At South by Southwest, Gore Calls for Price on Climate Change Denial

AUSTIN, Texas – The U.S. must end its industry of “climate change denial,” former Vice President Al Gore said during a speech Friday kicking off the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, warning about the dangers posed by rising seas and temperatures and calling for increased activism ahead of a crucial U.N. summit later this year.

“We are at a fork in the road ... but we can do this, we can win this,” Gore said. “It requires passion from people who can see how bright and promising the future can be.”

Gore, chairman of nonprofit advocacy organization The Climate Reality Project, warned that flooding of cities in France, Italy, Malaysia and the U.S. shows that current infrastructure around the world is not prepared for rising sea levels caused by climate change.

The consequences of this weather shift are “quite extreme,” Gore said, and can lead to everything from natural disasters to increased poverty and unrest in unstable countries. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that 2014 was the hottest year on record, and a severe drought in California has been linked to the shifting environment.

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Climate change will also likely result in more severe storms like Hurricane Sandy, which in 2012 devastated the northeastern U.S. and flooded parts of New York City, including the New York Stock Exchange.

“We need to put a price on denial in politics,” Gore told the crowd. “This past decade was by far the hottest decade ever measured.”

President Barack Obama has made cutting carbon emissions and addressing climate change a top priority of his second term, and hopes to achieve a climate accord with the nearly 200 countries scheduled to attend a landmark U.N. climate summit this December in Paris.

Gore said he is optimistic about the Paris conference following commitments made by industrial giants China and the U.S. to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But to ensure an agreement, he called on protesters and Internet activists to pressure lawmakers.

“Political will is a renewable resource,” Gore said.

Investment in renewable energy like solar panel farms can counter the rise in temperatures and seas, Gore said, predicting that the U.S. is on the verge of a “carbon bubble” as the clean energy industry grows. In what Gore said is a sign of the times, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. recently sold off a roughly $4 billion stake in oil giant Exxon Mobil.

Despite some rumblings about a potential candidacy, Gore did not mention any presidential aspirations for 2016.