Al Gore's Fight Against The Climate Crisis

What about a straight tax on carbon emissions, which many consider the single best way to curb climate-warming pollution?
We need both - a carbon tax and a cap-and-trade system where the emissions rights are auctioned and the revenue is plowed back into renewable-energy development. I challenge the conventional wisdom that we have to pick one or the other. If you replace the payroll tax with a tax on CO2, it would discourage the destruction of the planet's environment without increasing total taxes. And a global system that caps and trades emissions would create the most effective reductions in the shortest period of time.

You've devoted much of your life to building a movement to combat the climate crisis. Be honest: Wouldn't that movement be far, far better off if you were able to lead it as president?
I'm going to do my best to provide leadership for this movement in whatever position I hold. I think there are a lot of good reasons not to run for president. But as you know, I haven't completely ruled out getting involved in the political system again at some point in time - there's no reason to do that. I hear myself repeating the same phrases, so forgive me if you hear that too. I really am focusing on this larger - make that different - kind of campaign. I won't say larger, because I know there's no position that can even approach the position of president in terms of the ability to influence events. But the way our political system operates in the United States today, the politics of reason faces a head wind. The skills that are rewarded in this communications environment include a lot of skills I don't think I possess in abundance. Some people catch on earlier than others that they're not well suited to the career they've chosen [laughs]. I'm fighting through the denial right now.

But don't you think that this movement you have played such a big part in mobilizing might offset those perceived weaknesses?
What a devious question. I haven't heard that one before. [Pauses] I really think those two things are different tracks. If I do my job right, then the sea change I'm trying to help accelerate will make it more likely that whoever runs in both parties will be forced to respond to a popular demand that they make the climate crisis the top priority. I know we're not there yet. I know we're not close to where we should be. But we're closer. And I can see it from here. I can see it. We've got to keep moving and build the momentum and pick up the pace.

The Live Earth concerts on July 7th represent the starting gun. It's a unique moment to ask for the world's attention to deliver an SOS for the climate - and to then begin a multiyear campaign to persuade enough people at the grass-roots level to become a part of that mass movement. We'll have a very specific set of tasks around which everybody in the world who chooses to do so can mobilize. What's the old Bob Dylan line? "Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call/Rattle your windows" - what's the rest of it? - "for the times they are a-changin'."

That's what I want to happen. And I think it's going to. I really do.

>>This is from the latest issue of Rolling Stone, on stands until June 29th.

>>Listen to Exclusive audio from the Al Gore interview and see photos of climate-change devastation here