Former VP headlines Earth Day event

by Skip Anderson & Jessica Howard

Former Vice President Al Gore described responsible stewardship of the environment as a "moral issue" in a politically charged Earth Day address delivered April 22 at Vanderbilt.

"Our environment is under siege," Gore, author of Earth in the Balance, told an audience of more than 300. "There is a movement afoot by polluters to dismantle Americans' capacity to limit their releases of dangerous waste products."

Greeted by a standing ovation, Gore was interrupted several times by applause as he sharply criticized the environmental policies of the current administration.

"The Bush-Cheney energy policies leave us at the mercy of a region that's racked with violence and instability, now more than ever," he said. "We need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, so that America cannot be held hostage to global chaos and tin-horn tyrants like Saddam Hussein."

In an address sponsored by Vanderbilt University and the Tennessee Environmental Council, Gore countered recent remarks made by the White House that Americans demonstrated their support of Republican environmental policies by electing Bush president.

"Refresh my memory; did a majority of the American people endorse his policies in the election?" he said.

Speaking in Blair School of Music's Ingram Hall, Gore attacked Bush for "his very first broken promise," referring to a campaign pledge to reduce levels of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere.

"When it comes to energy and environmental policy, the Bush administration has brought the oil company representatives out of the lobby and into the Oval Office and let them rewrite America's environmental laws during secret meetings," he said. "Their first order of business was to withdraw from the global agreement reached in Kyoto [Japan], to begin limiting worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases."

Gore, who attended Vanderbilt's Law School and Graduate School, also criticized the president for not supporting the re-election of Robert Watson as head of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change in favor of Rajendra Pachauri.

"Just as Enron needed auditors that wouldn't blow the whistle when they lied about future liabilities, Exxon needs a scientific panel that won't blow the whistle on the future damage that will be caused by global warming," he said.