Al Gore Makes the Case for Green Energy Optimism

Former Vice President Al Gore received a standing ovation after hailing the exponential growth in renewable energy at a TED talk in Vancouver. Speaking 10 years after the release of his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Mr. Gore ended his optimistic presentation by telling his audience that “the will to act is itself a renewable resource.”

“I have some bad news, but I have a lot more good news” warned Mr. Gore before embarking on a semi-apocalyptic prognosis of planet earth.  The energy trapped by manmade global warming pollution, Gore claimed, was equivalent to 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day every day in 2015. He then asserted that a draught between 2006 and 2010 has turned half of Syria into a desert, forcing thousands to move into urban areas on the eve of the Arab Spring.  On top of that, changes in the world’s temperature had expanded the habitats of mosquitos, contributing to the spread of the Zika virus is Southern and Central America.

But then there was the good news, exponential growth in renewable energy in both the Western world and developing countries like India, where those living without power outnumber the population of the USA, representing a massive potential for green energy investment.

These new markets, he said, are the “biggest new business opportunity in the history of the world and two-thirds of it is in the private sector. We are seeing an explosion of new investment.”

According to Gore, who is the chairman of the Climate Reality Project, “we are seeing an explosion of new investment” as almost three-quarters of new electricity generation in the USA now come from renewable energy sources.