Al Gore has found his niche. As a tireless campaigner on global climate change, the Academy Award winner, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and former vice president has found a thousand venues to tell the American people that the scientific debate about global warming is over. And his message is sinking in. Finally, we are beginning to realize that global warming is real and climate change is happening.

The open question now is what to do about it? How should we respond—as individuals, citizens, professionals, workers, business owners, people of faith, community leaders and politicians?

Much of the rest of the world has acknowledged the reality of climate change for years. More than 150 nations (not including the United States) have signed the Kyoto Protocol which Al Gore helped negotiate a decade ago. The treaty calls on signatories to collectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions by five percent compared to 1990 levels by 2010. The treaty leaves a lot to be desired but is a step in the right direction. Many countries, especially in Europe, have been developing comprehensive programs to significantly reduce climate-changing pollutants. While the US sits on the sidelines, these other industrial countries are developing the technologies of the future—a point made repeatedly by first Earth Day organizer Denis Hayes when he spoke in Buffalo two weeks ago.

Americans represent less than five percent of the world’s population but are responsible for emitting 25 percent of greenhouse gases which are causing climate change. Foremost among these gases is carbon dioxide, which is produced by burning and consuming fossil fuels—coal, oil and natural gas. We are the world’s biggest polluters. Our fossil fuel energy addiction is doing us in.

Over the last two months the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began releasing its latest report. It is the product of the most peer-reviewed scientific exercise ever undertaken. The IPCC Fourth Assessment states that there is near certainly about human activity-induced climate change. And that unless we change our energy path, the planet could warm by an average of three to eight degrees Fahrenheit over the next century, leaving the planet warmer than it has been in a million years.

If we try to imagine this future, we see a world for our children and grandchildren which is blighted by killing heat waves, long-lasting droughts in some areas and more frequent and intense downpours and floods in others, an increasing number of Katrina-like super hurricanes and typhoons, massive species extinction, eco-system collapse, agricultural failure and rising sea levels, which eventually will inundate coastal towns and cities around the world—creating hundreds of million of refugees.

Close to home, climate change is expected to lower Great Lakes water levels, affecting shipping, recreation, shoreline ecology and wildlife. According to a recent study by the Union of Concerned Scientists, if we follow a “business as usual” energy scenario, and don’t make progress kicking the fossil fuel habit, Western New York could end up with a climate like South Carolina or even Georgia in 100 years.

For winter-weary Buffalonians that might seem like a great idea but be careful what you wish for. Imagine our beautiful summer weather scorched by many days over 100 degrees.

Climate change promises to be among the most serious environmental, social, political, economic and national security threats we have ever faced. Moreover, it is a moral and social justice issue of profound dimensions. Our use of fossil fuels is damaging the chances of a decent life by future generations. As the climate changes, it will become crystal clear that the energy-wasteful lifestyles of the rich are victimizing the poor, especially in many developing countries where climate change will make survival even more difficult for the desperately poor. And then there is the moral sin of destroying God’s creation, the natural world.

The good news about global warming is we know exactly what to do. We can slow it down and mitigate its worst effects by significantly reducing our consumption of fossil fuels through energy conservation and efficiency and by switching to clean, renewable energy sources which are carbon-free—like wind, solar, biomass and geothermal energy. We have the knowledge and the technology. What we need is the personal and political will.

In 2004, Ross Gelbspan, journalist and climate activist, spoke in Buffalo about the realities of taming global warming and climate change. He argued that many environmental groups have done the cause a disservice by stressing lifestyle responses to climate change. Yes, we need to conserve energy and switch to renewable energy technologies in our own lifestyles, but that will not get the job done and, Gelbspan argued, should not preoccupy us. Gelbspan said we don’t have a lot of time to bring about fundamental changes. Vested fossil fuel interests must be challenged. Old policies and politicians must be replaced. Big changes must occur now. Climate change must be addressed politically.

But this is not a partisan political issue. Both the Democrats and Republicans have let us down as well as helped us. The Clinton/Gore White House did little to address global warming and climate change. Even when they were stymied by a Republican Congress, they could have used the White House bully pulpit to greater effect to raise awareness and rally the public. Fortunately, both Clinton and Gore are now active—Clinton persuading billionaires to donate their billions to implement clean energy development and Gore with his powerful speeches and his An Inconvenient Truth movie and book.

For the last six years, the Bush administration has blocked all action on climate change. In 2001, Bush reneged on his campaign promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and rejected Kyoto Treaty ratification. Given Bush and Cheney’s close ties to the oil and coal industries, it is not surprising that the Bush energy policy blocked energy conservation efforts while calling for the construction of 1,900 new power plants, most of them coal-fired.

The Bush administration even hired an oil industry lobbyist to edit out the science in scientific reports on climate change. At the same time they sought to silence federal climatologists from speaking out on the issue.

With progress on the federal level stymied, action has occurred at the state and local levels. The US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement signed up over 450 Democratic and Republican mayors who promised to implement the Kyoto provisions within their city limits. Republican Governor George Pataki enacted New York’s Renewable Portfolio Standard to decrease our reliance on fossil fuels. He also provided leadership for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an eight-state pact to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants in the US Northeast.

New York’s current governor, Eliot Spitzer, appears to be prepared to expand New York’s commitment to climate stabilization. He will have to do a lot to equal what Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has done in California.

As a result of the 2006 midterm elections, the Democrats now control the US Congress and a number of good federal climate protection bills are being proposed, especially the Sanders-Boxer bill in the US Senate and the Waxman bill in the House of Representatives. These deserve strong public support.

We need to move quickly. According to James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, “The Earth’s climate is nearing, but has not passed, a tipping point beyond which it will be impossible to avoid climate change with far-ranging undesirable consequences.” Hansen has said that we have just one more degree of warming and just 10 more years to redirect our energy use away from fossil fuels or our planet will become unrecognizable.

These are strong words from one of the world’s foremost climate experts. There is an urgent need for political action to change government policy on all levels. We must implement large-scale greenhouse gas emissions reductions before it is too late. And it’s not too late if we act now.

Walter Simpson, a local environmental activist and 25-year energy professional, is a founder of the Western New York Climate Action Coalition, which can be reached by contacting wnyclimateaction@gmail.com or 839-0062.