Dependence on fuel stokes bad economy, Gore says

The economic crisis is deeply interconnected with other crises facing the nation, former Vice President Al Gore told more than 2,000 people at the Citi Performing Arts Center Wang Theatre in Boston last night. “Our security crisis, economic crisis and our climate crisis are all connected,” he said. “The common thread is this ridiculous and absurd overdependence on carbon-based fuel. The solutions to the climate crisis are the same things we ought to be doing to solve the economic crisis and the security crisis.” Mr. Gore asked the audience to work to end America’s dependence on oil and to take action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which are widely believed to be a cause of global warming. The creation of “green” jobs could goose the flagging employment statistics, he said. Mr. Gore, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and author of “Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit” (Phoenix Books Inc., 2007) and “An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming” (Penguin Group USA, 2007) spoke as part of the theater’s “Minds That Move the World” series. Beyond job creation, government needs to reform regulation as it addresses the financial crisis, he said. “Ninety-nine percent [of the problem] is the failure of the regulators, who are supposed to be ensuring responsibility on the part of these institutions.” Interim regulations on financial products are needed, he said. “The credit markets are still in disarray,” Mr. Gore said. “We need to fix this credit crisis.” He also said global financial regulations are needed. The speaker series is sponsored by the Citi Performing Arts Center of Boston and Madison Square Garden Entertainment of New York.