address many other problems that we face? For example, can we also achieve air quality benefits, greater energy independence and reduced traffic congestion and maybe even more?

And would you comment on that, please?

Mr. GORE. Is that both of your questions?

Mr. LAMPSON. That is just one.

Mr. GORE. Yes, I think that is absolutely the case. And there was

an effort to include the CO2 pollution in with the other pollutants

so that the utilities could address them at the same time when

they modernize and update, and I still think that is the way to go.

But there is no doubt that if you cut down on the global warming

pollution, you are also going to make the air cleaner. Asthma rates

will likely go down. Lung diseases will likely be less severe. Congestion, if we enact some of the sensible solutions on transportation, yes, you will solve some other problems that need to be addressed anyway. I agree with you totally.

Mr. LAMPSON. So significant potential savings. As we probably

all know, coal is the least expensive and the most abundant fuel

32

that we have in this country and the fuel that is most available in

India and China as well. Recently, in Texas, TXU had a plan to

build eight new coal-fired plants, and that caused a great deal of

controversy due to the concerns about air quality and carbon dioxide emissions. What do we need to do to make clean coal viable?

And what are the key areas of research and investment that we

need?

Mr. GORE. Well, first of all, I want to compliment the people of

Texas who rose up en masse to block that cynical plan by TXU to

move forward. And you know, if you look at what happened, it was

Republican mayors alongside Democratic mayors, virtually every

significant mayor in the State of Texas was involved in protesting

that going forward. You and your group, Nick, were just terrific in

that. And this is a grassroots movement. And it is bipartisan.

And now to your question, we need to make sure that we accelerate the development of carbon capture and sequestration. And we

need to avoid the easy assertion that if you just use it for enhanced

oil recovery, that is sequestering it, because the geological deposits

have to be ones that are not porous. We can’t pretend that it won’t

come back up through if it is put in the wrong places. But if it is

done right, then this does open up the opportunity to continue

using coal.

Now, pulverized coal, according to the old approach where they

just heat it up, then you are producing so much nitrogen along

with the CO2, there is no way to capture it. New designs with oxygen enrichment—this is above my pay grade—but they say there

are ways to design these plants that make them capture and sequestration friendly.

Now, a lot of times, the problem is, you have to have the geological formation close enough to the coal deposits and also close

enough to the places where you are going to sell the electricity to

make it all economically feasible. The places that are doing the

best job appear to be Norway and Iceland. And they are storing it

offshore under the seabed where the water pressure holds it in

place safely. But coal’s future depends on getting an accurate price

for carbon in the marketplace and the speedy development of carbon capture and sequestration technology.

Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you very much. I have other questions. I

would like to submit them for the record, and I yield my time.

Chairman DINGELL. Without objection, so ordered.

The Chair recognizes now the distinguished gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Hastert, our former Speaker, for 10 minutes.

Mr. HASTERT. I appreciate this opportunity, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Gore, welcome back to the Energy and Commerce Committee. We appreciate you and Professor Lomborg appearing before us

today to discuss the very important issues surrounding global climate change. I listened to you and sometimes in wonderment, and

we talk sometimes in very general language and talk about modernizing and upgrades. We talk about capital investment, research

and development. But all of those have costs, and you are able to

develop to be able to pay for things, costs, you go two places. You

can tax the American people and tax the American industry, or you

can have the old fashioned way, the things that our Forefathers did

33

basically is have economic activity and market economy and investment and coming from the free market and people’s pockets.

There are two ways to get money out of people’s pockets: investment and taxing. I was somewhat amazed to go through your 10

or 15 issues here or your recommendations. I think a lot of those

recommendations I can agree with. But a lot of those recommendations are more regulation and more taxation. And we find out in

this economy, this world, when we tend to regulate, when we tend

to tax, you depress the ability of the free market to work. And

sometimes people in this dark side of the aisle, as you said, talk

about less regulation and less taxation to make our economy work

to give the free people freedom to invest.

Let me just say, Mr. Vice President, I agree with you. I agree

with you that the debate over climate change is over. I believe the

Earth climate is constantly changing. As a farmer, I could tell you

that I see evidence of this fact every year. Any one of my constituents can tell you the same thing, and I also agree that the science

tells us the Earth’s average temperature increased in the 20th century, and financially, I agree with you that human activity and economic development has an impact on our environment.

But I am less certain about the nature and extent of man’s contribution. But we will let history debate and determine what that

is.

The fact is, you have laid out some things and places that we

need to go. And as a thinker, as a personality and now a movie

star, you can come back with those general themes, those broad

things and say, ‘‘Do this.’’

Mr. GORE. Rin Tin Tin was a movie star. I just have a slide

show.

Mr. HASTERT. The fact is, I have pledged my cooperation with

Mr. Dingell the esteemed chairman of this committee, and Mr.

Boucher, who is the chairman of the Energy Subcommittee. I think

there are answers. But the fact is, 50 percent of our energy is coal.

There is more energy under Gillette, WY, than there is in all of

Saudi Arabia. We have the potential in States like Virginia and

Kentucky and southern Illinois and southern Indiana and Wyoming and Montana and others to be able to harness that energy,

but it happens to be coal energy.

We also have natural gas. We have some oil. But we can’t sustain the need for the growth in energy in this country that we are

going to need in the next 10 years, a 40 percent increase, because

we do have an increase in population. And although our population

has curved down, probably doesn’t keep up with the rest of the

world, but that is a fact. I have a new grandson. I am proud of it.

I hope he has grandsons to come.

But that is the fact, that we are going to have to have that

growth. So how do we meet that? How do we do it? How do we find

the new technologies and the new ideas and the new sciences to be

able to do it? Nine times out of 10 it is going to be individual investment. It is going to be people saying, this is a good idea, I am

going to put money in this idea, and I am going to help create a

better world because of it, and by the way, we may make a little

profit off of it on the side. And that just happens to be how this

country works.

34

So I think we can find answers to use the coal energy, to use the

natural gas energy that we have, to use the renewable fuels of ethanol and soy diesel.

And there is another issue, too. We need to use atomic energy,

and we have the ability today—you know, I wrote the Public Utility

Act in Illinois in 1984 when 14 nuclear units were coming on line

and the cost went from $400 million to $5 billion per unit. And I

predicted we would never see another nuclear plant built in the

country for 25 years. And, ironically, I was right.

But it is time to review this and renew it because we can have

clean air with nuclear energy. But there is a problem. There is a

gentleman over in the Senate that has his hand in—not a veto

hand, a debate hand, a filibuster hand on the finishing of Yucca

Mountain where our rate payers put $18 billion into that to make

it happen.

So that is a political reality, but we need to change that. We

need to find the solutions so that we can deposit nuclear waste.

I would say, Mr. Vice President, there are a lot of things that we

can do. And there is a lot of potential for the future of this Nation.

And I understand the problems with China and India and Mexico

and Brazil and other nations that you say have low income. But

you find out today that China has amassed more capital, real capital, than almost any other country over the last 5 years. That capital needs to be spent, not just on highways, but they are building

those coal-fired plants. They can also be investing in new technology and new ideas, and that needs to be done, because they are

building the equivalent of 500-megawatt plants of pure coal, no

clean up, every week. And no matter what we do in this country—

we have stopped every car, stopped every coal-fired electric plant,

and we couldn’t match in our drop in energy what they add in energy in pollution every year—every week.

So we have a challenge. We not only have a challenge to this

country; we certainly have a global challenge. I was there in Kyoto.

I watched this development. I also remember when you came in

and signed the agreement and changed it a bit. The fact is, not everything has worked. And I believe in international relations. I believe that we need to have international compacts, but we also need

to make sure that, when we do it, they do work.

So what I am asking and what I am saying is that I think there

are answers, answers using the resources we have. I know you disagree with us on coal, but I think there are ways we could use the

coal in this country. But there are some things we can do with

atomic energy. There are some things that we can do with renewable fuels.

And the other part of this is we have become so dependent on

foreign fuels that we are tied to sheiks and dictators and who

knows what; countries like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia and Iran

and Iraq and Qatar—with all due purposes—and places like Nigeria, and I can go on and on.

When somebody decides to turn the spigot off, we don’t have energy. And we lose jobs. And we lose the ability to produce in this

country.

I spent last weekend in Detroit, the home of our esteemed chairman, and I happened to be at the wrestling tournament, Mr. ChairVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:51 Dec 13, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Q:\DOCS\110-23 SCOM1 PsN: SCOM1
35

man. I wasn’t raising money in your district. I just wanted to let

you know that. Maybe a little. But anyway, what I saw in a place

called Dearborn, Michigan, going down the street were block after

block after block of empty factories where people once worked,

store after store after store closed where people used to do commerce and buy things. And as we increase regulation, we force jobs

out of this country. And if we cut off CO2 emissions and froze them

today, we would have literally tens of thousands of jobs that would

be moved to China and India and other places in the world, and

we would lose them. We would have more empty factories. We need

to work on solutions and find the legislative language and the legislative fixes that make that work.

Can you help us do that?

Mr. GORE. Congratulations on your new grandson. Is that your

first grandchild?

Mr. HASTERT. First grandchild.

Mr. GORE. You are going to find grandparenting is not overrated,

and it is rated pretty high. Tipper and I had a new grandson also

just 2 months ago, and you are going to love it.

And it is really without being corny about it, it really is for them

that we are all trying to find a way to the right solutions here.

I know that time is short so let me just be brief in response to

your several comments and questions.

In your initial recitation of what you agree with, Congressman,

maybe I heard you wrong, but I think you stopped short of the part

of the consensus that acknowledges that human activity is the

principal cause of the warming.

Mr. HASTERT. I think I said that.

Mr. GORE. I just wanted to make sure because, once that is established, then we have got a moral imperative to act here.

And then you pose the choice between taxing and investing. That

may be an unfair compression of what you said, but the investments in TXU that were mentioned earlier came to naught because

the investors decided that there was such unpredictability about

the price of carbon that they just couldn’t go forward with the plan,

and so they had to completely re-jigger it.

I don’t think we should raise taxes at all. I think that we should

shift the burden away from working people and small business people and put it on pollution instead. And I think, if we do that, we

are going to make our businesses more competitive. Some of the

Rust Belt devastation that you described, some of it has been due

to the fact that old inefficient polluting approaches no longer work

in a competitive world economy and actually focusing on reducing

the pollution turns out often to be one of the shortcuts to finding

the most competitive new approaches that can restore jobs and

make us more productive and more competitive in the global economy.

You mentioned nuclear. I am sure that will come up again. I am

not an absolutist in being opposed to nuclear. I think it is likely

to play some role. I don’t think it is going to play a major role. But

I think it will play some additional role, and I think the reason it

is going to be limited is mainly the costs. They are so expensive,

and they take so long to build, and at present, they only come in

36

one size: extra large. And people don’t want to make that kind of

investment on an uncertain market for energy demand.

Chairman DINGELL. The Chair observes that the time of the gentleman has expired.

The Chair is going to recognize next the distinguished gentleman

from North Carolina, Mr. Butterfield, for 5 minutes.

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for convening this hearing today.

You told us a few weeks ago that you were going to exert bold

leadership in this area, and today is an example of your leadership.

Thank you so very much.

I also want to thank the Vice President for coming forward today

and thank you for your past leadership on this issue and your future leadership on this issue. Thank you very much for coming.

Mr. Vice President, as I was telling you in the ante room before

we started, I will continue that now, some of my friends on the

other side of the aisle make the argument that greenhouse gas

emissions substantially consist of water vapors and that CO2 is

only a minute fraction of those vapors of those gasses. Would you

elaborate on that and help us with it?

Mr. GORE. First of all, thank you for your service, Congressman,

as vice chairman of the committee, and I appreciate your focus on

this.

Water vapor is indeed the most common greenhouse gas. But

there are two things about it that are really significant. Number

1, the residence time is only a few days in the atmosphere, up to

10 days, and it recycles constantly. Second and most important, it

is a slave to CO2. In other words, it goes up and down depending

upon the warming that is initially driven by the CO2. Whatever the

cause is, whether it is methane in the ancient past, these long-term

hundred thousand year cycles, whenever it is warmer, the water

vapor increases, and it magnifies the warming phenomena. But in

the time frames that we are dealing with and in the policy framework in the science that they tell us is relevant to the policy

choices we have, it is completely a slave to CO2. So less CO2 reduces the water vapor at the same time. It magnifies it in either direction.

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. It is clear, Mr. Vice President, from your film

that you have spent a great deal of time in China. There is a perception here that China is doing nothing, absolutely nothing to control their greenhouse gas emissions. But the big four accounting

firm, Ernst & Young, indicates that China is one of the top 10

countries for clean energy investment. And it is closing fast on our

country.

What are the Chinese really doing to promote clean energy?

Mr. GORE. Well, they have announced grand plans, but as I said

earlier, I think the proof is going to be in the pudding. There is no

question that the top leadership in China is seized of this issue.

They have made a bold commitment on it. The leader of China, Hu,

has made several statements on it. They have made it a prominent

goal in their new 5-year plan, co-equal allegedly with GDP. Wu

Xintao has made two speeches in the last 10 days on this. They are

deeply concerned that their coming out party at the Olympics is

going to be spoiled by all of their pollution. The Yellow River often

37

doesn’t reach the sea anymore for some months. And the melting

of ice on the Tibetan Plateau has been one of the major factors in

driving uncertainty about water supplies in many parts of China,

principally in northern China but throughout China. They are

deeply concerned about the sea level issue.

I have given my slide show multiple times in China and went to

the trouble to get it all translated into Mandarin and so forth. And

when I was Vice President, I gave the presentation in the Great

Hall of the People.

They have scientists that are right out there on the cutting edge.

And they have got national leaders who can describe the problem

and tell you why it is serious. They are riding a tiger in the sense

that their growth is so rapid and they are having trouble they say

with their regional leaders. I think they can do this if they want

to. And I think that they are preparing to initiate big policy

changes.

But again, the way to improve the odds that they will get on

board with this is by the United States showing leadership. Their

emissions of CO2 will likely surpass ours within the next 2 years

or so. And that, again, puts the focus on the follow-on to Kyoto,

which I think should be moved forward to 2010.

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Do you agree or disagree that it is too late to

prevent the carbon dioxide emissions from increasing to 450?

Mr. GORE. I do not agree that it is too late at all. And may I say,

I respect those who try to set some concentration level to aim at,

450, 550, whatever, I think the present level is too high. And I

think 450 would be exceedingly dangerous. I understand that we

are now in a time where the maximum that is considered politically feasible now still falls short of the minimum that will really

address the problem.

So our challenge is to expand the limits of what is feasible. And

the good news is once we start and shift our momentum, then we

will find it is a whole lot easier to do than people are saying now,

and businesses already getting on board. You have an outfit like

Wal-Mart, they are not doing that because they want to commit

economic suicide. They are making money at it because they figured out that they can be more productive and more profitable by

cutting their emissions. And I think as more businesses get with

that program, we are going to find this all gets a lot easier.

Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Thank you, sir. I think we have run out of

time.

Chairman DINGELL. Time of the gentleman has expired. The

Chair recognizes now the distinguished gentleman from South

Carolina, Mr. Inglis. The Chair inquires would the gentleman like

5 minutes or 10 minutes?

Mr. INGLIS. I would like to reclaim my time. I may not use it all.

Chairman DINGELL. The gentleman has the right.

Mr. INGLIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Gore, for

being here. I am one of the people that paid for seeing The Inconvenient Truth.

Mr. GORE. Thank you.

Mr. INGLIS. And there are PowerPoints that I would have paid

to get out of—a lot of them. But this is one I actually enjoyed seeVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:51 Dec 13, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Q:\DOCS\110-23 SCOM1 PsN: SCOM1
38

ing and it is a great work and I appreciate the work you have done

there.

Mr. GORE. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Mr. INGLIS. As a conservative, I think it is important to note a

couple of things. One is we really should internalize the externals.

Because as a conservative, I believe in markets. And the only way

a market can work is if it rightly judges the price of our product.

And actually that is not just economics, that is Biblical notions, the

concept that I can’t do on my land something that hurts your land.

I have got to keep on my land the products of my land and not

harm your land. That is the basis of Biblical law. It is the basis

of English common-law. It is the basis of what we have in our

country now. It is a conservative concept.

Also I think we have wonderful conservative opportunities with

things like net metering. What a deal if I can invest in my house

and make it a profit center, recoup some of my investment in my

roof by making it create electricity.

Also, I am one of these folks who believes, as a conservative, you

teach your kids to do the right thing even when nobody is watching. So, yes, we have to somehow cajole China and India along. But

you have to do the right thing even when no one is watching. That

is what conservatives believe.

Conservatives also believe we struggle around here a lot with dynamic as opposed to static scoring. We get upset with CBO all the

time for not dynamically scoring our tax bills. I think we have to

dynamically score this can-do American spirit that did the Transcontinental Railroad, that finished the Panama Canal, and then

went to the moon. There is a way to break our addiction to oil.

There is a way to unleash the inventors and entrepreneurs of

America to deliver new and better sources of energy, cellulosic ethanol, better solar cells, next generation nuclear power and hydrogen power for our cars.

So I agree with you that it doesn’t necessarily have to be a lose

proposition that really this can be a win proposition for the American economy.

Now, the question is, how did you get there? Because there are

some scary costs that we face, and Mr. Hall has mentioned that

word.

And there are trade-offs. And I have a case study to put before

you. One of those CEOs that you mentioned earlier is Jim Rogers,

CEO of Duke Energy.

He was in my office recently and told me of a decision he faces.

It is either to build in South Carolina a nuclear plant which he

would prefer to build, or a coal fired plant which he would prefer

not to build. But the problem is, it is very difficult to get all the

ducks in a row, if you will, for a nuclear plant, although that really

would be their preference.

I wonder if you could, having established a series of agreements

here if you would agree that part of the solution here is to make

it possible for a Duke Energy to build that nuclear power plant,

rather than to build that coal-fired plant which is 24, 7, 365 days

a year going to belch out CO2. Is that something we can agree on to advance this nuclear option

so that this real world decision right now being made within—by

39

the way—the next several weeks they are going to make this decision.

