There is a debate if winning the Nobel will push Gore into the 2008 presidential race. Only time can tell!

Steve: It has been mentioned that NASA is not spending as much money as it could to study climate change (global warming) from space. Are you concerned about global warming?

Michael: I’m aware that global warming exists. I understand that the bulk of scientific evidence accumulated supports the claim that we’ve had about a one degree centigrade rise in temperature over the last century to within an accuracy of 20 percent. I’m also aware of recent findings that appear to have nailed down, pretty well nailed down the conclusion that much of that is manmade. Whether that is a longterm concern or not, I can’t say.

Steve: Do you have any doubt that this is a problem that mankind has to wrestle with?

Michael: I have no doubt that, a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t change. First of all, I don’t think it’s within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown. And second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings “where and when” are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.

Steve: Is that thinking that informs you as you put together the budget? That something is happening, that it’s worth studying, but you’re not sure that you want to be battling it as an army might battle an enemy?

Michael: Nowhere in NASA’s authorization, which of course governs what we do, is there anything at all telling us that we should take actions to affect climate change in either one way or another. We study global climate change, that is in our authorization, we think we do it rather well. I’m proud of that, but NASA is not an agency chartered to, quote, battle climate change.

This reminds me of a scene from “The Inconvenient Truth” where Gore points to a 90′s poster that has the earth on one scale of the balance and gold bullions on the other. China now gets the pick, and if any of them have at least half an ounce gray matter up there, they will chose a policy unlike that of our beloved Bush’s administration!

His argument below:

It is mathematically impossible that peak oil will solve climate change.

Although oil is the biggest single source of energy-related greenhouse gases, coal and gas combined are bigger still, and the expected growth in their emissions would overwhelm any reduction from oil.

As I demonstrate in The Last Oil Shock using the International Energy Agency’s “business-as-usual” forecast, even if oil production peaks in 2010 and immediately starts to fall at 3% a year, total emissions would still rise by 25%, reaching 32 billion tonnes in 2030.

Yet by that time, we need to be well on the way to at least a 60% cut in emissions.

In fact peak oil could even make emissions worse if it drives us to exploit the wrong kinds of fuel.

Burning rainforest and peatlands to create palm oil plantations for biofuels releases vast amounts of CO2, and has already made Indonesia, according to some ways of calculating it, the world’s third biggest emitter after the US and China.

Synthetic transport fuels made from natural gas using the Fischer-Tropsch process emit even more carbon on a well-to-wheels basis than conventional crude; and when the feedstock is coal, the emissions double.

None of these alternatives are likely to fill the gap left by conventional crude – at least, not in time.

But because they are so much more carbon intensive, it is quite easy to conjure scenarios in which we still suffer fuel shortages while emitting even more CO2 than in the current business-as-usual forecast – the worst of all possible worlds.

One common sense solution left out of his equation is the use of electricity, which is not all the time, generated using coal or Uranium. Solar, wind and tidal conversion if implemented can and should be able to generate the required capacity to power our planet. If only we are able to overcome our resistance to change and the relentless pursuit of bigger and more polluting lifestyle.

Download the MP3. (Source: NPR)

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China in a global sense is still a lot better than the US, but the current administration will continue playing hardball as long as China (and India) commit to tackle global warming.

With that said, China’s current plans call for the opening of a new power station every week, most of them coal-fired!

Source: BBC