WASHINGTON – Former Vice President Al Gore, the leading American voice on climate change, urged lawmakers Friday to overcome partisan differences and take action to reduce greenhouse gases, but Democrats and Republicans sparred even more vigorously over the cost of dealing with global warming.
Gore, who won a Nobel prize for his work on climate change, told a congressional hearing that "the dire and growing threat" of a warmer earth requires the parties to unite to deal with the environmental threat. He endorsed a House Democratic bill that would limit carbon dioxide and other pollution linked to warming.
He went on to give a head-scratching response to the criticism of the high cost of the transition off of fossil fuels:
"I think the cost of energy will come down when we make this transition to renewable energy," said Gore, who predicted economic costs would be much greater if global warming is not reined in by a shift from the use of fossil fuels.
Prices might go down eventually, but as I have said before, to make such a drastic change quickly the immediate costs would be enormous. In the middle of a recession is not the time to put added costs that are not unhesitatingly imperitive at this time.
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