Signal them there can be bipartisan agreement here, that they

got a future in that nuclear plant.

Mr. GORE. First of all, Congressman thank you for your statements. And I know you went down to Antarctica with former Congressman Boehlert, and I have noticed some of your statements

over the last few years. And I really, I yearn for the day when

there are more of you on your side—and I think the number is increasing all the time—so that we can have a really healthy debate

where you all bring your core principles to the table, and the

Democratic side brings their core principles to the table. And then

we try to get the most effective solutions in this. I couldn’t agree

more.

That is what was happening in the United Kingdom, as I said

earlier, that is the way we ought to be doing it. And yes, our faith

traditions teach us about this and without proselytizing, all the different faith traditions teach similar things. I come out of the Judeo

Christian tradition, as you do, and I am taught the Earth is the

Lord’s and the fullness thereof. I believe the purpose of life is to

glorify God and we can’t do that if we are heaping contempt on the

creation. And there are multiple teachings that all point in the

same direction.

Now, on conservative principles, I have always believed that one

conservative principle is decentralization put more options into the

hands of the individuals and the small business people. And that

is one of the reasons why I think the single best thing we could

do on electricity is to adopt what is called a feed and tariff system

to eliminate the limits on the ability of individuals to sell decentralized electricity back into the grid and have a fair rate for it,

and that will avoid the difficult choice that you say Jim Rogers is

facing right now.

I think that decentralization is the wave of the future. And also

on liquid fuels for road transport, by the way, and the next generation ethanol the enzymatic hydrolysis stuff that is coming on line.

But on your core choice, I am not opposed to nuclear. I have deep

questions about it. I am concerned about it. I used to be enthusiastic about it. Back when I represented Congressman Gordon’s district, TVA had 21 nuclear power plants under construction. And

then later, I had represented Oak Ridge where we were immune

to the effects of nuclear radiation so I was very enthusiastic about

it.

But 19 of those 21 plants were canceled. And I am sure Bart gets

the same questions I used to get about whether those partly finished cooling towers might be used for a grain silo. But people are

upset still that they have to pay for them and not be able to get

any electricity for them.

And I think the stoppage of the nuclear industry was really less

due to 3-mile island and Chernobyl and environmental concerns

and more due to the fact that after the OPEC oil crisis of 1973 and

1979, the projection for electricity demand went from 7 percent

annualized compounded down to 1 percent.

And when energy prices are going up, the uncertainty over how

much they can plan for also goes up. Now electricity ought not folVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:51 Dec 13, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Q:\DOCS\110-23 SCOM1 PsN: SCOM1
40

low the price of oil, but it does because there is just enough

fungibility between oil and coal on the margins that electricity

chases oil. Now oil is back at $60 a barrel. Where is it going to be

a year from now? We don’t know. But the fact of the uncertainty

is itself the reason why these utilities do not want to place all their

chips in one large bet that doesn’t mature for another 15 years at

a very expensive cost. The new generation, there may be smaller

incremental power plants, standardized, safer more reliable, perhaps we may get a solution to the long-term storage of waste issue.

I am assuming that we will, the reactor error. But go ahead.

Mr. INGLIS. In this case, we have a real live company offering to

build that nuclear plant that would produce no CO2. It does create

waste and as the speaker pointed out we need a place to put that

waste and it is a problem. But comparing that to the CO2 that is

going to come out of that plant 24, 7, 365 days a year, seems to

me to be a wonderful case where a company is willing to put that

much capital at risk and actually help solve the problem. We, it

seems to me we should help them out.

South Carolina, I understand we get 65 percent of our power

from nuclear; California, I understand it is 55 percent from natural

gas. I can’t imagine a worse use of a natural gas resource than

burning it to make electricity.

So, that being the case, shouldn’t we be moving as quickly as

possible—and this is not theoretical. This is a decision that could

be made within the next several weeks to decide to do something

that would actually reduce CO2 levels?

Mr. GORE. Yes.

Mr. INGLIS. In the little bit of time I have left, let me ask this

question. I wonder if there is a way the concern is China and India

and the other countries that won’t agree to anything and that has

been well stated on our side. I think that is a very legitimate concern.

I wonder if you have given any thought to the possibility of some

sort of a system where the developed world has an agreement that

if you are going to build a plant in our areas, then you will comply

with our notions of CO2 if you build a plant in China or in India

so that, in other words, in order to get a permit back here, you

have to agree that there, you will abide by the rules that are going

on here.

It is sort of takes it beyond the Chinese and Indians and says,

we, because this is fungible air, are going to help you make this

decision so that it also reduces one reason for exporting jobs, by the

way, because it then becomes—I don’t know if you given any

thought to that kind of concept?

Mr. GORE. Yes, I have. It is very difficult to integrate the social

and environmental factors into the world trading system, but I

think we should do it more effectively than we have.

I think that using the market is a more effective way to do it.

I am not opposed to including it in the terms of trade agreements

to the extent that we can do that. But a cap in trade system that

puts a price on the carbon—and you could even auction off the carbon price—that will allow the market to help you establish a price

and integrate it more quickly across national boundaries so that we

get the sharpest reductions globally.

41

Mr. INGLIS. Thanks.

Chairman DINGELL. Time of the gentleman has expired. The

Chair recognizes now the distinguished gentleman from Georgia,

Mr. Barrow.

Mr. BARROW. Thank you.

Mr. Vice President, thank you for being here today. As you stated a number of times today, the debate in the scientific community

about whether there is a problem, whether we are behind it and

whether we can do anything about it may be over. But as you can

see today, the debate in the political community about a couple of

core issues still goes on. We get folks who agree with the idea that

there is some change, but they will quibble with whether or not we

are the cause of it. They will agree that there is a climate change

going on, but they will quibble with the question of whether or not

we can do anything about it.

And just in the hearings we have had, I detected something of

a pattern on this subject. We opened up with a hearing with the

representatives of the scientific community who came before us and

said in no uncertain terms there is a problem. We are behind it.

And we have to do something about it. Then we had a series of

hearings with what I might call the impact community or the solution community, a series of hearings where we are consulting with

various sectors of the economy to go over with them the impacts

of various solutions are and what they are doing about it; the automobile industry, the utility company, the private sector, the automobile industry. We have a series of—in fact, this is about eighth

hearing that I can remember we have had so far on this subject.

And in the course of these hearings, in the course of them, I detected sort of a pattern that has emerged. When the experts on the

problem were here, there wasn’t much going on. There wasn’t much

back and forth on the subject of whether there was a problem or

not. But when we get into the solution hearings and impact hearings, we get a lot of folks pooh-poohing or putting down the issue

and raising questions, some of which we have heard today.

One of the questions I want to follow up on is sort of like a follow-up on what Congressman Butterfield was asking earlier. He

asked about the question about the relationship between water

vapor as a greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.

I want to follow up on similar statements that have been made, because just recently—well, earlier in this series of hearings in

March, March 7, there was a statement made by one of the members of this committee to the effect that natural emissions overwhelm manmade emissions.

The ratio of emissions of greenhouse gases that are natural to those that are manmade is so overwhelming that it calls into question or casts doubt on whether or

not we are actually responsible for any part of the problem or can do anything about

it.

What do you say to folks who argue that there really isn’t a problem or it is a problem we haven’t got our fingerprints on or can’t

do nothing about? What do you say to folks who argue that natural

emissions are overwhelming manmade emissions in this scenario?

Mr. GORE. Well, Congressman, first of all, thank you for the time

you put in delving into this issue. We have known each other almost 20 years now, and I appreciate your service very much.

42

Each one of these CO2 molecules has a kind of a chemical signature. And they can determine with a very high degree of accuracy

that the extra amount that has been added to the atmosphere in

the last 100, 150 years, since the beginning of the industrial revolution—but really in this past century are manmade.

Now, sometimes you will hear about the vast volumes of emissions that come from volcanoes for example. Here is what the scientists say is the difference there. They are heavy particulates and

they fall out of, back to the ground over a period of a year and a

half or so. And for that brief period of time they can have an impact. Mount Pinatubo had an impact. Way back in 1815, I guess

it was, we had a year without a summer because of a huge volcano

in Indonesia.

And one of the ways they have improved their understanding of

the whole science of global warming is by studying these natural

emissions. But most of them have the short residence times, short

life times in the atmosphere.

What the problem is is CO2. Now, methane is also a problem. Nitrous oxide is a problem. But the vast majority of the problem is

CO2—70 million tons every single day that we are putting up

there. And it stays there for so long—as I mentioned earlier, it

takes 100 years for half of it to come back out. So it is the old saying a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. We

have got to take a lot of steps. And we have to do it quickly. It is

not the natural emissions that is causing this. We are overwhelming the natural cycles.

Mr. BARROW. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. I am running out

of time, Mr. Chairman, so I yield back the balance. Thank you.

Chairman DINGELL. Chair thanks the gentleman. The Chair observes that the next of our colleagues to be recognized is Mr. Upton

of Michigan for 5 minutes.

Mr. UPTON. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Vice President, we welcome you today and we appreciated your testimony. I

want to say that as you ticked off a number of different recommendations, I think that there are a good number of them that

many of us can support. And I would note that in a hearing in the

last couple of weeks, my chairman, Mr. Boucher, said this, any bill

which we would support must have bipartisan support and industry support. It must be an economywide, not restricted to just certain economic sectors. It should be capable of passage not just in

the House, but in the Senate as well.

And we take that as a good challenge and we intend to work on

a bipartisan basis to see that.

Some of the things specifically that I appreciated in your comments were these, obviously, a move toward clean coal technology,

something that we have started and we need to finish. We do need

to use the Tax Code in a number of different ways.

For me, coming from Michigan where we have the highest unemployment rate in the Nation, jobs are certainly a big issue. And I

want to help the auto industry. And I must say that I am co-chair

of the auto caucus with my colleague Dale Kildee, the second largest bipartisan caucus in the Congress.

43

What we are seeking is not unfunded mandates but actually to

try and help the auto industry and therefore the consumers indeed

get better mileage and fuel economy standards with their vehicles.

Wind and electricity, obviously, those are issues that we all need

to move forward on. And I want to commend Ms. Harman and Mr.

Hastert and Mr. Boucher and myself, a number of us are looking

at technology for light bulbs to see a real change where we can see

true savings in that. And I would just note take in the bipartisan

energy bill that passed, the President signed in 2005, Mr. Markey

and I had a provision on daylight savings time that as we learned

for every day that we extended day light savings time we saved an

average of 100,000 barrels of oil energy equivalent.

As it turned out, a nonprofit study came out and it indicated that

we would, by the 4-week extension of daylight savings time, emit

11 million metric tons less of carbon between now and 2020.

But the questions that I have for you—and I really saw it missing in the debate as it related not only to your book but also in the

movie, you have touched on it briefly here—was the whole issue of

nuclear energy.

And now, Mr. Markey and I might agree on daylight savings

time and a few other things. But we disagreed strongly on Yucca

Mountain. And it was my bill along with Mr. Hastert and Mr. Barton and Mr. Dingell that we are truly helpful to begin to try and

see the funding for Yucca Mountain. And I remember that it was

your old boss, Mr. Clinton, who on a campaign stop back in the

1990’s, indicated to the voters in Nevada, that if he was elected

President, he would veto that bill. And I think that is, in essence,

what happened. We had to run over him to get where we were.

And you were quoted not too long ago, at least according to the

Nuclear Energy Information Resource Center, is ‘‘I do not support

any increased reliance on nuclear energy; moreover, I have disagreed with those who have classified nuclear energy as clean or

renewable.’’

Today we are seeing a new, new-coal fired plant being built in

China almost every 4 days, literally, 2 every week. Many of these

as I am told don’t have scrubbers. And as you talk about the big

dog in this fight, the nuclear industry—and I know that France is

about, I think 90 percent reliant on nuclear energy, and this country we are about 20 percent.

Right now there are about 24, 25 different nuclear plants being

promoted around the world—none of them in the United States.

And I am glad to hear my friend, Mr. Inglis, talk a little bit about

Duke Power down in South Carolina, because I am a supporter of

nuclear energy. And I do think that can be an enormous asset for

this country and the consumers. I am one that believes that the energy cost of $60 dollars a barrel they aren’t going to stay there.

They are only going to go up. And so as we look at a relationship

between the cost of energy and where we are nuclear, I think that

this is one of the savings that we can have. And I would hope that

because this was missing in the debate, in your book and the

movie, that perhaps in light of today’s hearings, perhaps you will

have a little change of mind, and I yield my 18 seconds back for

you to respond.

44

Mr. GORE. I don’t recognize the quote that you used as one of

mine. I am not saying it wasn’t, but I don’t really agree with the

way that was phrased.

I am not a reflexive opponent of nuclear power, Congressman. I

am just a skeptic about nuclear power’s viability in the marketplace. I think that if we let the market allow the most competitive

forms to surface, what we will see is decentralized generation,

widely distributed, we will see an emphasis on conservation and efficiency and renewable energy. But where nuclear power is concerned I have expressed my views, previously, I am not a reflexive

opponent, I think there will be some new nuclear power plants.

But you mention China. Look at their 5-year plan right now. You

are right, they plan 55 new coal fired power plants per year. Only

three nuclear plants per year. Now why? They don’t have any opposition that they can’t overcome pretty easily from Beijing. But they

see the same problems just in practical terms that a lot of our utilities see. These things are expensive and complicated. They take a

long time and the fragility of the operating regime has already

been seen. I have been to Chernobyl. I have been to Three Mile Island and I don’t want to exaggerate those problems.

I think that we can come up with solutions for the dangers of operator error. I think we can come up with solutions for long term

storage of waste. I don’t think Yucca Mountain is it. And I think

if you don’t skate past the real scientific evidence of what they

found at Yucca Mountain. What they found on the geology there

makes it simply wrong to put stuff that is going to need to be contained for tens of thousands of years in a place that is really not

appropriate for it. Now that is my reading of what the geological

survey has said about that. But I am not opposed to it as a category.

Chairman DINGELL. Chair recognizes now the distinguished gentleman from California, Mr. Waxman, for 5 minutes.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Vice

President, it is a pleasure to see you. And I want to commend you

for the enormous leadership role you are playing on educating the

American people and today educating the Congress about the

greatest threat to our planet. It is a threat not only because of the

environmental problem, but it is a threat as well to our national

security because burning of fossil fuels makes us more and more

dependent on unstable sources of petroleum from the Middle East.

When we look at this issue, it seems to me when we talk about

market forces. If government did nothing, there is no reason why

any business would want to spend the money to reduce emissions

unless they knew that every one of their competitors had to do it.

So when we hear about market forces, but don’t put any requirements on industries, that just won’t work because then the incentives are to pollute more because you don’t want to be at a competitive disadvantage.

When we put something in place to deal with this problem, it

strikes me that what we need to do is to look for renewable energy,

to look to alternative energy and greater energy efficiency.

I introduced a bill yesterday, the Safe Climate Act, and we tried

to use this comprehensive approach of looking at all these areas.

But we tried to use market systems as well in order to drive the

45

technology. The market systems would be a cap and trade, but the

levels that we have called for reductions in our pollution would be

to get to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent below that by 2050.

I would like to know whether you think these kinds of reductions

are the kinds of reductions that the scientists are calling for? A lot

of people want to do less because they think it is more politically

palatable. But if we are going to deal with this problem, let’s follow

the science, in my view, and get to the reductions we need. Do you

think these are realistic and important levels for reduction?

Mr. GORE. I really do, Congressman Waxman. And I commend

you on your legislation. I saw it yesterday. And I don’t feel that I

have the expertise to get into every part of all the different the

bills that have been introduced, but I sure do like your legislation

a lot. And I think the level of reductions that you are calling for

are in keeping with what the scientists would want us to do.

And some of them would want us to do even more. As I said earlier, I think that the current levels of 383 parts per million are already dangerously high.

I mean, if we see that the disappearance of the Arctic ice cap in

the next few decades, that would be a radically dangerous change

for our planet. A few years from now, we are going to be back here

or will be in conversations, all of us, about this, and the world is

going to look so different.

The range of things we are talking about now are just going to

seem so small compared to what people are going to be demanding

then. I am telling you the awareness on this is just on a straight

upwards trajectory. And it is not partisan. It is not partisan. This

is not a political issue. It is a moral issue.

And our children are going to be demanding this.

Now, so in terms of your legislation, I think you have done a

great thing there. And I think it is related to the energy security

crisis. We are at a carbon crisis. We are borrowing all this money

from China and buying all this oil from unstable places and burning it in ways that are destroying the habitability of the planet.

That whole pattern has to change.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Vice President, we on this committee have

fought conventional air pollution in the Clean Air Act and we had

a strong Clean Air Act, good legislation, consensus legislation that

we adopted in 1990. But conventional air pollution can also contribute to global warming. Shouldn’t we work to address conventional

pollutants like black carbon even while we press forward on reducing carbon dioxide emissions?

Mr. GORE. Absolutely, and the so-called four pollutant standard,

or ‘‘four P’’ approach is, I think, the most efficient for utilities, most

efficient for industry. If they are going to retrofit—and of course,

if they are going to expand, the law requires them to upgrade—

they should be doing all four of them at the same time. I agree

with you totally.

Mr. WAXMAN. I hear a lot from people who express hesitancy

about this issue. They say it is going to destroy our economy. Well,

that smacks of fear. And fear can be very paralyzing. I also hear

people say, well, they have a magic solution: nuclear power. I think

your approach is a smart one. It is a business-like approach. Nuclear power is an option. You don’t want to rule it out but it is cerVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:51 Dec 13, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Q:\DOCS\110-23 SCOM1 PsN: SCOM1
46

tainly no magic solution. It almost becomes a theological expression

whenever I hear a discussion of these environmental issues. My

view—and I think it is what I hear you saying as well—let’s unleash the ingenuity of the marketplace, give people the incentives

to do the right thing, and then just watch out because people are

going to develop technology that we don’t even know about today

that will help us deal with this problem.

But if we don’t put something in place to insist on those reductions, we jeopardize our planet. And some people have told us we

only have a small window of opportunity to act. I thank you for

your leadership on this issue.

Mr. GORE. Thank you for your leadership Congressman.

