"The investment community has a big role to play in helping to create a more rational set of market signals to give us a more accurate measure of what is good and what is bad."

He worries that short-term investor expectations could strangle the newborn green economy before it becomes established, and discourage institutions from investing in long-term solutions. "Thirty years ago, the average holding period for stock was seven years. Now, the average mutual fund turns over its entire portfolio in less than 11 months. If you are getting in and out of the market in a matter of months, you may call it investing, but it is not. It is speculating. Since almost everybody is doing the same thing in a kind of herd mentality, it is accepted as a normal, rational practice. But as a way of financing our economy, it is functionally insane."

Gore has never been mistaken for a libertarian, and he continues to believe government policy has an important role in emission amelioration. He says the government should "aggressively implement the cost-effective and readily available conservation measures that represent low-hanging fruit that can make a huge difference." Specifically, he says, "We should end the massive and wasteful subsidies that now artificially reduce the true costs of coal and oil, and sharply reduce our use of fossil fuels across the board, except where carbon capture and sequestration can be employed to trap the global warming pollution coming from oil and coal."

He argues that the U.S. should resolve to move more quickly. "We must accelerate the research and development of new generations of technology that can be available in six to seven years rather than 15 to 20 years to radically alter the equation between economic progress and pollution," he says.

The Business of Business
Meanwhile, the business of the "dirty" economy proceeds. Earlier this year, howls of protest greeted the U.S. Geological Survey’s plan to map oil reserves in areas of the Arctic that will become more accessible as warming causes the ice to melt. But Gore takes events like this in stride. "The oil companies are going to continue to drill for oil around the world wherever they can find it, and where their plans are not restricted for one reason or another. The real question is how we can stimulate more rapid development of substitutes for oil and coal that do not build up pollutants. We are facing a planetary emergency. It has taken too much time for that fact to become clear to America’s politicians and to some business leaders."

But, Gore adds, some leading executives are at the vanguard of the issue. "I would tell everyone to look at the leadership being provided by John Browne at BP, by Jeffrey Immelt at GE and the leaders of some coal-burning utilities who are finding ways to make the changes that will position them to adjust to the real circumstances we face."

The potential consequences of global warming prompt many to describe it as a crisis. Gore, however, offers a more optimistic take. "The Chinese expression for the word ‘crisis’ exists in two characters: the first, in isolation, means ‘danger.’ The second, in isolation, means ‘opportunity.’ Combined, they mean ‘crisis,’" he says. "In English, our single word usually conveys the alarm without conveying the opportunity."

Douglas McWhirter is a features editor for Worth.

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