Al Gore at Greenbuild 2009

Recycling a Politician into a Visionary Statesman

Losing the presidential election in 2000 might have been the best thing that ever happened to Al Gore. He said in his concession speech after the Supreme Court ruling that installed George W. Bush in the White House and shut him out of it, that his father once told him “defeat may serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out.” Al lost an election and found his deeper purpose. His work on climate change won him an Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize. His challenge to grow the economy and secure our safety by switching to 100% renewable energy over the next decade is his - and our latest challenge. Conservation and waste into resources is a huge part of all that.

My wife Sara and I wrote in The Systems Thinker back in 1996 that economy and ecology should be allies, not enemies. Economy means "the study of the house” Economy means “the management of the house”. Why should these be at odds? Every bit of stuff that I buy that endures, or that I can reuse or recycle, is good for the planet and my wallet. Every scrap of raw material that a business buys and then has to toss out is a double cost - once to buy it, and once to dispose of it. But that same material used or reused in a product, brings in income and stays out of our water, air or soil.

Gore estimates 2.5 million jobs will be created by green buildings and renewable energy. There are many more that can be created by waste to resource industries, high speed rail investment, and developing other infrastructure that conserves resources and eliminates waste.

And Al ponders whether future generations will bless or curse us depending on the actions we take today. As we stated up front on our Doubleday book, The Necessary Revolution, there is no path forward that does not take into account future generations. It’s what sustainability, environmentalism, ‘green’ is all about - the next generation, and the next, and the next, etc.

Although the task is huge, the good news is, it’s not hard. It’s simply having the moral courage and stick-to-itiveness to make the change we can make today, and the day after that. To conserve what we already have, to reuse, recapture, recycle all our waste into new resources, and to be as smart as trees, bugs, dirt, which regenerate year after year, on sunlight, water and continuously recycled materials.

We’ve had 44 presidents in this country. We only have one future. Al Gore has found out which is more important, and has recycled his political path for a far more powerful one.

Share

Share