Chairman DINGELL. Time of the gentleman has expired. The

Chair recognizes now the distinguished gentleman from Maryland,

Mr. Bartlett for 5 minutes.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. Mr. Vice President, my

wife notes that she thinks there ought to be some relationship between conservative and conservation.

And indeed, I think it is probably possible to be a conservative

without appearing to be an idiot.

Mr. Vice President, there are several groups that have common

cause with you in wanting to reduce CO2 levels, CO2 production

through conservation, through efficiency and through more use of

renewables. These include those who are concerned with national

security, the fact that we have only 2 percent of the world’s oil, use

25 percent of the world’s oil, importing almost two-thirds of what

we use. Those that are concerned that fossil fuels are not infinite,

that we have probably reached about the midpoint of oil, which is

about peak oil, that it is going to be downhill after this, those who

are concerned about a challenge for increased economic development, more manufacturing export, which certainly could come from

a focus on moving to renewable and the general environmentalist

who understands that when you produce CO2, you also produce

other pollutants, and isn’t the air polluted enough, thank you.

We don’t have to agree with the premise of these other groups,

but I am a member of each of those groups, I would like to note,

to embrace a common solution.

And my question is, how can we get together to combine our

forces?

The second question I want to ask stems from a trip that I just

took to China. I led a delegation of eight other Members to China.

And we went to talk to them about energy. And I was stunned they

began their conversation by talking about post oil. And they have

a five-point plan, the first of which is conservation; second and

third, diversify your energy sources, get as much as you can from

your own country; and fourth, be kind to the environment, to the

planet. They know their awful polluters. They are asking for help.

And the fifth one is international cooperation. They recognize we

need international cooperation. And indeed, whichever one of these

camps you belong to global warming or national security or peak

oil, it is going to require international cooperation.

My second question is, are we adequately reaching out to China

and these other countries?

47

Mr. GORE. I don’t think we are. I think that the group that was

put together with U.S. and China and Australia and a couple other

countries has been unfortunately just an opportunity to talk and

not really do anything. In order to have success with them, I think

that we do need to take action ourselves, and I think that there

are aspects of this challenge beyond CO2 involving methane and

land cover, for example, that may offer some interesting possibilities for getting them to join earlier rather than later.

And of course, they bridge the categories. They are still a developing country, but they are the Saudi Arabia of manufacturing

now. And their emissions will, before too long, be more than ours.

So we have got to find a way to get them involved. But it is a negotiation.

Now, if they are the outlier, and if the rest of the world is acting,

I don’t think there is any doubt that they will join. I really think

that that is the best way to get them on board.

But we don’t have an option of just forcing them to do it.

I wanted to say, Congressman, that I have followed some of your

comments over the last several years, and you heard me quote one

of your comments in my opening statement. I do think that one of

the keys to getting a true bipartisan dialog here is by focusing

early on one of the realizations that you expressed early on, that

there are some places where the market is currently failing to internalize enough of the cost to give us an accurate picture of what

the choices are. And if the decision to pollute is free, and you can

dump as much of your pollution as you want on to everybody else,

then the actual cost there are misleading you because you are seeing them as free. They are really not free.

And the way to get our businesses—to give them a better chance

to really compete effectively is to internalize those costs so that

they can make more accurate calculations and get with the program. As soon as carbon has a price, you are going to do a wave

of investment that just will boggle the mind.

Just last week, Morgan Stanley executed the first trade in the

marketplace for carbon emissions post 2012, no legal regime out

there. The market is seeking to put a price on carbon. And I think

if this Congress can help them do so, that is one of the real keys

to unleashing this investment.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield

back.

Chairman DINGELL. Time of the gentlemen has expired. The

Chair recognizes now the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Markey.

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much and welcome

back, Al.

You and I were elected 30 years ago and sat down on this bottom

row. It seems like yesterday, but——

Mr. GORE. You had 3-week seniority on me.

Mr. MARKEY. You never forgot that or forgave me the 3 weeks

of seniority.

But back then, Congress had just passed a new law, which mandated the doubling of the fuel economy standards for the automotive fleet in the United States from 131⁄2 miles per gallon to 27

48

miles per gallon. Over the next 10 years, American dependence

upon imported oil dropped from 46 percent to 27 percent by 1986.

We had made a dramatic change in our relationship with imported oil.

But that number has stagnated since then and actually declined,

even as other countries had increased their fuel economy standard

requirements.

So as part of this discussion—and I know it is in your book, and

you have referred to it in your testimony—there is a conclusion

reached by the National Academy of Sciences in 2002 that using

existing automotive technologies, not including hybrid technology,

that we can improve our fuel economy standard to 35 miles per gallon over a 10-year period, and in that period of time back out all

the Persian Gulf oil, and as a result, reduce carbon emissions the

equivalent of about 170 coal-fired plants per year.

Could you talk about that issue and the centrality of our need

to improve dramatically the fuel economy standards for our vehicles?

Mr. GORE. Well, I support your legislation, Congressman, and I

congratulate you on your new select committee, and in any way I

can help you, I want to and we have been friends and allies on so

many things for all these years now, and I am really excited about

your leadership on this issue.

I mentioned earlier that in addition to supporting your bill, I also

support the general idea that your legislation should be part of a

comprehensive package. And my fondest dream is that this Congress will come up with a series of initiatives that, taken together,

constitute a really bold step in helping us sharply reduce CO2 emissions.

And I think it is easy to see how Congressman Dingell would be

concerned as anyone would representing an area where there is a

concentration of a very important legacy industry and future industry in our country if it seems like that is being singled out. And

so I respectfully suggest that we ought to—I encourage the passage

of your legislation and as part of the comprehensive package and

the cap-and-trade system, could lead to some very interesting bargains between the fuel suppliers and the industries that make cars

and other things that burn the fuel and find the most efficient

ways to get the reductions.

Now, let me say something controversial. I don’t think it is controversial but I know it is not necessarily welcome. I really believe

that the old saying—and I will say this to you, Congressman Inglis,

be careful what you pray for. I think it would be amended be careful for what you lobby for. Because successful lobbying for the lowest of auto efficiency standards has not been good for our automobile industry. And we all know that the less efficient vehicles

that cost more money to operate when the price of oil goes up—

which was not completely unpredictable by the way—are a hard

sell now. And the companies that are doing better are ones that

have more efficient vehicles.

And it is a complicated story. We need to solve it. We need national health care, and you get that off the backs of the auto companies as well and it is all interconnected, but efficiency goes hand

49

in hand with marketability in this new age that is rushing toward

us here.

Mr. MARKEY. Well, I want to say I thank you, very much, that

I obviously sat here with you 30 years ago and what you are saying

about information technologies, what you were saying about environmental issues back then, now retrospectively really do make you

look like a prophet. You had your finger on the pulse of the issues

of the 21st century, and that is the reason you are here today. And

I think that it would be wise for the Congress to listen to your

warnings, because I think that history has now borne you out.

Thank you for being here.

Chairman DINGELL. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mr. GORE. I appreciate your kind words.

Chairman DINGELL. Chair recognizes now the distinguished gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Whitfield, for 5 minutes.

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Vice President, we are delighted you are here today and we certainly appreciate the time that you are spending with this joint committee. You

would be the last person I think that I would probably have to say

that we all recognize that we live in a pretty polarizing country

today.

Chairman DINGELL. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. WHITFIELD. Yes, sir.

Chairman DINGELL. Just for a housekeeping matter here I apologize. I will not take it out of the gentleman’s time. We are going

to have a vote in about 5 minutes or so on the House floor. And

our distinguished witness has informed us that he has to be elsewhere and so the gentleman from Kentucky will be the last member of the committee that will be recognized for purposes of the

questions. And then the Chair would observe that we will after

that adjourn, go over to the House floor and vote. And we will return to hear our next witness. I hope that our members will come

back, because the Chair wants to have both a complete record, full

participation of the members, and very frankly, an opportunity for

all members to appreciate the seriousness of the matters before us.

So, the gentleman from Kentucky is now recognized.

Mr. WHITFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Vice President, this is one of those issues that certainly there is a lot of division on. I think everyone recognizes as you have said, and the scientific community agrees, that there is global warming caused by

human activity.

But I was reading a statement that either you made or was a

part of your movie, ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth’’, and it said we have

just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tailspin of epic destruction involving extreme

weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond

anything we have ever experienced.

And those kinds of statements—I think one of the attributes that

you have is that you are very passionate about these issues. And

that is one of the things that attracts people to you, that passion.

But at the same time, and I am not quoting these for their truthfulness, but simply to say these are some statements that we read

in recent articles about these kind of statements.

50

It says, this is overstating our certainty about knowing the future.

We agree on fundamentals that warming is real, but we do not

agree on the urgency or the consequences of that. And then one scientist was quoted as saying that this is shrill alarmism. And then

Mr. Lomborg is to be testifying later today after we vote. And he

brought a group of imminent economists to Copenhagen and they

looked at major issues facing humanity today. And the point was

that the world’s financial resources is limited. And so, how should

we spend these resources to the most effective use and help of humankind today?

And they listed 17 issues that face mankind today, like disease,

and malaria and HIV and water safety, water sanitation issues,

education, whatever, whatever, and climate change came down as

the very last issue that should be addressed.

And so, I guess the comment that I would make, I think everyone agrees that we do have global warming. But then the question

becomes, what is the urgency of it? What is the consequence of it?

And when you have people coming from diametrically opposed positions, what advice would you give us in to trying to address this

and spending these limited resources?

Mr. GORE. Well, thank you very much, Congressman. Again, the

initial quote that you attributed to me, I don’t recognize those

words. I have said things similar to that but I have tried to say

it more carefully and in different ways. Let me tell you exactly

what I do believe. And it is not coming from my analysis of the

science. It is coming from those scientists whose judgment I most

respect on this.

Way back, I used to hear people say we only have 10 years, this

kind of thing. And I never endorsed that. I never endorsed it. First

time I made a statement similar to that was less than 1 year ago,

and I will tell you why. The scientist I most respect, including Jim

Hansen, who runs the most sophisticated modeling program for

NASA and others, have now, have recently come on the conclusion,

within the last year, that the evidence now does show that we may

have as little as 10 years within which to begin making dramatic

changes, lest this problem gains so much momentum, our ability to

forestall it will be lost to us.

Now let me tell you what they are referring to.

A couple of theories. Arctic ice cap, Greenland, west Antarctica,

the frozen methane and frozen carbon and other forms not only in

Siberia and Alaska, but also in the shallow seas where they have

these formations that they have now seen are vulnerable to melting

and releasing huge amounts of methane.

Let me take them one by one. First of all, the Arctic ice cap—

it is a floating ice cap. And it is only 6 to 8 feet thick on average.

Captain William Anderson just died a couple of weeks ago. He was

a Member of this House of Representatives. He was the captain of

the Nautilus and made the first voyage to the North Pole in a nuclear submarine in 1958. For almost 50 years, they have kept a

record of that thickness. Finally they declassified it in ways that

could make it usable to the scientists.

Those and other data series now make it clear that this floating

ice is melting very rapidly. Ninety percent of the incoming solar raVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:51 Dec 13, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Q:\DOCS\110-23 SCOM1 PsN: SCOM1
51

diation that hits that ice cap now bounces off. It only hits up there

6 months of the year. But in our summer it bounces off. It is one

of the ways our planet cools itself. If it melts—as it is melting—

the open ocean absorbs 80 percent. So that is a big change. That

is not just a gradual change. That is a big change. That is already

why the temperatures in the Arctic are increasing more than twice

as fast as anywhere else in the world outside the Antarctic Peninsula.

If it goes completely, if it just goes to the seasonal ice which is

just 1 or 2 feet thick, then it will be gone. And that will be become

one of the biggest heat sinks on the planet. And if that happens,

our ability to retrieve this favorable climate balance that we have

developed then as a species, would be potentially lost to us.

Now, if the Arctic ocean starts heating up radically that puts

more pressure on Greenland. There is an amount of ice on Greenland that you know is 7 to 8,000 feet thick, a huge ice dome. It is

equal to 6- to 7-meter increase in sea level worldwide. In the past,

it has broken up in some of these ancient eras. And it has raised

sea level that much. If Greenland goes, then again our ability to

retrieve this problem might be lost to us.

West Antarctica, same thing, more stable than Greenland, they

believe but they, the science magazine article just came out 3 days

ago shows—and I recommend it to the committee. I will provide it

along with my testimony—it shows exactly why these ice sheets are

moving far more rapidly than anybody predicted. It has really

shocked the scientists. And if that goes, that is another 6 to 7 meters.

Now, then the frozen methane and other forms of carbon in the

tundra and the shallow seas. There have been tipping points in the

ancient past where temperatures reached the point where that is

suddenly—that is released. Methane is 22, 23 times as powerful a

greenhouse gas, as CO2. If we don’t stop turning the thermostat up

before we cross that tipping point, that is another reason why these

scientists are saying, we have a short time frame in which to act.

And I hear the bells. Mr. Chairman, if I may, briefly conclude by

expressing my deep thanks, to you, to Chairman Gordon, to your

ranking members, to the other subcommittee chairs and ranking

members, and to each member of this committee my apologies to

the extent that I may have contributed to the longevity of this dialog at the expense of your time, I am very grateful for the honor

of being here and participating in this dialog and I wish you well

in the crucial legislative tasks you have before you.

Chairman DINGELL. Well, Mr. Vice President, we thank you for

your kindness to us, the Chair recognizes, first, the gentleman from

Texas, Mr. Barton.

Mr. BARTON. We thank you Mr. Vice President, and we look forward to continuing the dialog. We appreciate your sincerity on this

issue.

Chairman DINGELL. I am delighted that you are back here, we

remember you with great affection and respect for your time and

on this committee.

Mr. GORE. I learned about another new rule from you just this

morning, Mr. Chairman. Every time I come here, I am freshly educated about the rules of this committee.

52

Chairman DINGELL. They are the only defense that the Chair

has. The Chair recognizes now our distinguished friend from Tennessee, Mr. Gordon.

Chairman GORDON. Mr. Vice President, on behalf of your old

Science and Technology Committee, Energy and Commerce Committee, this is really unprecedented as well as on behalf of the

whole United States Congress, as well as your new grandson

Oscar, we thank you for your testimony.

Mr. GORE. Tell Peggy happy birthday.

Chairman DINGELL. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. And it is a

pleasure to see you, Mrs. Gore, too. Thank you for being with us.

Mr. BARTON. Mr. Chairman, will we reconvene immediately for

votes?

Chairman DINGELL. The Chair is going the ask for order because

there is an announcement here. The Chair is going to announce

there is a vote on the floor at this time. It will be followed by a

number of other votes, the Chair is advised.

We will therefore return—I am not quite sure exactly when that

will be, but 15 minutes after the last vote has been concluded. At

that time we will hear from a distinguished witness suggested by

the minority, Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, from Copenhagen Consensus

Center, and we will look forward to hearing your testimony sir.

Th committee stands in recess then, until 15 minutes after the

last vote.

[Recess.]

Mr. INSLEE [presiding]. The committee will be in order. We have

before us Professor Bjorn Lomborg who is the adjunct professor at

Copenhagen Consensus Center at the Copenhagen Business School.

Professor Lomborg is author of ‘‘The Skeptical Environmentalist’’,

great title, and Professor Lomborg, we would like to hear your comments for as much as time you as you like within reason. Thank

you.

STATEMENT OF BJORN LOMBORG, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, COPENHAGEN CONSENSUS CENTER, COPENHAGEN BUSINESS

SCHOOL

Mr. LOMBORG. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman, thank you

members. I am very happy to be here and I think it is a very important issue that we are discussing. Obviously I would like to go

through—and I have a PowerPoint up here, I hope everyone can

see it.

I think it is important to say climate is back on the agenda and

I think we should recognize that that is still to a large degree

thanks to my co-presenter, Mr. Al Gore. The climate discussion was

strong back in 1992 when it was put on the agenda by Earth Summit in Rio. It was also strong when we talked about the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. And to a large extent, Mr. Gore deserves applause

for making global warming cool again.

However in this presentation I will move beyond recognizing the

importance of global warming and ask, how we should deal with

it, how we should view it, and how we should put it in perspective?

And so I will make four basic points which will come up in the next

slide.

53

First, global warming is real and manmade. I think that point

is best made by the U.N. Climate Panel, the so-called IPPC, latest

in its 2007 edition, as Mr. Al Gore also pointed out.

Second, the consequences of statements about strong, ominous,

and immediate consequences of global warming are often wildly exaggerated, as I will also be showing you later on.

The third point is we need smarter solutions that basically, yes,

we need to focus on solutions, but very often those proposed are excessive; even if they are well intentioned, they are actually going

to cost a lot and do fairly little good.

And that leads me to the fourth and final point that climate

change is really not the only issue. We need to listen, as this hearing asks to make a global perspective on global warming and say

climate change is not the only issue on the agenda. There are many

other issues and we need to ask, where we can do the most good

first?

And so I think it is important to say, if I should sum up what

I am going to be saying here, we need to be frank. Al Gore and the

many people he has inspired have goodwill and great intentions.

However, he has got carried away and has come to show only

worst-case scenarios and I think we need to recognize that. This is

unlikely to form the basis of good judgment. The problem is compounded in that if we follow Al Gore’s recommendations, we will

likely end up choosing very bad policies to solve the many problems

that we agree need to be addressed. In short, Mr. Gore’s logic, with

all its good intentions and sincerity, would in effect present an obstacle to saving millions of lives.

But I think it is also an opportunity. This very debate is a remarkable occasion to recapture our goodwill, as Al Gore talked

about earlier. It is a chance to recap our policies. It is an opportunity, I would argue, for America to reclaim its leadership, both

enacting sensible global warming policies and smartly addressing

the many other ills of the world. And so I would like to focus, instead of rhetoric, actually try to present you with some of the important facts I think are important to have this conversation.

The first point—and I am simply going to go through these four

issues I pointed out—is that that global warming is real and it is

manmade. It is on the agenda, thanks to Al Gore, and I think we

need to make sure to thank him for that.

The best information comes from the U.N. Climate Panel. The

likely temperature rise by 2100 is going to be about 5 degrees

Fahrenheit. The total cost of global warming is about $15 trillion.

