Al Gore's talk at Harvard

Yesterday, I took the opportunity to go over to Harvard with an HBS friend to hear Al Gore speak to kick off Harvard's sustainability initiative. It was a very well attended, easily a few thousand people at Tercentenary Theater. We were probably only about a 1/3 of the way back and my camera phone could hardly see him (though my eyes are much better).



The president of Harvard started things off with a quite eloquent speech. Gore talked afterward and here are a few highlights that stuck in my head:

• Some random person came up to him and told him he'd look like Al Gore if he dyed his hair. (Doh! That must make you feel old. He's a 40 yr alum of Harvard though.)
• True to form, he used a good deal of scientific words and detail in his talk, such as the parts per million count of CO2 in the atmosphere being commonly in the 200's and max'ing out at 300PPM throughout Earth's history except recently when it has jumped up to 387PPM. MIT students called him out on this a number of years ago at a commencement speech at MIT:
  http://hacks.mit.edu/by_year/1996/gore/
  Nonetheless, good to see he's making some effort to use data to back up his claims.
• That brings up another interesting point, which was his discussion of the difference between a "question of fact and a question of power", referring to the development of the 3rd Reich in Germany. As the movement developed, questions were less answered by fact than by political power. He drew a thread between that and the predetermined-results-for-pay research and other tactics that oil companies and other political factions use to argue against environmental causes, like global warming (though clearly was trying to avoid calling oil companies Nazi's).
• He applauded Harvard's plan to reduce their carbon emissions to 70% of their 2006 levels by 2016. He proposed that the States go 100% renewable by 2016 - I didn't hear any talk of how that might actually happen besides him stating that we have the technology available. While the likelihood of this happening is questionable at best and the ability to offset base load electrical use with renewables is still developing, it is a nice stretch goal.
• He also had a enjoyable passage on the telescope, in the sense that changing your viewpoint reveals new truths. On a celestially similar note, he also talked about Venus being not that different from Earth except its carbon levels in the atmosphere however, it is 800 degrees F instead of 59 degrees like Earth. While that seems a bit oversimplified (where is the sun in all this? close to Venus?), it is a graphic way to get people to listen to his point. I hope it doesn't turn people off with the mild disregard for logic though.

All in all, a fun experience and a great way to get tasty locally grown pumpkin bisque and apple crisp they were handing out.