Our Choice: A Plan To Solve The Climate Crisis

Denmark built its first commercial-scale windmill after World War II using money from the Marshall Plan and now receives 21 percent of its electricity from wind. Other leading countries are Spain and Germany, which get more than 5 percent of their power from wind sources.

The severity of the climate crisis has led some scientists to devise elaborate, creative and sometimes bizarre solutions to the solve global warming. Some are obviously unrealistic, while others carry major environmental risks that could harm the planet more than they help. Consensus opinion holds that the best way to counteract climate change is through a large yet focused change in the human activities that caused global warming to begin with.

Though coal produces less energy per pound than oil, it releases about 40 percent more energy. More than 40 percent of the electricity in the world is produced by burning coal.

While nuclear power has stonewalled in many parts of the world, France has long used nuclear power as its primary energy source, albeit with tight regulations and at considerable government expense.

While individuals have a significant role in any social change, Gore makes clear that the problem of climate change is too dire to be addressed by merely changing consumer behavior. If climate change is to be taken seriously, it will require change at the highest levels, which will mean bold moves by governments to change laws and restrict CO2 emissions.

Though it is the most populous state in the country with the largest economy and several large cities, tighter energy efficiency standards than the rest of the country have kept California’s electricity output unchanged in the past 30 years, while the overall U.S. output has increased by 60 percent.

Though consumers might not realize it, televisions, DVD players and other devices consume energy any time they are plugged into an outlet, even when turned off. In fact, it takes the full output of a 1,000-megawatt generating plant just to supply energy to American television sets that are not even being watched.

The earth’s population has swelled tremendously over the past century. However, researchers believe they have a clearer picture than ever before of the factors contributing to the population boom, and the growth rate has already started to slow.

Reducing dependence on foreign oil serves as a good secondary reason to invest in alternative energy. When oil prices hit a record peak in 2008, the rise coincided with an equally historic surge in green energy investment. When prices receded, though, so did that enthusiasm.

Over the course of the 20th century, stockholders' behavior has revealed a marked tendency towards short-term profit. During the 1950s and 1960s, an average investment was around seven to eight years, whereas it now stands at less than a year. The shift has a direct impact on our environment, as business leaders are less likely to consider environmental concerns if they're not thinking in a long-term mindset.

With the proliferation of home air conditioning units, the amount of electricity Americans use at peak times such as summer has skyrocketed, straining the nation's electric grid and sometimes leading to outages when they're least wanted. A new national "smart grid," recently green-lit by the Obama administration, would include advanced sensors and processors that could balance electricity distribution more appropriately. See p. 290-291 for a diagram of a proposed smart grid.

For the past two years, wind energy has grown in popularity faster than any other type of power, and for good reason. Once turbines have been built, wind power eats up almost zero resources, and the world’s wind capacity is technically large enough to produce five times the energy used worldwide from all sources.

Though the scientific consensus on global warming is solid, those who stand to lose from tighter environmental regulation have waged a well-funded propaganda campaign to obscure the documented facts. As Gore explains, most efforts have aimed not to argue ith scientific research on the issue, but to create just enough public doubt to resist legislative change.

Though it burns cleaner than petroleum and has been trumpeted by American politicians, corn-based ethanol has grown increasingly controversial over the past decade, and most experts now agree it is actually less efficient than oil and gas. The issue lies with the large amount of energy consumed in the process of making ethanol from corn, which negates any environmental benefit the end product might have.

A country's Genuine Progress Indicator is a proposed update the Gross Domestic Product that would account for, in addition to measurable consumption stats, non-market elements like volunteer work, crime, deforestation and pollution that affect the quality of life in a society. In "Our Choice," Al Gore proposes using the GPI as a way to take a broader view of our economy and what that means.

Though it receives less attention than wind and solar power, geothermal energy - which is derived from the heat beneath the earth's surface - could match the output of all the world's coal, oil and gas combined if properly used. While the potential is huge, more active investments in technology are needed to tap the world's geothermal resources.

The number of megacities (cities with populations greater than 10 million) is expected to reach 27 in a just over a decade, and the vast majority of that growth is taking place in developing nations. This provides both opportunities and challenges. Some aspects of urbanization, like mass transport and more localized lifestyles, can be a boone when well-planned. However, in developing countries, the transition of rural residents to urban communities has often been accompanied by a sharp increase in energy use and pollution.

It may surprise people to learn that Indonesia and Brazil rank as the third and fourth largest contributors to climate change. The explanation lies in the rapid deforestation taking place in those countries, which together account for 60 percent of the deforestation worldwide.