That is a remarkable sum of money. We should be realizing that,

of course, and we ought to make it clear that we need to be sure

we do the right thing about this.

On the other hand you also need to put in perspective the total

net worth of the 21st century is about $3,000 trillion. So it is about

0.5 percent of the total cost, and that puts it into perspective. We

need to take this seriously. We always need to have smart policies.

The second policy—and I would like to dwell a little bit on this—

is the consequences are often vastly exaggerated. And that leads,

I would argue, to bad judgments as to what we actually focus on.

If I could first look at the sort of Al Gore standard story. There

was actually a gentleman here earlier that read out this quote, and

54

Gore couldn’t quite recognize it. But I can assure you it is at least

correct—it comes from his Web site for the movie where he talks

about a planetary emergency. ‘‘We have just 10 years to avert a

major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail spin

of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts,

epidemics, killer heat waves, beyond anything we have ever experienced.’’

Obviously there are many, many more of these kinds of statements. I would like to take you through four of these issues: heat

deaths, sea level rise, hurricanes and malaria.

Look at the first one. If you talk about heat deaths, it is absolutely true that with global warming we will see more heat deaths.

We will basically have an increase in heat deaths. If you look at

the U.K. where we have some of the best estimates, for 2080 we

will probably see about 2,000 more heat deaths. That is definitely

something we should know. However, we should also realize that

global warming will mean fewer cold deaths. And we need to be

able to say both of these—for Britain it is estimated the fewer cold

deaths will run into about 20,000 fewer cold deaths. We need to

have both the pieces of information. It is unlikely we will make

good judgments if we don’t.

If we look at the numbers from the U.S., which is the newest

numbers we have from a global survey in 2006, peer reviewed, as

for the U.S. there will probably be about 174,000 net fewer cold

deaths and heat deaths in the United States. We need to have this

information. It doesn’t mean that there are no problems with climate change. But it does mean if we only focus on one part of that

argument, we are likely to make bad judgments.

Likewise, if we look sea levels rise, sea levels will rise; that is

absolutely true. But it is not going to be a catastrophe. The U.N.

Climate Panel estimates that it is probably going to be about 30

centimeters, or 1-foot, over the next 100 years in the standard scenario A–1 B. It is not going to be Al Gore’s 20 feet. And, again, it

is important to say 1-foot is something we can deal with; 20 feet

would undoubtedly would be very, very hard to deal with.

Of course we need to realize we also saw 1-foot of sea level rise

over last 150 years. Now, was that a big problem? It was certainly

something we dealt with. The thing I like to imagine is if we ask

an old survivor from the last century, probably an old woman, what

she remembers of the last 100 years, she is likely to talk about the

two world wars, the Great Depression, maybe the invention of the

internal combustion engine, maybe even the IT revolution, but it

is unlikely she will say, oh, and the sea levels rose simply because

we dealt with these issues. So we need to get a sense of proportion.

This is a problem, but it is not the end of civilization.

If I could just show you, this is the difference between what the

U.N. Climate Panel is telling us will happen with Greenland,

which is essentially 1.4 inches, and Gore’s predicted 20 feet. I think

making that kind of misrepresentation of the data is just simply

not helpful.

Now, notice again I am not saying that Al Gore has not been

good on putting global warming on the agenda; but I am saying it

is unlikely by exaggerating the events of global warming to this

point is going to help us. It is unlikely that it will.

55

If I could take a look at the next slide, hurricanes, it has been

pointed out by many that we will see ever more damage costs from

hurricanes. This is actually the statistics for the U.S. for the last

105 years, the damage cost. And what you can clearly see is basically just 2005 outweighing virtually anything else. Of course it is

especially Katrina, but also several others. You can also see 1992

Hurricane Andrew. Again, this seems to indicate the very dramatic

rise in the cost and seems to enforce there is really something

going on; maybe this is due to global warming.

But, of course, you actually have to realize that it is predominantly because we have many more people living much closer to

where harm’s way is, and with much more good.

If you actually recreated—and this is what researchers did—you

can see the result up here. If you imagine all hurricanes from the

last 105 years hitting the U.S. as it looked in 2007, you see this

graph instead. You actually see the highest cost of hurricane as the

great Miami storm in 1926. Of course back then, it just basically

hit a lot of sheds—not entirely—but it only cost about $700 million.

Had it hit today, it would probably have cost more than Katrina

and dramatically more, probably about twice as much as what Hurricane Katrina did. And what this really shows is that it is something entirely different that is driving the increase in cost.

If I could have the next slide, please. It is basically social vulnerability. Just imagine you know the population of just Dade and

Broward today in Florida is a similar number of people as the entire gulf and Atlantic coast of the U.S. in 1930. So, obviously, we

will see much more damage today than we would see back then.

So if you actually ask the researchers, how much can we do if

we do something about climate change, the answer is over the next

50 years if we could stop climate change—which of course we cannot—but even if we could, we would probably prevent 10 percent

of the damage increase; whereas if we could end social vulnerability, which of course we can’t either—but we can prevent part

of it—we could probably prevent about 480 percent of the damage

increase.

So the simple question here is if we really care about trying to

make people less vulnerable, if we want to have them less hit by

hurricanes into the future, should we be focusing on the 10 percent

up there or should we be focusing on the 480 percent? And, perhaps more importantly, the 480 is going to be fairly cheap, whereas

the 10 percent is going to be very, very expensive.

So, again, this is a question about taking the rhetoric down and

letting us have the conversation of where can we do the most good.

The last thing I want to show you is malaria. Al Gore also focuses on malaria. A lot of people actually talk about malaria and

say that with more heat we will see more malaria. That is also

weakly true because it is weakly related to increasing temperatures. On the other hand it is much, much more dependent on

wealth and treatment. If you look at we had malaria endemic both

in Europe and the United States during the Little Ice Age. We had

malaria in the Arctic Circle, and even malaria in Moscow in the

1940’s. Italy wasn’t clear from malaria until the 1970’s.

Essentially, if you get rich you deal with malaria. If you get a

well-functioning health system, you deal with malaria.

56

And so the question is, again, are we turning the right knob if

we are worried about climate change?

And let me show the next slide, if you look at how much Kyoto

can do and how much a targeted malaria policy can do over the

next century. The basic point is if we do something about malaria

for about $3 billion a year, we could probably avoid about 28 billion

cases of malaria over the next century. If we do it through Kyoto,

which is probably going to cost 60 times as much, we will end up

doing 400 times as little.

And so the question here is not to say, yes, climate change is

true; yes, in a perfect world we would also want to deal with climate change. But we have to ask ourselves do we want to be remembered as the generation who did a lot for a little money, or do

we want to be remembered as the generation who did a little for

a lot of money? When I present it like that it is obviously not such

a hard question.

But let’s go through and look at some more of these issues. I just

wanted to show you one thing. This is the cover of Science News

from 1975. Back then we were worried about global cooling. It is

not to say we are not much smarter now. But it is to say, look at

how we always hear the worst case of whatever it is that we are

worried about. Back then we worried enormously about global cooling. You can actually see New York there, being flooded over by a

glacier. I am sure that is actually going to go very slowly. But still,

what you see there is basically they told us all the worst things

that they could from global cooling.

But it is curious if you think about it, if we worry about temperatures rising and saying that is going to mean more malaria, how

come when we worried about global cooling nobody said, but at

least it is going to mean less malaria. We never seem to see the

other other side of the argument. I am not saying that overall global warming is not going to be bad. I am saying it is unlikely we

will make good judgments if we don’t see both sides of the argument and if we don’t get a sense of proportion.

That brings me to the third point; namely, that we need smarter

solutions. The ones we have proffered right now are just simply

very costly and not going to do very much good.

Let me briefly show you if we do Kyoto—this is perfectly standard analysis—the cost of Kyoto is about $180 billion a year, yet it

will do very little about the temperature.

What you see here is over the next century. If you look at the

black line—that is if we don’t do anything. The red line is if we

do Kyoto—that is, if the U.S. also did Kyoto and everybody stuck

to this for the rest of the century, you would basically see postponing global warming for about 5 years.

Next slide.

You have all heard that the EU has just come out and proposed

they would do a 20 percent cut of carbon emissions by 2020, yet

the cost that will have will probably be about $90 billion. And it

will do even less than Kyoto. It will only postpone global warming

for about 2 years.

If you look at the last side, here which is Gore’s solution, which

is the one I have heard him say—until today where he obviously

said a much greater number—he was actually suggesting cutting

57

emissions by 90 percent, which will be horrendously expensive; but

if you look at the payroll tax proposal that he has come out with

in 2006, the cost would be about $160 billion. It would mean $1.25

rise per gallon of gas. And it would basically postpone warming for

about 4.5 years.

What this essentially tells us is that we can do, if we do it right

now, we can cut emissions. Yes, it will be fairly costly and it will

do very little good. That is not a very good idea.

Next slide, please.

Al Gore also in his discussion, and many others, will say, well,

but maybe it is not actually going to be costly, maybe it will actually be an advantage to us. And then he also referred to the Stern

report which actually came out and said, yes, it is actually going

to be an advantage. I would like to remind you that all peer-reviewed research shows that doing a lot about climate change is essentially a losing position.

If you look at this, this is an overview of all these studies that

we have. The peer-reviewed you see over in the left-hand side of

the corner. You basically see the damages are about 1 percent of

GDP, on average, and the cost of doing parts of this is about 2 percent.

So it is a bad idea to give 2 percent to obtain less than 1 percent.

And the Stern report turned those figures around. But I should

also warn you that they were basically basing themselves on all the

other peer-reviewed studies. So I would say, if anything, the Stern

report probably was not very representative of what they were actually purporting to show. If anything, all peer-reviewed research

that shows a cost/benefit tells us we should do fairly little now.

And I would like to just briefly show you why this is the case.

And these are the same models that also the Stern review and also

Al Gore would base himself on. It is basically because the cost

comes now. The benefits come way into the future.

And this particular model—but I will submit they all look pretty

much the same—you see the costs rising dramatically from now up

until about the middle of next century, and then they level off.

Whereas the benefits only cross far into the next century and, of

course, you have to remember by then we will have built up a debt.

So essentially the first generations to start profiting from the

things that we do now against climate change are going to be born

early in the 23d century.

You have to ask yourself whether there isn’t better things to

spend our money on first. And so my argument would be to say—

and this is my solution that I think I would like to submit to you

to consider—is to say we need a much longer-term, smarter way to

deal with these issues. That would be, for instance, investing 0.05

percent of GDP in research and development in noncarbon-emitting

energy technologies.

Essentially it would be much cheaper, about $25 billion a year

on a global level. It would let each country do what they think is

the best way. We are not going to be picking winners. We are essentially going to let markets do this. And in the long term, the

point is we will be able to solve global warming much better than

some of these proposals we have seen with EU and other proposals

58

of cutting emissions, like the Kyoto. This is simply a much cheaper

way of doing much more good in the long run.

That leads me to the last and fourth point I want to briefly mention to you is that there are many other things where we need to

focus. I also notice that one of the members talked about the Copenhagen Consensus. Basically Gore talks about our generational

mission. And he talks about that we need to think about what is

the future going to ask us. I think that is entirely right. We need

to think about what is the future going to ask of us. He says they

are going to say, what were you thinking? What on Earth were you

thinking? Why weren’t you concerned about doing the most good

first? And I think that is entirely true.

But of course what they are going to be asking us is why were you spending $180 billion a year doing virtually no good 100 years

ago from now, where you could have spent so much more money

on better things. I would like to compare this very briefly, for $75

billion a year we could solve all major basic problems in the world.

We could give clean drinking water, sanitation, basic health care

and primary education to every single human being on the planet.

So, again, the question is do we want to be remembered as the

generation who did a little good or a lot of good for a lot of money

or a little money? The basic point here is that it is not that hard

of a question.

And that of course leads me to the Copenhagen Consensus where

we asked some of the world’s top economists, including four Nobel

laureates, to look at all the different things we can do in the world.

And we asked them, where do you get the most bang for the buck?

This is what they came up with. They basically told us we should

prevent HIV-AIDS; we should prevent micronutrient malnutrition,

ensure free trade, and prevent malaria. If we do that, for every dollar we spend we would probably end up doing about $40 worth of

social good. That is a very good investment.

On the other hand they showed, down at the bottom they showed

the Kyoto Protocol and several other ways to deal with global

warming, basically telling us it is a bad investment, not that you

waste the money, but for every dollar you spend you probably end

up doing 25, 30 cents worth of good.

And so the question is, do we want to be remembered as the generation who spent dollars and did 30 cents’ worth of good for each

dollar, or do we actually want to be remembered as the one who

did $40 worth of good for the world?

And so basically my point here is not that there is no global

warming. There is. And Al Gore should be thanked for putting that

on the agenda.

On the other hand, we also need to get a sense of proportion. We

are not likely to make good judgments if we vastly exaggerate the

bad consequences of global warming and forget the positive

incidences of global warming. And that also means we need smarter solutions. The solutions that are being proffered right now are

doing very little good at very high cost. There are much better

ways to do it; for instance, investment in research and development. That will enable our kids and grandkids to deal with many

of these issues instead of having a situation where we virtually

spend lots of money doing very little good. And we also need to reVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:51 Dec 13, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00063 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Q:\DOCS\110-23 SCOM1 PsN: SCOM1
59

member if we are really talking about our generational mission,

global warming is not the only issue. There are many other things

that our kids and grandkids will judge us: Did you actually do the

best you could with the money you were going to spend? Did you

spend it on vast, frivolous projects like the Kyoto Protocol? Or did

you actually spend it on a lot of things that would end up doing

a lot of good for the world first?

The point is we need to think about other issues. But as this is

a discussion on climate change, we need to ensure that we do it

smartly and efficiently.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lomborg follows:]

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you Dr. Lomborg. We will now have another

great leader on this issue from Tennessee, Bart Gordon, 5 minutes.

Chairman GORDON. Thank you Mr. Inslee.

And, Mr. Lomborg, welcome to the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Science and Technology Committee and welcome to

America.

Mr. LOMBORG. Thank you.

Chairman GORDON. We take great pride in our freedom of speech

here, but I do think it is fair to point out the different speech and

opinion, and I just want for the record to give some of the reviews

of your work from your home country.

The Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty was called to

evaluate your work. Their analysis of your book concluded the following and I quote: ‘‘The publication is deemed clearly contrary to

the standards of good scientific practice. Further, there has been

such pervasion of the scientific message in the form of systematically biased representation that the objective criteria for upholding

scientific dishonesty has been met.’’

Scientific America has a 12-page article entitled ‘‘Misleading

Math About the Earth’’ dedicated solely to your book.

The National Academy of Sciences also here in America, member

Norman Mayer said that you have not done a fraction of the homework that could give him a preliminary understanding of the

science in question.

Finally, the prestigious scientific journal Nature described your

work as, and again I am quoting, I don’t really like this but I am

quoting, ‘‘Employs a strategy of those who argue that Jews weren’t

singled out by the Nazis.’’

I just want to get this on record again. You are welcome here and

your opinion is welcome. But for the record, I want to note that

your opinion has been disputed in your country and elsewhere.

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes.

Chairman GORDON. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LOMBORG. Can I comment on that?

Mr. INSLEE. Certainly, yes.

Mr. LOMBORG. Thank you very much for your welcome here. I do

believe that it is important to say that the—I mean, there is clearly

a lot of people out there who have been very critical of my work.

That is absolutely true. I think it is curious, given the fact that this

is the work not of me but, for instance, of the thing I was presenting here of the priority list of some of the world’s most esteemed

economists, including four Nobel laureates.

But you do mention the Scientific Committee of Dishonesty. Yes,

it is very true that a lot people wanted me to be convicted. And the

committee actually did just what you said. However, it also turned

out on appeal that they actually hadn’t done their homework. They

actually had not done any justification for that decision.

And so what it really shows is that there are a lot of people out

there who really would like me to be wrong, but they couldn’t uphold it. It was actually canceled, and the quotation that you made

actually comes from a verdict that has been overturned. I just want

to make sure that that also gets into the record.

And likewise, Scientific American took four people to go through

my book, three of whom I criticized strongly in the book. It is perVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:51 Dec 13, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00115 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Q:\DOCS\110-23 SCOM1 PsN: SCOM1
111

haps not very surprising that they came up with the conclusion

that I was wrong.

Now the curious thing—and I am not even going to talk about

I think a lot of people felt it was very, very bad of Nature to do

the Holocaust Jew thing now. But I would like to take just a moment, because it is not really a question of whether there are a lot

of people out there criticizing me; it is much more a question saying, isn’t it at least something we should be considering, that

maybe our spending a lot of money right now, for instance, on

Kyoto is not the best way to do this?

And at least I would like to engage here, and that is why I think

this is such an important discussion to have. It is not a question

of saying, you should buy all my views. But it is a question of at

least thinking that just because there is this great momentum of

oh, yes, let’s do a lot of good, if our analyses show it is going to

be very costly, if our analyses show that it is going to do very little

good, shouldn’t we at least consider whether there are smarter

ways of moving towards this goal? And that, I think, is really my

purpose of coming here, to make sure that we think this through

and at least try to be smart about this.

Chairman GORDON. That is the reason you are here, to give another opinion, and we welcome you for that. And, as you say, it is

healthy to be able to discuss it.

He was given my time.

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you. We will move on to Mr. Barton now. Mr.

Gordon has yielded to Mr. Barton of Texas, 5 minutes.

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. Lomborg, thank you for being here. This is your book. I understand you have a new book coming out in September. I want the

record to show that I haven’t read all of it but I have read a good

part of it. It is 350 pages, and then there are over 150 pages of bibliography and footnotes. What Dr. Lomborg has actually done is

compiled, to the best of his ability, the most recent statistics and

studies on not just climate change, but a minimum of other environmental issues and tried to get as much expert witnesses or experts’ testimonies he can, and then use his own mind to evaluate

the facts.

And my good friend from Tennessee put into the record the Denmark Committee on Scientific Dishonesty, what they said in January 2003 about his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist. I want

to put on the record that was in January 2003.

