That's a real danger to Gore, but he could probably neutralize it if he came clean on campaign finance and stopped running away from his signature issue. All the polls show that a pro-environmental stance is a vote winner, regardless of a candidate's party. Although Gore seems not to notice, the evidence for that proposition is much stronger today than when he was writing in 1991. Every year, the U.S. government buys 56,000 new cars for official use from Detroit. The same principles apply overseas.
China is the world's second largest producer of greenhouse gases.
But China would use fifty percent less coal if it simply installed the energy efficiency technologies now available on the world market. Washington could help China buy a lot of these technologies, thus reducing global warming and creating lots of jobs and profits for workers and companies back home. That kind of logic used to appeal to Al Gore. This article originally appeared in Grist Magazine on March 30, 2000. For more information on the Global Green Deal or to get a free copy of Earth Odyssey , contact Mark Hertsgaard .