Al Gore Explains The Threat That Trump Poses to Our Climate (HBO)

It’s been 10 years since Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize
for his advocacy on climate change—
and 11 years since “An Inconvenient Truth” made its Oscar-winning box office run.
Now, Gore is back with a sequel—
and a lot more ammunition.
Michael Moynihan sat down with the former Vice President in Los Angeles.
— What happened in those intervening years
where you said, you know, “I have to do this again?”
— There have been two very big and dramatic changes in the last decade:
One is the climate-related extreme weather events have become
far more numerous, far more destructive.
There are a hundred fires, or so, raging right now,
as we’re having this conversation, in the western United States;
The second big change is that the solutions are now available
and soon will be even more widely available and affordable.
This is a technology revolution.
Business is helping to lead it, but so are individual citizens.
— This optimism,
is it kind-of blunted by what’s happening in Washington right now?
— I was really concerned,
especially when Donald Trump made his speech withdrawing the U.S. from Paris.
I was fearful that some other countries might use that as an excuse
to pull out of the Paris agreement themselves.
But immediately afterwards,
the entire rest of the world redoubled their commitment to the Paris agreement.
Almost as if to say, “We’ll show you, Mr. Trump.”
Now, that’s not to say that Donald Trump as President cannot do a lot of damage.
Unfortunately, he can.
And all of the commitments put together in the Paris agreement still are not enough,
but they lay an impressive foundation
upon which we can mount further efforts to cut emissions.
— That’s the administration’s argument right?
That this isn’t going to do very much anyway.
I mean, I talked to people, many people, when I was on the campaign trail,
and they say, “Ah, this climate thing is nonsense,”
“I like Donald Trump because he calls it nonsense.”
If I go back four months, it started four months ago,
and I find Vice President Al Gore in a news story,
I see somebody that has an incredible hope
that Donald Trump will, from your perspective,
do the right thing on Paris.
You had hope.
— Yeah, I did. — Why?
— Well, I went to see him immediately after the election,
and that was not the only conversation I had.
The dialogue continued after he went into the White House.
I had reason to believe that there was a real good chance
that he might come to his senses and stay in the Paris agreement,
but I was wrong.
And I suspect the reason I was wrong is that this rogue’s gallery of climate deniers
that he’s surrounded himself with in the White House
got to him and locked him in.
— Do you worry about your own party going in a populist direction—
populist left versus populist right?
— I was criticized when I last ran for president
for saying I wanted to represent the people, not the powerful.
Some of the support for Donald Trump in the last election
came from a feeling of anger and disappointment.
Middle income wages have stagnated for several decades now.
There is a feeling on the part of many
that the current pattern of globalization has left a lot of good people behind.
— NAFTA becomes a swear word.
It has become an incredibly negative thing.
Is that something that, when you look back on 1992 to 2000,
that you regret?
— I think in the ‘90s, Bill Clinton and I
actually did a really good job of creating many millions of new jobs—
providing job training, providing pathways,
for people to transition without losing the chance to better their lives.
And I know NAFTA’s terribly unpopular,
I hear it criticized all the time now,
but but I think that, you know,
you can’t run the experiment,
what it would have been like without NAFTA,
but I think it’s had the benefits that far outweigh the difficulties.
— You’ve had a long political career.
When you look back on it,
what’s the most prominent thing that you’ve changed your mind on?
— You know, there have been a lot of things.
The “three strikes and you’re out” legislation was a mistake.
It wasn’t a cynical decision.
It was supported by most African-American leaders at the time it was adopted.
But I think it’s obvious now that that was a mistake.
— When people see this film, what is the expectation?
What would you hope that people come away from this film—
changing their behavior, writing their congressmen, doing what?
— Yeah, I hope they’ll become active.
But people who see this movie tell me they come away from it feeling hopeful,
and sometimes they’re surprised.
— I was terrified!
— Really? — Yeah!
— Things are breaking off, ice shelves, things are disappearing.
— Well, there’s that evidence too.
But most people say they come out of the movie feeling…
— I’m a bit nervous. — …feeling hopeful.
— I urge people to learn about it
and use the knowledge to win the conversations on climate.
Use your voice.
Use your vote.
If those who are elected come into office
not beholden to special interests who financed their campaigns,
but instead attuned to what the opinions of their constituents really are,
that’s much more closely aligned
with what America’s founders intended our system to be like.

Al Gore Explains The Threat That Trump Poses to Our Climate (HBO)

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