In December 2003, the Danish Ministry of Science and Technology and Innovation, of which the DCST is a subdivision, completely rejected, completely rejected the DCST’s finding that

Lomborg’s bomb was objectively dishonest. In fact, the Ministry

found that the DCST’s decision was not supported by documentation, offered no substantiation and was, I quote, ‘‘completely void

of argumentation,’’ and had shown—again I quote, ‘‘a significant

neglect in its analysis.’’

So, I want to compliment you, Doctor, for agreeing to use your

own mind to evaluate some of these theories and be willing to state

opinions that are contrary to the politically accepted position. You

are doing a service to mankind and a service to this debate to be

here today.

112

Now my question for you. You are the originator and I think coordinator of something called the Copenhagen Consensus, where

you invited leading experts in the environmental community and

the social welfare community from all over the world to come to Copenhagen and try to rank various world problems and solutions to

those world problems. Is that correct?

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes.

Mr. BARTON. Now, in that ranking, what was the No. 1 problem,

and where did global warming/climate change rank?

Mr. LOMBORG. If I could just answer the question slightly broader, because I think that also goes to Mr. Gordon’s point.

It is not to say that climate change is not important. Obviously

people who work in climate change are going to say this is important, and that is indeed what the scientific community is telling us,

and that is what Mr. Gordon is telling us. But likewise, of course,

when you ask a malaria expert what is important, don’t be surprised that the malaria experts say malaria is important. Everybody will say their turf is the most important thing; this is what

we should be dealing with.

What we then try to do at the Copenhagen Consensus is essentially try to make a menu, with prices of all the different things

we can look at. Yes, we can solve all these problems. Clearly we

don’t.

So at least we should have a conversation of, well, where can we

do the most good first. And what they came out with is essentially

telling us if we invest a dollar in HIV-AIDS we will probably end

up doing $40 worth of social good. Investing it in malnutrition for

micronutrients will probably do about $30 worth of good; free trade,

probably $20; malaria, about $10 to $15 worth of good. Whereas

Kyoto, as you also asked, came out next to the bottom. Probably

for every dollar you spend you probably do somewhere between 25

and 30 cents’ worth of good.

So it gives you a sense of what is it you want to shop. At the

end of the day, of course, it is your job to make those decisions. But

you at least now have a price list. So we are hoping instead, if you

went into a restaurant and just got a menu and there were all

these great options but no prices, that would make you a little uncomfortable. Now at least we put prices on there. And then, of

course, democracies can deliberate what they want to pick first.

Mr. BARTON. Finally, in my last 20 seconds, I pointed out to the

Vice President that in his charts he portrays that greenhouse gas

emissions, principally CO2, go up and then temperature goes up,

when in point of fact the data that we have over the last 650,000

years shows that when temperature goes up first by an average of

between 200 to 800 years. I pointed that fact out to the Vice President and he seemed unimpressed by it.

First of all, do I have my facts correct, or is the Vice President

correct?

Mr. LOMBORG. You are correct. And you are also correct that that

is a general point. On the other hand, I also tend to think it is an

interesting discussion, I see why he would have picked out that because it is a very strong graph. It is probably he is right for the

wrong reasons on that particular point.

Mr. BARTON. I was happy with, yes, I am correct.

113

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Doctor, for being here.

Mr. INSLEE. I yield myself 5 minutes.

Doctor Lomborg, my name is Jay Inslee. I am from Seattle. I

want to compliment Denmark on some of your successes as you are

heading to go 50 percent windpower on your electrical grid. That

is an accomplishment. We think we could do great things in this

country as well as if we adopt some policies to deal with this issue.

You have come to us, giving us sort of an analysis, largely an

economic analysis. But many of us, many of our constituents, believe that we have a moral obligation not to damage the planet.

And they believe, because of their belief in a higher power, that we

have an obligation to take care of the Creator’s garden. In Genesis

we were given that obligation. Many people of different faiths share

that moral obligation that we are not going to take away the polar

bear from the grandkids or the salmon from streams or the Orcas

or walruses, or you name it. This is a moral obligation that our

generation has.

And I want to make sure I understand you. You are not here to

tell us that under your belief, under your belief in a higher power,

whether you have one or not, that that should be diminished and

that we should believe in a God that would allow us to destroy the

meaningful parts of this planet that we hold dear. You are not telling us that, are you?

Mr. LOMBORG. No.

Mr. INSLEE. I want to make sure of that.

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes.

Mr. INSLEE. I want to make very sure that you have come to us,

telling us up here in Congress that if our constituents believe that

they have a belief in a God that gives them an obligation to turn

this planet over to our grandchildren as good as we found it, you

are not telling us that that is not something we shouldn’t follow,

are you?

Mr. LOMBORG. No. Can I elaborate on that?

Mr. INSLEE. Not now. I only have 5 minutes. Well—go ahead. If

you think that doesn’t answer the question, go ahead.

Mr. LOMBORG. Basically, I think you are absolutely right, and I

think we want to leave this planet as a better planet. However, I

would also argue that it is hard to imagine that we would have a

God that would not want us to save somewhere between 10 and 15

million people from HIV-AIDS over the next 10 years, and so on.

There are a lot of things, 28 billion people who are getting infected

by malaria. So we definitely want to do all these good things. My

point is simply we want to leave the best planet we can.

Mr. INSLEE. I think I understand your point. Your point is to

think that the United States isn’t capable of dealing with HIV, malaria, and global warming at the same time.

Now maybe Denmark, with all due respect, isn’t capable of dealing with those things. But I will tell you something about America.

We are capable of dealing with HIV, malaria, and the commitment

to our grandkids to not despoil the planet, because it is a moral obligation to do all three and we are going to do all three in the country.

Now, you have given us an economic analysis and I want to test

your economic analysis, just how good you are in knowing what the

114

future costs or benefits of these actions will be. Many of us believe

in America, because we are the people that put a man on the

Moon, we are the people that perfected the Internet, we are the

people that invented the lightbulb, that this is a tremendous economic opportunity for the United States of America.

And we believe that we have as much opportunity to grow our

economy as opposed to being a cost to our economy. And the reason

we believe that in the United States of America is because we have

tremendous innovators in this country who have done a real crackerjack job whenever we have had a technological challenge.

So I want to ask what you know about the American economy.

Are you familiar with the Nanosolar Company in Palo Alto, California?

Mr. LOMBORG. No.

Mr. INSLEE. They make a PV thin solar cell that could be market-based grid solar power in the next year.

Are you familiar with the Oscar of solar thermal power? They

make solar thermal that may be grid competitive in the next 18

months. Do you know about the Verdiem Company in Seattle,

Washington?

Mr. LOMBORG. No.

Mr. INSLEE. They make a product that can basically save 10 to

30 percent of your electricity because it will shut off your PC when

you are not using it.

Do you know about the Range Company of Georgia?

Mr. LOMBORG. No.

Mr. INSLEE. It is a company that makes cellulosic ethanol that

is up—they are going to start construction shortly—that can have

a significantly reduced CO2 footprint with cellulosic ethanol.

Do you know about the General Motors Volt?

Mr. LOMBORG. I have heard about it, yes.

Mr. INSLEE. General Motors Volt is where you plug in an electric

car that is going to get 150 miles a gallon with zero CO2 for the

first 40 miles.

Now, the point I want to make is, with all due respect, your projections of the cost of what this is going to do, you have the sign

wrong, as the Vice President said this morning.

We believe that this is an opportunity to sell products to China

and to Denmark. You got the drop on us on Vestus, but we intend

to do better next time. And we are going to start filling up ships,

selling them to Beijing, with solar thermal technology and efficiency technology, and we are going to ship to the rest of the world

the best clean energy technology ever invented. Now, that is a prospective Seattle.

If you want to make any comments, go ahead.

Mr. LOMBORG. Thank you very much. I appreciate your points.

I will just really make two points.

One is you say America is a great country, and it is absolutely

a great country, and it is definitely much bigger than Denmark.

You say also that you will deal with both malaria, HIV, and global

warming. And we could add on a few others like clean drinking

water, and education, and all the problems in the world. I am very

happy to hear that.

115

I would, however, ask respectfully why you didn’t do so the last

10 years? Why haven’t you solved all these problems? And I would

like to at least have you recognize that apparently doing all these

things is not so easy.

And let me just reflect on the point that while Gore was Vice

President, the CO2 emissions of the U.S. increased 18 percent and

the development assistance declined from point 14 to point 10.

And so it does seem to say, suggest to me, that, no, not only can’t

you do everything, but actually you didn’t do either of these issues.

And that seems at least to be an important point.

The second thing that you talk about that is an opportunity——

Mr. INSLEE. Just conclude. I have to get to other speakers, if you

can conclude fairly shortly.

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes. And the other one on the opportunity in cost,

and I got the sign wrong. It is very easy for the Vice President to

say you got the sign wrong. All I can say is just as we trust the

IPCC, the U.N. Climate Panel, because it is a very large group of

esteemed scientists looking at the world climate, looking at what

the world climate looked like, I would probably imagine that the

Nobel laureates and all the climate economists that we have are

better able to get the sign right than I do—you or me.

So the point here, again really on the idea of saying the things

that you mention, if they are indeed marketable and they actually

work in this market now, great. But then we don’t actually have

to be considering it here. If they don’t, then at least we have to

have the conversation of saying, is that where we want to spend

our money or would we rather want to spend it in a lot of other

inventions that America could also greatly enhance humanity with?

Mr. INSLEE. I would decline your kind offer to comment on what

would have happened had the election turned out differently.

Thank you very much. I would like to now recognize Mr. Hall of

Texas for 5 minutes.

Mr. HALL. Dr. Lomborg you were here when the Vice President

was testifying, were you not?

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes, I was.

Mr. HALL. And you heard me go over the word ‘‘costs’’ with him,

and that I had repeated it, I think, eight times in there. And Mr.

Bartlett helped me. He put two more words of ‘‘cost’’ in there and

I asked Mr. Gore about the cost and read back to him what he

said, that there are some who will say that acting to solve this crisis will be costly. I don’t agree.

And then he goes on to say the way he would solve it would save

money. And he pointed out, makes some sense that consequences

of inaction would be devastating to both environment and economy.

That is, of course, it would be devastating if we could afford even

to get to that point. Now, you had calculated, I think, that it costs about $25 billion a year worldwide, as opposed to $180 billion a year in the Kyotolike system, and that it actually resulted in more reductions, had

you not?

Give us the benefit of your opinion. You mentioned in your testimony that we need to be much smarter about climate change,

meaning that we need to abandon expensive and inefficient strategies like Kyoto and search for other opportunities.

116

How about elaborating for us a little bit on that, if you would,

on how investing in R&D would be a smarter way of dealing with

this problem? And should we invest exclusively in next-generation

energy sources or should we also invest in technologies to make existing resources more efficient, more affordable, and cleaner?

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes.

Mr. HALL. Give us for the record, your opinion on that and enlarge on it a little.

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes, thank you very much. Two things. Again, you

are absolutely right. I didn’t think that Al Gore answered the question about costs very well, and certainly if the cost really is negligible or even if it is going to be an advantage, it is hard really

to see why we need to have these conversations because clearly everybody would just jump on it.

Essentially if all you have are lots of $50 bills lying around, you

would imagine some people would be picking them up, and that

doesn’t seem to be something we would need to regulate. So at the

end of the day, I think we need to realize that all peer-reviewed

economic research tells us yes, costs are going to be significant.

They are not going to be damaging our economy. I think one of the

Democrats pointed out that some people go out and scare us with

saying that this is going to ruin our economy. We are all going to

basically have go to the poor house. That is not what we are talking about.

Kyoto is going to cost $180 billion of a $50 trillion economy in

the world. It is not going to drive us to the poor house. But we

could definitely spend that money better.

The second part of your question of how could investment in research and development actually do better, well the idea here really is to say right now estimates show that the cost of emitting an

extra ton of carbon dioxide is about $2 per ton of carbon dioxide.

It is the maximum reasonable—this is the latest of the meta study

from Richard Toll, one of the most respected climate economists—

the largest cost that we could reasonably envision is about $15 per

ton of carbon dioxide.

Now, the problem is that most of the cost of cutting carbon emissions are much, much higher. The typical Kyoto cost is around $30,

$40. Many of the proposals that we have seen here today, also Al

Gore’s proposal, is probably in the $100 or more. That is certainly

also true for the Stern report.

So essentially we are standing in a situation where we say the

damage is only $2, but we only have technology to deal with it if

we are going to spend $100 per ton. That is a bad deal. We need

to get those costs down.

Now, there are ways of doing that. One is to say let’s cut emissions and thereby force industries and others to do those cuts. And,

of course, they will probably try to find the smartest way to do it.

But we pretty much know the answer to that. Maybe they can get

it down to $100, down to I don’t know, $80. But we would much,

much rather say let’s actually spend the money in research and development so that we can get that cost fundamentally much further

down. And that is what research and development does. No, it

shouldn’t just be in renewables. It should be in all the different

areas.

117

Mr. HALL. You do have people who don’t believe in your summations or your conclusions in your home area, do you not?

Mr. LOMBORG. Oh, sure.

Mr. HALL. And people write good and bad about you?

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes.

Mr. HALL. Well, you are normal then. We suffer that same problem here.

My time is about out. I really wanted to get to you about the

global cooling scare in the mid-1970’s and how the scientists

thought they knew what was causing the cooling, and then all of

a sudden the debate shifted to global warming. So like an old lady

at home, her husband died at 92, she said that old pipe finally got

him. Here they ease off from cooling to warming.

And when did the debate shift to global warning, if you know?

Mr. LOMBORG. It shifted several times. We were worried about

global cooling——

Mr. HALL. In the 1970’s cooling scare.

Mr. LOMBORG. We worried about cooling in the early part of the

1900’s, and 1930 we worried about warming, and we worried about

cooling in the 1970’s. The point is, though, I think it is important

to say we have much better reason to worry about warming now.

So I think we need to recognize that warming is a serious issue.

And it is people that are much smarter than any of us in this room,

although I am not sure I know everyone in here—but the really

best people that we have in the planet telling us that this is a

problem. I think we need to listen to them, but we also need to say,

yes, but how much is it going to cost and how much good can it

do?

Mr. HALL. Thank you. I yield back thank you.

Chairman GORDON [presiding]. Mr. Hastert is recognized for 5

minutes.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Mr. Lomborg, I

appreciate you coming and spending some time. I know you had to

fly all night to get here from Denmark, but I appreciate it.

You talk about malaria and HIV-AIDS and Asian flu and micronutrients, and we talk about the free trade and clean drinking

water and education. I think that is part of the things that—I happened to be Speaker here for a number of years, and at every appropriation and every foreign appropriation we do, we have probably been the leader in HIV-AIDS and other issues and making

sure that children have the nutrients they have, along with NGOs,

and a lot of that is American money as well that is given outside

the government.

But I guess we could always do more. And I think that is a

choice that we can always make and what is available.

But I want to go back to what our view is, some of our views are.

If we could do something to help ourselves to make our environment cleaner, make the world environment cleaner, and we can do

it, I think that is something that we ought to try to do.

Also we find ourselves in this country energy dependent on other

countries. You haven’t had the effect so much in Europe, but there

are people who can turn the spigot and turn off energy, or raise

the price and cause the loss of jobs and people having huge heating

bills and things like that.

118

So I think one of our goals is energy independence. And I think

we get down to the point of what can we do. I think in this country

we can do several things. We can do alternative fuels. We have the

ability now to look at ethanol and soy diesel and bring other types

of fuels into play and, eventually, hydrogen if we do the research.

We also have the ability to look at what we have; 80 percent of

the energy that we have in this country happens to be coal. How

do you unlock coal? How do you do the research to make sure you

can use that energy? Because that is what we happen to have. And

I think we need to do that research. We need to find the way. And

I am not sure that we have that research yet. I am not sure that

we found that way.

But we need to do the engineering, research, and the science to

do it. And I think the key is doing it in a clean way.

So our ancestors have been doing it the dirty way for a long time;

just dig it out of the ground and put it in a furnace and heat up

steel or heat up water in boilers or whatever.

We have to do this in a clean way.

I remember in 1992 I sat on this dais and one of our goals was

to find what is the future energy source for this country. And we

all agreed it was going to be natural gas. So in the last 15 years

every energy unit that has been built in this country—well, small

energy unit that has been built in this country, happened to be gas

peaker plants. Well today, all of a sudden, we see the possibility

of shortage of natural gas. We don’t have enough natural gas. So

that wasn’t a good choice.

But we invested a lot of money and then we will have to be able

to make sure that our source of gas, natural gas, keeps flowing.

Unfortunately, we don’t want to have to get liquid natural gas

from someplace offshore, because that spigot could be shut off as

well.

So we have a dilemma in front of us. First of all, how much good

can we do? Then what are our resources and how do we bring those

together? And I say probably, I am speaking probably out of my

own knowledge here, but we probably do more good around the

world economically in dollars than any other Nation. We could

probably do more. But we do it because of our free market enterprise system and the ability to make money and pay taxes and

have the government be able to do that and the private sector

doing it too; individuals.

Do you think that course of trying to develop our own resources

in a cleaner, better way is reasonable?

Mr. LOMBORG. The very short version is yes. It would be very obvious to say if you were going to increase your research and development you would probably do a lot on clean coal, you would do

a lot on carbon capture, and that also seems like one of the very

promising technologies. It is still in the high end, again, if the damage cost is $2 per ton of carbon dioxide; the cheapest carbon capture I have heard about is about $20. So it is a still a factor 10

off. That doesn’t mean it has to be that way in 20 years.

But the point is, don’t try to do it now simply because it makes

you feel good that you somehow have done something about the

problem, if it means that you are just spending a lot of money but

not actually using very much for research and development.

119

A lot of people will argue that if you put up restrictions, it will

increase research and development as a byproduct. Now, theoretical arguments actually indicate that is, at least in the sign, true.

But it turns out that that is actually not what happens.

If we look at the the international data on research and development, both in renewables and on conservation, where we can look

at them from the international energy agencies, they have been

going down and down and down despite Kyoto. So the whole

point—and if you look at all the countries that have accepted

Kyoto. The point is that when you put up very strict limits, people

focus more on how can they just duck under these limits than

thinking about how can they solve these problems in 10, 20, 30

years down the line.

