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latimes.com: In book reissue, Gore sounds environmental alarm anew

April 13, 2000
Web posted at: 10:29 a.m. EDT (1429 GMT)

LA TimesWASHINGTON (LOS ANGELES TIMES) -- Vice President Al Gore is about to issue a stirring new call to environmental activism, going further than ever in warning of the dire consequences of global warming.

Far from softening his controversial views on the environment, Gore warned that, unless the trend is halted, sea levels could rise high enough to cause "a catastrophic mutation in our physical and human geography."

Gore makes these and other potentially controversial assertions--including a spirited defense of his advocacy of abolishing the internal combustion engine--in a new and wide-ranging foreword to his 1992 bestselling book, "Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit," which is about to be reissued. A copy of Gore's foreword to the new edition, to be published on the 30th anniversary of Earth Day, April 22, was provided to The Times.

Its publication will be a sharp reminder that the environment looms as perhaps the trickiest issue confronting not only Gore but also Texas Gov. George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential campaign--forcing both men to engage in the sort of complex calibrations usually reserved for three-dimensional chess.

For Bush, it is a matter of persuading voters that he genuinely cares about the environment--even though Texas has an unenviable environmental scorecard. On the one hand, if the Republican governor attacks Gore too harshly as an extremist, he runs the risk of undermining his message. Yet such a no-holds-barred assault on the vice president could give energy to business and GOP die-hards.

Gore also faces a delicate balancing act.

He is drawing fire from both sides. In addition to being attacked from the right, Gore has been criticized by some environmentalists for not going far enough, which unnerved his campaign during the earlier Democratic primary contest, when some activists backed Bill Bradley.

But now that Gore has all but secured the nomination, attacks from some within the often-fractious environmental movement actually offer political cover against allegations of extremism.

In his new foreword, the vice president prescribes an array of solutions that surely will arouse fierce opposition in the presidential campaign.

In a postscript, Gore jauntily reaffirms perhaps the most controversial point in his book: that "completely eliminating" the internal combustion engine during his lifetime is not only possible but "needs to be done."

That view has evoked years of condemnation by Republicans and some in the business community. Such criticism also has been escalating steadily as Campaign 2000 has unfolded.

But Gore writes: "I'm proud that I wrote those words in 1992 and I reaffirm them today." He also points out that, in his book, "I was calling not for an end to the car industry but for new types of cars."

He even specifies the page numbers where he discusses the topic, explaining: "For those who want to attack my view, let me save you the trouble of reading the entire book."

The vice president also states that he welcomes the label of being "too environmental," saying: "I believe the environment should be a central issue in the year 2000 because, like it or not, the environment will be a fateful issue in the next decade and the new century."

Gore Still a Senator When He Wrote Book

Gore calls environmental protection the world's second-most-urgent challenge after the threat of nuclear war.

"Global pollution not only risks our quality of life but could rend the fabric of life itself," Gore writes.

Gore was still a senator from Tennessee when he wrote "Earth in the Balance." Shortly after its publication, he became then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton's running mate. The book quickly made the bestseller list and stayed there 28 weeks, according to publisher Houghton Mifflin.

In the ensuing campaign, Gore toned down his environmental rhetoric--in part because of partisan attacks directed at him and in part because of GOP attacks on Clinton's mixed environmental record in Arkansas.

Despite some noteworthy environmental gains during the Clinton-Gore administration, some activists remain critical of the White House for not having done more, especially to combat global warming.

But now, running for the White House on his own, Gore's new foreword makes clear that he intends to wage a campaign as an ardent environmentalist--and reclaim his mantle as the Paul Revere of the movement.

Houston Cited for 'Worst Air Pollution'

Only eight paragraphs into the new foreword, but without mentioning Gov. Bush by name, Gore pointedly singles out Houston as having overtaken Los Angeles as the city with "the worst air pollution in America."

While touting the administration's accomplishments, Gore portrays himself as a "fighter" willing to "take on powerful interests."

Like many passages in the book itself, the new foreword provides a rare window into Gore's mind.

He opens, for instance, by describing an epiphany while brooding over global warming as he sat in a submarine under the polar ice cap in the Arctic Ocean. And Gore all but crows as he reviews the wealth of new evidence on global warming and overall environmental well-being that has emerged since his book's publication eight years ago.

"When I wrote this book, this information was accumulating but no one had ever seen it, so it was easier to deride or deny the threat than it is today," he writes.

The vice president calls on the Republican-controlled Senate to ratify the so-called Kyoto agreement, which would commit the United States to cut carbon emissions by 30% from the levels they otherwise would reach by 2012.

"The Kyoto goals are both practical and economically beneficial," Gore asserts. The vice president also vows to double, if elected, America's environmental technology exports to help other nations invest in renewable energies and conservation.

"The bottom line is that there is not only an environment to be saved but money to be made in reducing the buildup of greenhouse gases," Gore writes.

Gore also calls for new efforts to protect endangered species and "a new environmental ethic" to protect public lands from becoming "the exclusive domain of corporations intent on extracting resources."

Specifically, Gore wants companies to pay royalties for extracting zinc, silver and gold from public lands--just as firms that extract coal, oil and gas now must do.

"The public must get a fair return," Gore writes. As things now stand, he says, "this is a giveaway on the order of Teapot Dome."

Gore acknowledges that it will not be easy to overcome "the fierce resistance from those who profit from pollution," but he says it can be done.

"We have it in our power to restore the Earth's balance before the growing imbalance inflicts its greatest damage on our children and grandchildren," Gore writes.

Failure to curb global warming will bring cataclysmic consequences, he warns. "We will face more frequent drought, the loss of crops and native species and the inundation of major areas of U.S. coastal cities such as Miami, New York and Los Angeles and of cities on every continent and in every low-lying coastal country. We are living at the leading edge of vast climate changes unprecedented in human history."

For their part, Republicans are looking forward to promoting Gore's book. Only the other day, Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), one of the Senate's most conservative and pugnacious members, touted "Earth in the Balance" as a must-read. Scott Reed, who managed former GOP Sen. Bob Dole's 1996 White House bid, said of Gore's environmental record, "This is an issue Republicans plan to wrap around his neck."


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