And so I would like to just leave you with two things. I don’t talk

about energy independence because that is not an economic discussion. I fully agree that that is part of the argument that you could

go for, saying we want to have less dependence on fossil fuels, and

that is a valid argument. That is not one that I look at.

The other one——

Mr. INSLEE [presiding]. Could you wrap up your point Dr.

Lomborg?

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the chairman for reminding him. Go

ahead, you have another point to make.

Mr. LOMBORG. The last one is simply you mention that you are

a very rich country, and if you do can do something you possibly

should do it. And again that is, of course, the moral point; yes, in

principle, we should solve all problems. The great thing about this

Nation is that you can virtually do anything you want, only you

can’t do all of it at once, so there still is a discussion of saying,

well, which of the many great things do you want to focus your attention on?

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you, Doctor

Mr. HASTERT. Dr. Lomborg, thank you very much. We appreciate

you being here and your testimony. I yield back my time.

Mr. INSLEE. I yield 5 minutes to Mr. Inglis of South Carolina.

Mr. INGLIS. Thank you for being here, Dr. Lomborg. I am interested in one of your charts. I don’t know if we can somehow get

it up on the monitor there, but it is the one about cost/benefit analysis.

It is an interesting trajectory.

Mr. LOMBORG. The one with the 1990 stabilizations?

Mr. INGLIS. There it is, up on the board there. I suppose what

we are seeing on that chart is something typical of a capital investment, right? And that is, the early years of any capital investment

involve more costs than benefit, I think. Isn’t that right? If I buy

a new air-conditioner, for example, for my house, with a higher efficiency, and replace the one I have got, it is going to take me a

number of years to recoup the investment.

So I wonder how standard those lines are in terms of an average

capital investment? Particularly the trajectory of the benefit line

going off the chart there intrigues me. In other words, is it continuing on headed up in that fashion? If so, then it depends on the time

frame as to whether or not that was actually a very good investment. If I was an investor I might buy that product.

120

Mr. LOMBORG. I would love to sell that to you, then.

Mr. INGLIS. I don’t know how specific you can be with that chart.

But it just seems to me a fairly standard discussion that you have

about any capital investment, isn’t it?

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes. The difference is that your air-conditioner

will probably pay itself back, if you like air conditioning, within 2

or 3 or 4 years and not 2, 3 or 400 years. And that is the big difference.

The real discussion here is if you couldn’t do it better later on,

then maybe you should do it right now, yes. But the point is we

expect that all of the costs in complying—for instance, we know, for

instance, renewables have been coming down in price about 50 percent per decade. So if we could postpone investing in renewables

and make up for it by investing more in them, we at least know

there is a backstop technology that would make it much much

cheaper to do it in 10, 20, 30 years.

Mr. INGLIS. That is an interesting point. The question is, at what

point can you get the market going such that entrepreneurs and inventors drive the market? Because there is a market for it. The

early technology is always going to look antiquated. If it is a fastmoving market or fast-moving innovation, it is going to be antiquated very quickly.

But the question, of course, for a great country is how do you

start moving so that you actually get out of the laboratory and toward the market?

My goal as a conservative is to have the market drive a lot of

this. Isn’t that the idea? We can’t really wait forever for the best

technology to come along, because then you don’t have market

forces at work, right?

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes, you are absolutely right. It is a little bit like

waiting for a computer. At some point you actually have to buy it

and you can’t just say it is going to get better next year.

But on the other hand, you can’t buy too early. Denmark was a

leader in wind technology, for instance. And we put up way too

many windmills way too soon, because we thought it was a cool

thing to do.

The problem is now we actually have to take all of them down

because we have much better technology that actually allows us to

put up new windmills that are much more efficient.

And an argument could certainly be made that we should probably invest it in those windmills 10 years later and that overall,

the Danish Economic Council showed that overall, that was a bad

investment for Denmark. Now it is probably a good investment.

And as the chairman also pointed out, there are many good

things to be done and we should certainly do those. But we should

actually ask ourselves if some of these things are great investments. Do that. That is fine.

But some of these we shouldn’t do right now.

Mr. INGLIS. Let me ask you this. You think that Mr. Gore is basically taking the worst-case scenario in all of these cases. I wonder

if the line there, the benefit line changes if you assume that those

aren’t the worst-case projections; in other words, that you really do

have a situation, let’s say, that you get an exponential increase in

the problem is your projection.

121

This chart is too general, I am sure, to answer this question with

a chart, but it seems to me that it is perhaps possible that the benefits would change if you assumed that actually those weren’t the

worst-case scenarios, they were more likely scenarios.

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes. Actually, this particular model does allow for

that. It takes into account there is a probability that something

very bad will happen, and typically you will be willing to pay an

insurance price for that. But the point is that it doesn’t, what is

the word, it doesn’t change it dramatically. It changes it a little bit.

And so I am not advocating you should do nothing. I am, for instance, saying you shall put $2 carbon tax. You should also invest

in research and development. If you have more probability of very

bad things happening, you should perhaps set the recovery tax at

$3 and invest $30 billion on research and development. Yes. I also

say that in my papers. Sorry.

Mr. INSLEE. We now have Mr. Bartlett for 5 minutes.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. I am sorry I couldn’t be

here for all of your testimony. I would like to refer to your ranking

chart that you have where you show from 4 down to 16. Is this a

ranking of problems, or is this a ranking of the bang for the buck

in solving problems?

Mr. LOMBORG. It is a ranking of solutions, a bang for the buck.

Mr. BARTLETT. Is energy anywhere on the list?

Mr. LOMBORG. No.

Mr. BARTLETT. That is just stunning because I think this energy,

which is why you are putting up all of those wind machines, thank

you, energy is probably the biggest challenge facing—we may bumble through the global warming thing. If I was in Siberia, you

might have a hard time convincing me a little global warming

might be bad, but we are not going to just bumble through a

peapod. I mean, the energy crisis is real. If it is not here now, it

is going to be here very quickly. So I am just stunned that that is

not on your list.

When my wife goes to the grocery store shopping, one of the

things that will be on her list is thyroid because she needs thyroid

medicine. Now if she has only a short-term view, nothing is going

to happen if she doesn’t take thyroid today or tomorrow or even the

day after tomorrow. But if she doesn’t take it for the long term, it

is going to be absolutely disastrous.

How far down the road, where you are looking when you put together that chart or the folks who put it together, how far down

the road were they looking?

Mr. LOMBORG. It depends because we are comparing very many

different models. But, for instance, with global warming, it was 300

years. Some of these models, when you look at HIV/AIDS, they

don’t nearly stretch that far. They should, but they don’t.

Mr. BARTLETT. If any of this didn’t make your list, how come you

put up all of those wind machines?

Mr. LOMBORG. It is a good question. We actually did spend a fair

amount of time thinking about which problems should get in there.

And what we believe is that, for instance, for energy, the private

markets do actually provide many of the solutions. If you look at

the whole discussion about peak oil——

122

Mr. BARTLETT. You read the HSC report? The big HSC report?

They believe unless you anticipate peak oil by 20 years, you cannot

avoid economic consequences. If you anticipate it only by 10 years,

there will be meaningful economic consequences. And if you do not

anticipate it at all, which is where we are very near peak oil, then

there will be very meaningful, meaningful economic consequences.

I am a strong conservative. And I know most of my friends worship

the market. They believe it is both omniscient and omnipotent. But

there are even some things God can’t do. God can’t make a square

circle, and there are some things the market can’t do. You can’t

pump oil that is not there and you can’t build a wind machine at

only a certain rate, and you can’t exploit the oil shales of our west

at only a certain rate. There is only a ramp up time that you need

for those things.

For those who you looking for market persons to solve the energy

problem. I think they are going to be bitterly disappointed. That is

what the Hirsch report said. You don’t agree?

Mr. LOMBORG. I don’t think I want to get into that discussion,

particularly because I don’t know that report. I will just leave you,

though, with the point that the Stern report, the one that Al Gore

was also mentioning, points out that from the economists’ points of

view, there is definitely enough oil, at least for the next 50 years.

Also on increasing demand.

Mr. BARTLETT. I would discourage you of illusion. That just flat

out isn’t true. There is almost nobody. No authority in the world

who believes that comes anywhere close to being true. Is there information out about that that that is the case? Yes. Will it be in

the quantities we want to use or the prices we are paying now? Not

on your life. It is just not going to be here. It is $60 a barrel now.

That may come down momentarily. It won’t come down for long. It

keeps going up and the oil keeps getting smaller and demand is

higher. It isn’t true that we don’t have to worry about it for 50

years.

If you haven’t heard the HSC Report, HSC is a big international

corporation that paid for our energy department. There is also a report by the core of engineers paid for by our military. We are now

having a third report prepared by the, what is it, the National

Council of Oil Council, whatever it is that is doing this for our Energy Department. Because they were concerned that the two reports they got indicated that we had an imminent crisis, and they

needed to respond.

Thank you very much. I yield back.

Mr. INSLEE. We will hear from Mr. Shimkus for 5 minutes.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Lomborg. It is great to have you

here. I am curious on the political spectrum, just personally, not to

go into specifics, I am assuming you would define yourself as center

left; is that true?

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Just so the Democrats understand that just because you are our witness, you probably don’t ascribe with a lot of

the conservative Republican ideology, but you are an economist and

that is what separates you and brings you some credibility to this

debate. I would much rather trust an economist to understand

123

what the sign is on this, whether it is a cost or a benefit than a

politician or a lawyer. I appreciate your testimony.

You did say something in response to one of the questions, and

I just want to highlight before Roscoe leaves, there will be other

research in capital investments, into other technologies like coal to

liquid, Roscoe, that will help fulfill our need for fuel in the future,

and that is the importance of that debate.

Having said that, you did talk about research and development.

You made a very good point, because my friends on the other side

say put restrictions up and we are going to have research and development. You said, in answer to a question, history does not

prove that. And can you restate it briefly how you responded to

that?

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes. I would actually like to expand it. Yes, for

instance, Kyoto, we do not see increases in research and development being allocated because people think about how can we just

slip under instead of worrying about how can we develop technologies 30, 50 years down the line. The second part is also that

doing something about climate change means getting very new

technologies that have huge public benefits. But it is very hard for

private companies to capture them typically because what you develop will not actually go to market in a marketable form but will

feed into the next process, into the next development, into the next

invection, which will eventually lead to something marketable.

So what you can show is typically these research and development projects perhaps have a return from 30 to 50 percent, but

companies can typically only perhaps allocate 20 percent. And so

that is why you need public investment. That is actually one of

very good places to advocate public investment.

Mr. SHIMKUS. In the Vice President’s book, he talks about this,

‘‘What are you going to tell your kids in 2023,’’ 17 years from now

based upon when the book was printed, what are you going to tell

them? That you failed in the moral leadership? I have kids. It is

a very real question. If the sign is a negative cost to the governments of the world and the economy and we slide into a recession,

there is another question. They are going to ask you did you jump

for the political expediency in the scientific demagoguery that the

world was coming to an end throwing us into a recession and now

we have no jobs. Where were you, dad? Did you stand up against

the demagogs, or did you say slow down, let us see if this is real

science. What is the cost benefit analysis.

I want to read a section that kind of proves this. Imagine that

there is a new scientific theory that warns of an impending crisis

and points to a way out. This theory quickly draws support from

leading scientists, politicians and celebrities around the world. Research is funded by distinguished philanthropists and carried out

in prestigious universities. This crisis is reported frequently in the

media, the scientists taught in college and high school classes. I

don’t mean global warming. I am talking about another theory

which rose the promise a century ago. I don’t know if you know

what this is. Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill,

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Alexander Graham Bell, and it was the scientists’ theory of eugenics, which was proven obviously a terrible,

terrible process. And if we are not careful, global warming will be

124

the next eugenic failure and a scourge on mankind if we don’t look

at the—where is the sign going to be and how do we appropriately

address that?

I would recommend also, folks, to go to www.Lomborg.com. I did

see your 18-minute presentation that you did at Monterey, California. You didn’t have much time. 18 minutes. You got it all in. And

I encourage my colleagues to go to that presentation. Thank you for

spending your time with us.

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you.

Mr. LOMBORG. Can I briefly comment?

Mr. INSLEE. No, because there was no question there. If there

had been a question, that would have been great.

Was there a question? Did I miss it? If you would like to ask a

question.

Mr. SHIMKUS. No. That is fine.

Mr. INSLEE. I think we are going to have a lot of time for you

to get to the meat of this.

We move to Mr. Akin from Missouri for 5 minutes.

Mr. AKIN. We are delighted to have you here, and I was going

to get into something that is a little bit more in the weeds, but let

me first of all say that we appreciate your standing up, and I guess

apparently some people didn’t like to hear what you were saying,

and yet you are taking legitimate data and just saying hey, think

about this. So we appreciate that.

My office has been communicating with a Dr. Jeffrey Hull. He is

an associate director at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.

And they are looking into the ongoing research on solar influences

on Earth climate. Dr. Hull has been gracious enough to provide us

actually reports from our office, and he notes an important component of the discussion about the existence, severity, causes, and

consequences of global warming is the role played by the sun in recent and historical climate change.

One of the interesting things in his summary was that astronomers have been observing solar cycles since the mid 1600’s. This

gives us about 400 years of solar observation.

From this record, I am told that we can see an 11-year cycle of

sunspot activity that affects the sun’s luminosity, in a sense how

powerfully the sun is radiating. And some scientists also believe

there seems to be a general increase in solar activity since 1715,

and that, in essence, there is a general increase in luminosity of

our sun. It appears that this increased solar activity is—that is sun

spots—is generally associated with greater luminosity of our sun,

that a minimum of sun spots is associated with less radiation coming from the sun.

I was also interested to learn that from 1645 to 1750 there was

a period when there were virtually no sun spots observed in socalled mold or minimum. There is a chart we distributed, and I

think is now on the overheads through direct space base measurements of the sun. We didn’t start beginning to do that until the

1980’s. There is speculation that the severity of the years of the

mold or minimum was associated with less solar energy reaching

the Earth in that cold time period.

Is it tempting to speculate that a general 400-year warming

trend to be linked to a general increase in solar activity and that

125

type of question is being addressed by current researchers. And let

me be clear that Dr. Hull is not saying that all of global warming

is caused by solar variance. That it is a part of the complex phenomena.

Now here is my question. I heard some experts are speculating

that it is possible that the sun could be heading into another longterm absence of solar activity. If so, we may be heading into a longterm cooling period. Do you have an opinion on the potential of a

general cooling because of a possible downturn in solar activity,

and what do you believe is the role of solar variance on global climate overall.

Also I might throw in as well that we have observed, as I understand it, the melting of poles on Mars which again would not be

from CO2. So if you could respond to those questions, please.

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes. Again it is important to say I am not a scientist. I just read basically the same thing I am sure that you do

and many others, and so I would say yes, it is very interesting. It

is certainly something we should be aware of. I also know there is

a tendency as there is in any scientific endeavor of some models

being more popular than others. And so it is harder for some of the

solar hypotheses to get through. With that said, I would still say

if we are going to make good public policy, we need to base it on

the best available research we know today. Now we might be surprised in 20 years and know something else. But right now, the

best scientific knowledge we have, I would say, comes from the

year end climate panels so it tells us yes, the Earth is warming.

A large part of that is due to mankind. Of course, realizing we are

going to be spending enormous amount of money on this issue. But

we don’t have the luxury in any situation in history to act in full

and certain information. So we just simply have got to say well,

until 2007, that was as good as we could do it.

Mr. AKIN. Thank you very much. I read about half of your book.

I appreciate you being very careful in saying this is what we do

know, and this is speculative. There is a difference, isn’t there.

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes.

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you. Mr. Akin yields back. Mr. Shadegg for

5 minutes.

Mr. SHADEGG. Professor Lomborg, I want to thank you for being

here. I want to compliment you on the courage to stand up and

speak your own view when it sometimes runs against the common

threads of others in the field, and to incur their criticism. I must

express for the record how sad I am that the other side of the dais

is completely empty. Not a single member from the majority has

decided to stay for your testimony.

I suggest that they fear what you might say or at least that they

are not open minded to hearing it. This morning, when Vice President Gore testified, the room was full on both sides of the aisle.

The minority showed in full number, the majority showed and now

for some reason they are afraid to hear your testimony or don’t

want to keep their minds open to it. I don’t suggest that suggests

a very balanced discussion of this issue here in the Congress.

I want to go over some of the points in your charts to try to reemphasize your point.

You say global climate change is real. You agree with that?

126

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes.

Mr. SHADEGG. And you believe it is, at least, in part, human

caused?

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes.

Mr. SHADEGG. On the chart, it is about a third of the way in, you

talk about it, and you say that on the issue of climate change being

real, you say that by 2100, the likely rise in temperature is only

2.6 degrees Celsius. Do you believe that is going to be catastrophic

for the world or wipe out humanity?

Mr. LOMBORG. No, of course not.

Mr. SHADEGG. You point out on that same page that .5 percent,

the cost would be $15 trillion, and that would amount to less than

one half of one percent of the 21st century $3,000 trillion economy

GDP; is that correct?

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes.

Mr. SHADEGG. So that is a relatively minor issue in the grand

scheme of things; is that correct.

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes.

Mr. SHADEGG. I want to make sure that gets across. So the point

would be the severity of this is overstated, is that correct?

Mr. LOMBORG. There is definitely a tendency to one side, yes. I

would also add, if you look at the U.N. climate panel scenarios, this

comes from the U.N. climate panels scenarios of $3,000 trillion estimate. If you chose another route, which was not so economically focused and not so globally focused which you could argue is the kind

of approach that is suggested by Gore and others, the U.N. estimate is that we would end up with about $550 trillion less over the

century. So you could very easily end up by trying to solve a trillion

dollar deficit, that is a bad idea.

Mr. SHADEGG. I appreciate that point. Further on the sea level

rise, you point out that it is expected to be, according to the IPCC,

believe, 1 foot over the next 100 years, and yet you are aware that

in his movie, Mr. Gore presents it as a rise of 20 feet.

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes.

Mr. SHADEGG. And that is one of the exaggerations that you are

critical.

Mr. LOMBORG. That is absolutely unsupportable. Imagine if I

went out and made the opposite exaggeration. If I said instead of

1-foot, it would only be half an inch over the next hundreds of

years. That is just as much exaggeration to the other side. I would

imagine a lot of people would come out and rightly so, criticizing

me.

Mr. SHADEGG. And they would lynch you. And they would criticize you severely. I found it fascinating that you also pointed out

that over the last 150 years, it has already been about 1 foot. I

take it that is also based on IPCC or impurity of science.

Mr. LOMBORG. The IPCC only talks about 100 years, but this is

the best knowledge we have over the last 150 years.

Mr. SHADEGG. On the next page of your PowerPoint, and I would

urge people to go look at it, you point out that with regard to

Greenland, Mr. Gore is predicting a 20-foot increase in sea level

and IPCC is predicting a 1.4 inch increase; is that correct?

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes.

127

Mr. SHADEGG. That is another example of the kind of exaggeration in this debate?

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes. It is unlikely to make good judgements.

Mr. SHADEGG. Are you familiar with an article which appeared

in the New York Times, kind of a right-wing journal entitled ‘‘From

a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype’’ by William Broad that

talks about these exaggerations?

Mr. LOMBORG. I saw that, yes.

Mr. SHADEGG. And in it, it points out that many scientists are

concerned about Mr. Gore’s point being exaggerated and erroneous.

Mr. LOMBORG. It is true that there is a lot of scientists that will

back Al Gore, but I think it is also because they are saying, well

it is possible. Well everything is possible, but we need to get a

sense of how probable it is and yes, there are a number of scientists——

Mr. SHADEGG. I would encourage people to look at that article.

I want to conclude by asking you, could you give us an estimate

of how realistic two goals that Mr. Gore cited for us today are?

One, how realistic is it to immediately freeze all CO2 emissions,

and two, how realistic or economically reasonable is it to reach a

90 percent reduction by 2050?

Mr. LOMBORG. You could reasonably freeze CO2 emissions. It

would be costly but not overly so. It would also have absolutely no

effect on the climate, certainly no measurable effect for the next 50

years, probably 100 years. Reduction by 90 percent by 2050. I just

thought I had never heard him say that before, and I think it is

ludicrous. It is really not something that is going to happen. The

British have been toying about, and have now decided on 60 percent by 2050 and most people seem to think that that is on the

verge of not being possible. It is certainly going to be very, very

costly, and we know the estimates of trying to do 90 percent cut

from the cost benefit models and that indicates that the cost is in

excess of $85 trillion, and you have got to ask yourself whether

that is the right way to tell your grandchildren yes, we cared so

we spent that much money.

Mr. INSLEE. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Five minutes from Mr. Sullivan from Oklahoma.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for

being here today. And I was reading some of the information that

we had here, and you were actually a member of Greenpeace at one

time?

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes.

Mr. SULLIVAN. And you were considered one of those environmentalist extremists at one time?

Mr. LOMBORG. I wasn’t out on a rubber boat or anything but yes.

Mr. SULLIVAN. You obviously aren’t doing that anymore. What

made you change your mind? What did you see when you were active in Greenpeace that maybe turned you away from being a member anymore?

Mr. LOMBORG. Unfortunately, it is a much more mundane story.

I was a student. I ran out of money. I think it is important to say

if it wasn’t going to be a provocation, I would still be a member of

Greenpeace. I think Greenpeace does an important piece of work.

They point out that there are problems and issues that we should

128

be concerned about. But of course we shouldn’t trust them exclusively. And I think the problem that I have with many green organizations is that they so very one-sidedly come out and just tell us

one side of that story.

And that is unlikely to make good judgements, and that is why

I think it is important that we hear sort of the full story both on

the disadvantages. Yes, 2,000 people are going to die from heat

deaths, but also the advantages, 20,000 are not going to die from

cold deaths and get a sense of the proportion of the costs.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Some of these groups, like Greenpeace and others,

do present themselves one-sidedly, like maybe Vice President Al

Gore. Wouldn’t you agree?

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes. Absolutely.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Out of Al Gore’s testimony, you are here today,

and you are doing a great job, and it is not as crowded as it was

with Al Gore, the media is not clicking the cameras like they were

when he was in here. Do you see that when you go around? Why

is it? What is so captivating to the American people? What do you

think it is that is getting this attention?

Mr. LOMBORG. It is important to say that is not something I have

any expertise in. I would imagine politicians would know that

much better. But I will offer this slight thought that I think there

is something very soothing about having just one thing that we

need to worry about. And climate change does give that sort of purpose a little bit like the Cold War was oddly comforting because at

least we knew there was just one thing we were up against and

that was the one coordinating view point of the world.

Maybe it is that, I don’t know. But it is certainly incorrect in the

sense of saying yes, climate change is a problem. It is not going to

be the end of the world as we said before. And we need to realize

there are many other problems that our kids are also going to ask

us why didn’t we do something about those.

Mr. SULLIVAN. What would you say was the most erroneous

thing Al Gore says when he gives his PowerPoint presentation?

Mr. LOMBORG. Well, two things. First of all, the 7 meters of sea

level rise, 20 feet sea level rise is simply unbelievable that he can

get away with saying these kinds of things. He is saying it correctly in the sense he simply says if Greenland melted, or if Antarctica melted, but you come up with a lot of ifs that are not very

relevant for public policy. It is probably the most played clip from

his movie, and of course, it looks very, very dangerous, when you

look at it. Of course, had he actually shown a foot and the same

levels, you wouldn’t have been able to see it on his graphs. I can

see why he chose to do so, but it doesn’t make better information.

The other thing he said here today is that it is actually going to

be costless. That we are actually going to make money off of it. I

think we have to be honest and say things that we don’t already

do and things that are worth while having, cost money and there

is nothing strange about that. The whole discussion is to say how

much money are we willing to pay for it. At least, let us be honest

that it will cost money. How much money are we going to be willing to pay for it. How much good are we going to get out of it and

unfortunately, all peer reviewed research shows that it is not actually worth going down the road that Al Gore is suggesting?

129

Mr. SULLIVAN. It kind of reminds me, Doctor, remember the Y2K,

everyone thought that was going to be the end of the world too, and

I remember I got up the next day and everyone thought things

seemed to be going fine. I think there were some things that needed to be fixed with computers and changing dates and whatever

they need to do, but maybe they did simply overreact in the financial industry and other things and spent money.

On the 20-foot sea level. Now you say sea levels or the consensus

of scientists is it would rise 23 inches in the next 100 years is that

correct? He says 20 feet. What do you think?

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes. About a foot. It is from 18-centimeters to——

Mr. SULLIVAN. OK. In the previous 100 years prior to that, how

much did the seas rise?

Mr. LOMBORG. They rose about 20 centimeters.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Did that have a detrimental effect to the globe.

Mr. LOMBORG. It probably had some cost, yes. Every change has

a cost, but it was a very, very slight one. And we also know pretty

much that it is going to be a future slight one.

Mr. SULLIVAN. Do you think in the next 10 years, we won’t know

the planet as we do today? It will be a disaster, as Al Gore says.

Mr. LOMBORG. No. Of course not. It won’t.

Mr. INSLEE. We have two more upcoming votes. So we would like

to hear from Mr. Burgess of Texas for 5 minutes.

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you for your patience today. I almost feel

like I should apologize for some of the questions you were asked

earlier when you opened your session. Let me ask you about the

Copenhagen Consensus, the program that you worked on. The participants in that process and the reception you received from them,

when you began that project, do you think they had a concept of

going into that project that climate change was going to be so low

on the scale of incidents that you had listed there? Do you think

they were surprised about the results.

Mr. LOMBORG. That is hard to know actually. I don’t know. I

mean, obviously, all of these people who are Noble laureates are

pretty knowledgeable people. I am sure they have given some

thought to these issues. On the other hand, I don’t think that they

have ever systematicized them in the way that we ask them to do.

They were probably somewhat surprised. I would imagine you can’t

be entirely surprised about your own actions, even if you get more

knowledge.

Mr. BURGESS. But did they suggest from their comments after

the ranking was ascertained and then made public, were there any

comments from the participants that gee, I thought Mr. Bartlett,

I thought energy would have been on there somewhere.

Mr. LOMBORG. They made those choices and they didn’t suggest

anything. I think, moreover, if you ask people to prioritize, it is a

very strange experience, because you come in and think all you oh,

I can easily do that, but suddenly you realize, which I am sure you

have to do every year when you do the budget, you basically realize

I can’t actually do everything, and I have to say if I want more of

this, I will have to have less of that.

Mr. BURGESS. No, it never stops us.

Mr. LOMBORG. I know a slight problem with that. But still, but

the issue, of course, was that actually does affect you, and that was

130

the main thing that a lot of these people came away with that it

does sharpen your mind in saying what do you want to do first.

Mr. BURGESS. It seems like part of your argument is one of the

smartest ways to address this problem is to have people invest in

their own health and welfare. Do you think that is a fair statement?

Mr. LOMBORG. It is certainly important if we care about people

who get malaria, we have got to ask isn’t there much better ways.

If we care about people who get hurt by hurricanes, isn’t there

much better ways to deal with that than investing in global warming and the answer is yes.

Mr. BURGESS. And Kyoto takes a different approach to that?

Mr. LOMBORG. Kyoto is not a very efficient way of dealing with

any problem, not even malaria or hurricanes, and not even global

warming.

Mr. BURGESS. What about the European Union approach?

Mr. LOMBORG. Not very economic either.

Mr. BURGESS. Vice President Gore ran through about seven

things. He went through them fairly quickly. We didn’t have that

in his prepared testimony, but I would just like to go through those

quickly with you and get an idea of those which you think are reasonable suggestions and those which you think are less reasonable.

The first one, I guess, we have already answered with the European Union approach accelerating Kyoto from 2012 to 2010. I am

going to assume you would not put that high on a list if you were

prioritizing.

Mr. LOMBORG. I think it is unrealistic.

Mr. BURGESS. What about the concerns of methane from the tundra and landfills?

Mr. LOMBORG. It is important to say that dealing with land cover

methane is probably a good suggestion. It is probably one of the

cost efficient ways of dealing with it. So I think the Vice President

is absolutely right there.

Mr. BURGESS. What about, he talks about a moratorium on coal

plants an absolute moratorium on coal plants, unless we deal with

carbon dioxide or carbon capture from those coal plants.

Mr. LOMBORG. I think there is a general problem in trying to say

we want to regulate individual areas. You want to put a general

carbon tax. That was actually Mr. Gore’s second proposal, and I

fully agree with that. Of course, that should be a scientificallybased carbon tax and that should be a $2 carbon tax, but then you

should leave it up to the market to decide where should you basically take it into account that extra malady. You shouldn’t ban

building of coal-fired power plants. You should make sure they pay

the right price.

Mr. BURGESS. We heard testimony in this committee, I think, it

was yesterday that in order to capture 60 percent of the carbon

from coal-fired power plants, it would retire duplicating the existing natural gas pipeline in just this country in order to sequester

carbon. The electronet which we talked about, we actually have

that in Texas. I am going to assume that is a reasonable suggestion.

Mr. LOMBORG. Probably yes.

131

Mr. BURGESS. One of the things he talked about that actually

sounded intriguing, in the very little bit of time I have left, was the

concept that you build environmentally in a more sensible fashion,

more energy-efficient fashion, since a lot of these things are going

to cost more at the outset of building a house or business that you

be able to amortize those over the life of the loan or the life of the

business. Does that seem like a reasonable suggestion.

Mr. LOMBORG. It is possible that it could be a good suggestion.

You should also be very aware that many of these estimates have

turned out to be wildly exaggerated in the sense—there is an enormous technology optimism in many of these kinds of projects. I

don’t know if you remember the similar technology optimism

against nuclear power in the 1950’s. We have a tendency to expect

that this is going to be very cheap. It is going to pay itself back

very quickly, and the reason why people don’t do it is typically because they know there are more problems than what is being taken

into account.

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you, Doctor. We will now allow 5 minutes

from Mrs. Bono of California.

Mrs. BONO. Thank you, Professor, for your testimony and for

staying with us this long and sitting through Al Gore’s testimony

as well.

I have probably a bigger fear than most people do here in this

room. Certainly, I also, like my colleague Congressman Shadegg,

wish Democrats were here to hear what you have to say, because

I am actually undecided on this issue, and am trying to find a way

to move forward into the future. I am completely open-minded. I

appreciated Vice President Gore’s testimony as well as yours. But

in California, we have experienced energy crises. I live in the Palm

Springs area. It is beautiful 9 months out of the year, but 3 months

are quite hot. We have worked in Congress to enact public policies

that expand the LAHI Program, which is public assistance, generally speaking, for the cold areas to pay for heating costs. We have

moved that into the desert Southwest region for people to pay for

high cost cooling costs.

But I am concerned that we in this town will enact policies too

quickly that may cause deaths. And I know you said that by 2008,

that we might have 2,000 more heat-related deaths because of global warming, but I am concerned that immediately, because if it is

flawed public policy, it will create more deaths in hot climates, because of people not being able to afford their cooling.

There is some thinking, and actually, Senator Boxer is a constituent of mine. We share a region. She moved to my area. I love

working with her on most issues but on this one, I am concerned.

Today, I read in a local paper, Roll Call, where she says, and I

quote, ‘‘If the President chooses to veto a bill, that sets it up as a

huge issue in the presidential election, Boxer said.’’ She goes on to

say. ‘‘So we will do our best to get as many bills on his desk as

we can that deals with greenhouse gas reduction. I think it is key

that we do that, because I do want to set it up for the presidential

campaign, which is another one of my goals.’’

So as a resident of southern California when I see people die

every year because they can’t afford their cooling costs, this sort of

thinking scares me and I would appreciate your bringing some

132

common sense and trying to slow the pendulum down from going

the other way.

My question is simple, and perhaps I am setting myself up for

a loss. But is it possible that we can enact and pass some of these

policies that will actually increase costs in the immediate sense

that right away, these cooling costs will get to be too high for my

constituents, and I will see more people die. It is a very simple

question, but I am afraid of that.

Mr. LOMBORG. I am absolutely sure you can make bad deals,

make bad policies. I am sure everyone here recognizes the possibility of making bad political deals. So you have to be careful. That

doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enact any policies, but it means we need

to carefully weigh cost and benefits on both sides. I don’t know

anything about this particular area of Palm Springs.

Mrs. BONO. It was 1:30 Saturday. So it was a record for us.

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes. And absolutely we will see more of these

records, because global warming is right as we believe it is. We will

see increasing temperatures. But we have got to remember that

there will also be fewer cold deaths. And the whole point here is

to say there is something curious—in Britain, we have these numbers how people talk incessantly about the 2,000 Brits who died in

the 2003 European heat wave, but don’t talk about the 25 to 50,000

Britons who die every year from cold. And we need to have that

conversation. It is not the same thing as saying that the outcome

is obvious but it is to say we shouldn’t just go down one road. We

shouldn’t just be concerned about one issue.

Mrs. BONO. The question I have, the public policy, California

passed a very flawed bill that created the energy crisis that we

lived through, and we are continuing to see the effects from. So

really, for me as a policymaker, to be completely open minded, and

I appreciate your being here, as my colleagues have pointed out,

you are not a traditional witness for us, but I appreciate you

brought to the dialog a different point of view.

And that is my concern, that this shouldn’t be set up by election

timetables. It really ought to be set on public policy that really affects people’s lives.

Mr. LOMBORG. Absolutely. As one of the economists point out,

which I think is very, very true, that global warming is a 100-year

problem. And there is something wrong in believing that it is something that we can fix within 10 or 15 years. It is going to require

long-term work between—what they say it is a problem that will

need work between continents, between generations and between

political parties. And you can only do that by not trying to force

the issue and try to say we need to now. That is going to turn out

actually to be counterproductive, because people are going to fall

apart. That was essentially what we saw with the Kyoto protocol.

We need to make sure that we do smart moves that are going to

lead us down the right path but recognizing there are many other

problems.

Mrs. BONO. Thank you.

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you. We will have a vote fairly shortly. It

would be the Chair’s intention to continue until we run up against

the vote when we gavel that. So I will yield myself 5 minutes.

133

Dr. Lomborg, this is really interesting to me for a lot of different

reasons. One of them is you are the sort of designated hitters for

the Republicans. We have a baseball game every year, and you are

the designated hitter for the Republican Party. And you have come

across the pond and one of the things you said, I think if I understand this correctly, that you believe it is an appropriate policy to

adopt a carbon tax on energy sources that use carbon. And I think

I heard you, something in the neighborhood of $2 a liter, or gallon.

Mr. LOMBORG. Oh, no. $2 per ton of carbon dioxide.

Mr. INSLEE. I am glad you clarified that. But the point is, it is

stunning to me if the Republicans essentially brought you here to

diminish this problem and to diminish the necessity of having a

policy to deal with it, the only person they could get in the world

came here to tell us that we ought to have a carbon tax.

Now, I tell you why that is stunning. It does not exactly fit in

the Republican sort of approach to these issues. And what it tells

me, what it tells me is that at least one economist in the world,

and that is you, believes this problem is bad enough, that it deserves a tax on carbon which is a fairly significant event. That is

what it tells me. And I want to ask you why, and with this question: I know President Note of the Marshall Islands. He is the

president of the Marshall Islands. It a very low atoll in the South

Pacific. He is contemplating a day when he will have to move his

entire nation and abandon his entire nation because of this 1 foot

rise, which is anticipated on a more likely-than-not basis in the

next century.

Now, maybe to some of us, that is not a big deal. But to him,

it is a really, really big deal that he has to move his entire nation.

And is now already trying to barricade the Pacific, and we haven’t

talked about the acidification of the ocean today, which is killing

the corals, which according to the science, we won’t have any coral

reefs that are healthy which protects his island nation.

I also know a guy named, a Mayor Tocktoo, who is the mayor of

Shishmaref. It is an American city. It is on the Arctic Ocean on the

northern coast of Alaska. Shishmaref, Alaska is going to be the

first city in Alaska that has to be abandoned because of global

warming. Now, maybe that 1-foot rise doesn’t mean much to many

of us here, but I can tell you to Mayor Tocktoo, who has lived there

with his people for 4,000 years, and because of this issue, we are

going to have abandon the first American city, not hypothetically.

But they got plans to do it and they know where they are going,

13 miles to Tin Creek, Alaska. They are going to have to pick up

and move.

Now what I sense you are telling us, in sum, after listening to

you here for quite a while, is that this problem is big enough, bad

enough, and serious enough that we ought to have a tax on carbon.

And I am not saying I agree with that, but I want to know what

your position is on that regard?

Mr. LOMBORG. Thank you very much. There were a couple of

questions in there. I am not here because I am going to support

one side or the other. I think I was also asked earlier on. I probably

consider myself slightly left-wing in a Danish perspective, which

probably makes me a socialist, or worse, here.

134

But the whole point is, as the Vice President also pointed out,

if there is a negative impact from carbon dioxide, any economist

will tell you you should tax that. You should essentially make sure

that you tax the externality.

What I am saying though, and I hope I am also getting that message through, is that the only scientifically justifiable amount is

somewhere between $2 and $15. So that is much lower tax than

what most people are suggesting.

Mr. INSLEE. Could you give a brief answer?

Mr. LOMBORG. Alaska, Marshall Islands, I think it is important

to say as we also realize in the last 150 years, it is very rare that

we actually give up lands. We actually do defend it and it turns

out to be very, very cost efficient.

Mr. INSLEE. With all due respect, the president of the Marshall

Islands doesn’t have anywhere to defend. It is all going to be underwater.

You have continually questioned the former Vice President of the

United States, suggesting that he essentially was saying something

inaccurate about Greenland melting, and I believe you have continually misstated what he has told the public. And I want to read

to you what it says on page 196 of his book of ‘‘An Inconvenient

Truth’’. It says ‘‘If Greenland melted or broke up and flipped into

the sea, or if half of Greenland and half of Antarctica melted or

broke up or slipped into the sea, sea levels worldwide would increase by between 18 and 20 feet.’’

Do you agree with that statement?

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes.

Mr. INSLEE. And the reason you agreed to it is because it is true,

and that is what former Vice President Gore has told people. And

I frankly, am a little bit taken aback that you would try to misstate

his statement because he has told repeatedly that we are looking

at 1 foot rises during the next century in a more probable-than-not

basis. There are phenomena that could rapidly, rapidly cause melts

that we don’t understand.

And in the last 4 weeks, scientists in my home town have found

melting of the Arctic way, way, way beyond anything anybody predicted. And in the last 2 months, and my time has expired. I will

allow you to comment, if you would like, to comment on that.

Mr. LOMBORG. Three things. You do say that the Marshall Islands have no way of solving this. I do know of the only peer reviewed study we have of all of the land area and actually shows

that we will lose very, very little land area. Because people can actually take action. I don’t know about the Marshall Islands. I am

sorry. I didn’t bring that study, but I do know for instance, about

the Shasalsa, the Maldives, the Tulavu, all of the other islands

that we worry about, and they are not going to lose significant

amounts of land areas simply because we are rich enough and they

will be rich enough to deal with that and that is very likely the

case with Alaska.

When you talk about my misrepresenting the Vice President, I

would like to refer you back to the statements earlier. I did actually say that was exactly what the Vice President said. However,

it doesn’t take a Ph.D. to point out that when you put that image

into the public area, which the Vice President has done very clearly

135

with the movie, it is being projected as something that could happen. He also talks about, and I quote from the book, how it could

lead to an evacuation of the Beijing area. That is not something

that happens over 100, 200 years. That is something that would

happen very rapidly.

Mr. INSLEE. Excuse me. I am sorry to put further comments into

the record, but I have gone way over my time, and I am going to

now yield to Mr. Barton for 5 minutes.

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Did you ask a full 5-

minute second round or just one question? I just want to know.

Mr. INSLEE. Our intention is go as far as we can until the next

vote.

Mr. BARTON. I wanted to know what the constraint was.

Dr. Lomborg, I want to read the same quote that Chairman Inslee just read. If Greenland melted or broke up and slipped into the

sea, or if half of Greenland and half of Antarctica melted and

slipped into the sea, sea levels worldwide would increase by 18 to

20 feet. You said that would agree with that.

My question to you is what is the probability, in your mind, or

in the consensus in the scientific community today, of Greenland

melting and breaking up, or half of Greenland and half of Antarctica melting and breaking up? What is the probability of that?

Mr. LOMBORG. I don’t think we can answer that very well, but

it is clearly not very big and it was not one that was considered

reasonably——

Mr. BARTON. Is it 1 in 100, 1 in a 1,000?

Mr. LOMBORG. Probably lower than 1 in 100 and of course, that

is why I would like to take issue with the statement of saying I

am misrepresenting the Vice President. It is clearly the most

viewed clip from his whole movie. It scares people and it scares

people because it makes them think this might actually happen.

Now it is true that everything might actually happen. Everything

has a non-zero probability.

Mr. BARTON. Well, if Texas fell into the sea, the sea level would

probably lower by 2 or 3 feet, because Texas is very big. So I mean

I could point out that, too.

Mr. LOMBORG. If we are going to have serious and reasonable

conversation on this issue, you have to present the facts in the best

possible way that we can. And Mr. Vice President Al Gore certainly

didn’t do that when he chose to only focus on the 18 to 20 and

not——

Mr. BARTON. Isn’t it true that the IPCC, not Vice President Gore,

but the IPCC says based on the best scientific evidence that they

have today, sea levels are going to go up about 23 inches in the

next 100 years?

Mr. LOMBORG. Twenty-three inches must be the top level, yes, of

59 centimeters yes.

Mr. BARTON. If you have answered this question, you don’t have

to answer it again. The Vice President seemed to indicate in his

testimony, that if we just do some of these mandatory things on

carbon in the U.S., the Chinese would be morally obligated to follow us. In your interaction with the international community, do

you see any evidence that the Chinese will follow us out of some

sense of moral obligation given the fact they are building one coalVerDate 11-SEP-98 11:51 Dec 13, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00140 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Q:\DOCS\110-23 SCOM1 PsN: SCOM1
136

fired plant a week and as far as I know, they don’t seem to be

using the best control technology and they are not building many

nuclear plants?

Do you share the Vice President’s view that the Chinese are on

the verge of becoming born again true believers in doing the right

thing environmentally, even if it costs them four or five times when

it would cost them to build the kind of plants they are building

right now?

Mr. LOMBORG. No. But I actually thought Al Gore was pretty

moderate in that particular estimate. He told us what they say is

something very different from what they do. And he said it has

been more likely that the U.S. enacted greenhouse gas curbs that

it probably still is fairly——

Mr. BARTON. It is my view of the Chinese and given what they

have done on intellectual property, what they have done with their

military technology, in fact what they have done in every area is

that they do the least absolute possible and still be involved in

international commerce. That they have almost no sense. I won’t

say they have none. But they have minimal sense of any kind of

a western civilization type moral obligation.

And when Chairman Dingell and I were at Kyoto back in the

early 1990’s, he asked the Chinese when they would see fit to engage in some sort of Kyoto type protocol. They said they wouldn’t

do it in 10 years. They wouldn’t do it in 100 years, and they finally

admitted to Chairman Dingell, they probably wouldn’t do it in

1,000 years.

Now that was their position in the early 1990’s. It is possible

that they have changed, but I think it is unlikely. And with that,

we thank you for your testimony and I yield back.

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you, Dr. Lomborg. We are going to have one

more question area, and we are going to have a vote. So we are

going to have to excuse ourselves. So if you can keep your answers

relatively succinct, so we can make sure Mr. Shimkus gets through.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you. Dr. Lomborg, what is the cost of fear

and how does it affect the economic analysis that you try to do?

Mr. LOMBORG. We certainly know from the biggest study of the

cost of saving human lives in the U.S. through different policy

areas and they only looked at policies that were designed to save

human lives, both in traffic, health, safety.

Mr. SHIMKUS. But what about——

Mr. LOMBORG. No. I am sorry. I have a very specific answer to

that question. The cost there turned out to be that you avoid, or

you forego saving about 60,000 Americans each year because you

overworry about some very highly publicized but fairly low incident

fears and forget some of the very many and much more amenable

fears.

Mr. SHIMKUS. So there is a great cost of fear?

I bring this up because I want to read a quote from a Dr. Stephen Schneider, who is quoted in Discover Magazine in October of

1989. He says this, and I will just read the small part,

To do that we need to get some broad-based support to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer

you up scary scenarios to make simplified dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts that we might have. This double ethical bind we frequently find

137

ourselves and cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the

right balance is between being effective and being honest.

I hope that means being both. And this is in response to scientists who have data—facts are tough things. They have data.

They know the questions but for the sake of pushing a cause, like

the whole Greenland quotes, what the Vice President has done and

I think in conjunction with your testimony, is he is doing this double bind ethical—this is not a cost benefit analysis approach. This

is the ends justify the means. Let us scare the world, let us say

there is going to be 20 feet sea rises and let us bend the economic

assumptions, which you have tried to analyze, really get distorted.

Is that so?

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes. Very much so.

Mr. SHIMKUS. So you have been attacked by the scientific community because my analysis is you are trying to expose and just

say come on scientists, let us just use the facts. And that helps the

decisionmakers apportion our public policy on a cost benefit analysis approach.

Mr. LOMBORG. Yes. I might also just add that Dr. Schneider who

made that quote, I am sure he has regretted that quote many

times. He was actually one of the esteemed people that wrote criticism of me in Scientific American which I find a little amusing and

slightly ironic.

Mr. SHIMKUS. So the guy who attacked you for being disingenuous is a guy who admitted to falsifying or distorting for political

purposes——

Mr. LOMBORG. Or at least not being alien to that concept.

Mr. SHIMKUS. I appreciate your time here and your patience with

us. And I can yield back. I yield my time to the Speaker.

Mr. INSLEE. The Speaker for the remaining time.

Mr. HASTERT. I have a letter here from President Klaus that I

would like to submit. I think you have seen it.

Mr. INSLEE. Without objection. So ordered.

Mr. HASTERT. I also want to thank our witness today who came

a long way. You have taken a few bumps. You have performed very

well. I am sure that we don’t really see eye to eye on everything

that you have to talk about, but I think you have brought a new

perspective and made us look at this issue much deeper, and I appreciate, Dr. Lomborg, your being here and your participation.

Mr. INSLEE. Dr. Lomborg, if you run into Svin Aukin in Copenhagen, say hello for me and tell him we are going to do some wind

turbine construction and cogeneration and green building here in

this country, and we are going to do some great things with those.

Mr. LOMBORG. He is going to be absolutely thrilled.

Mr. INSLEE. We are adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:00 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]

138

June 5, 2007

THE HONORABLE AL GORE, JR.

Nashville, TN 37203

DEAR MR. VICE PRESIDENT:

Thank you for appearing before the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality on

Wednesday, March 21, 2007, at the joint hearing with the Committee on Science

and Technology entitled ‘‘Perspectives on Climate Change.’’ We appreciate the time

and effort you gave as a witness before the subcommittee.

Under the Rules of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the hearing record

remains open to permit Members to submit additional questions to the witnesses.

Attached are questions directed to you from certain members of the committee. In

preparing your answers to these questions, please address your response to the

Member who has submitted the questions and include the text of the Member’s

question along with your response.

To facilitate the printing of the hearing record, your responses to these questions

should be received no later than the close of business on June 19, 2007. Your written responses should be delivered to 2125 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC, 20515, and faxed to (202) 225–2899 to the attention of Rachel Bleshman.

An electronic version of your response should also be sent by e-mail to Ms.

Bleshman at rachel.bleshman@mail.house.gov. Please send your response in a single

Word or WordPerfect formatted document.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this request. If you need additional information or have other questions, please contact me or have your staff contact Ms.

Bleshman at (202) 225–2927.

Sincerely,

JOHN D. DINGELL

Chairman

Cc: The Honorable Joe Barton, Ranking Member

Committee on Energy and Commerce

The Honorable Rick Boucher, Chairman

Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality

The Honorable J. Dennis Hastert, Ranking Member

Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality

The Honorable Bart Gordon, Chairman

Committee on Science and Technology

The Honorable Ralph M. Hall

Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality

The Honorable Tammy Baldwin

Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE RALPH HALL

1. Mr. Gore, in your testimony you stressed that climate change should be an

issue where partisan politics are put aside. Unfortunately, the complexity of the

issue lends itself to confusion and criticism of those that ask questions in the quest

of understanding. For example, Congressman Reichert and I want to learn more and

investigate the facts of what has caused global warming and to what level man has

contributed prior to determining the best course of action to address the problem.

So please assist in resolving areas of conflicting information for me.

Your movie makes a compelling argument for how mankind has contributed to

C02 in the atmosphere. However, some scientists, including those on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say they have a ‘‘low’’ level of understanding

surrounding water vapor in the atmosphere. Scientists say that water vapor makes

up 95 percent of the atmosphere and is a major greenhouse gas. The remaining 5

percent of the atmosphere is where scientists have a greater level of understanding.

a. What are your thoughts on this and in your view how much more do we have

to learn about the content of the atmosphere and the effect on global warming?

b. Certain scientists argue that throughout history, while there is a correlation

between C02 and warming, it is reversed. C02 increases after warming, not before.

In fact, the strongest causal correlation found has to do with sun spot activity. Can

you help me reconcile competing views on this topic?

c. Are you open to having a dialog with those whose scientific conclusions seem

to conflict with what you are saying so there is a better understanding of the differences amongst various scientific conclusions?

139

2. Is it your opinion that in order to stabilize atmospheric C02 concentrations,

other countries will have to reduce their emissions as much as the United States?

Do you expect countries like China to reduce their emissions at roughly the same

time as the United States? What will happen to the United States companies/industries in the near term that face competition from countries that do not reduce their

emissions until much later?

3. In developing a long term, comprehensive climate change strategy for the

United States, do you believe adaptation should play a role? If so, what role do you

think adaptation should play? How would you measure and compare the costs and

benefits of adaptation to the costs and benefits of carbon controls?

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE TAMMY BALDWIN

1. As an esteemed lawmaker and a leader on environmental matters, it was a

pleasure to have your unique perspective as we continue our series of hearings on

climate change and move forward with legislation to address the issue.

You have made it your life’s mission to raise the profile of global warming—and

through your work on the Energy & Commerce Committee, your participation in the

Kyoto Protocol, the publication of two books, and the documentary production of ‘‘An

Inconvenient Truth,’’ you have alerted the world to the dangers of climate change

and the opportunities that lie ahead in addressing this global challenge.

I agree that the science is clear—and now it is time for action. This means the

creation of sound policy that will result in reduced greenhouse gas emissions, improved energy efficiency, and increased fuel economy standards. These issues must

be confronted head on, by taking aggressive steps that put our Nation at the forefront of the world and allow us to be global leaders in the movement for change.

Unfortunately, over recent years, there has been a disconnect. Despite the growing body of knowledge about the rising global climate, it has not been met with the

kind of bold action that is needed to meaningfully bring about change.

What do you consider the greatest impediments individuals, businesses, and government face in taking bold action to respond to the challenge of climate change?

2. We all agree that it will be a challenge to enact meaningful legislation that

will push the envelope in terms of creating efficient, effective, and environmentally

friendly climate change programs. But it can be done. In fact, it must be done.

And our role in addressing this issue matters. People around the world are watching us—looking to us to set an example. As Americans, we have an obligation to

ourselves and to the world to take on this task and become teachers and leaders

to show the world that we are willing to take bold action to protect humankind and

the planet itself.

Last year, I joined many of my colleagues on the Energy & Commerce Committee

on a fact-finding tour of some countries that are innovators in clean, efficient, renewable, energy production. We visited countries that have significantly smaller

footprints on the world than we have, both in terms of geography and population,

yet they are making significant advances that improve the quality of the air they

breathe, the food and water they consume, and the lifestyles they pursue.

I was particularly impressed by what I saw in Denmark—the world’s leading producer of wind energy, and in Sweden, a country in the process of phasing out its

nuclear energy because they have reached a political decision that it is not a sustainable resource.

You, too, have traveled the world and seen the impact of sound energy and environmental policies. How can we match the progress made by these innovative nations and emerge as an international leader?

3. For decades, America’s economy has been the world’s strongest—and for decades we have maintained that distinction, due to the bold commitment of previous

generations of American leaders who made investments in our people and their potential.In my district in south central Wisconsin, the potential for innovation is

great. In fact, Wisconsin is emerging as a leader in advancing innovative solutions

to address climate change. For instance, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is contributing to an international fusion energy program that will provide a viable energy source with no greenhouse gas emissions. Also, a company in my district,

Virent Energy Systems, has been able to turn biomass into gasoline—not ethanol,

but gasoline. And, yet another company, Spectrum Brands, is developing a unique,

safe, and on-demand hydrogen fuel generator.

Despite the amazing ingenuity, challenges exist in terms of funding and making

products commercially viable. What recommendations can you offer to increase

America’s opportunities for innovation?

140

4. My home State of Wisconsin has a proud and historic tradition, known as the

Wisconsin Idea—the notion that our great research institution, The University of

Wisconsin-Madison, serves not just those on campus, but all the people of the state

and, in fact, the Nation. (You’ll recall that our Nation’s Social Security Plan was

formulated by some UW Professors).

Today, the University of Wisconsin is fostering innovative research and has, as

an institution, taken many steps to reduce its emissions by becoming more energy

efficient and investing in clean energy sources.

Our capital city, Madison (and 12 others in our State) have become ‘‘Cool Cities’’

by signing the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. These Wisconsin cities

are aiming to reduce their global warming emissions by an amount equal to what

would be required under the Kyoto Protocol.

What can Congress do to help local governments, universities and other private

entities (institutions), in Wisconsin and across the country contribute more to finding solutions that will slow, stop and reverse global climate change?

[Editor’s note: Responses from Mr. Gore to these additional questions had not

been received when this hearing was printed.]

141

142

143

144

145

146

147

148

149

150