Pittsburgh hosting 3-day climate change workshop
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Just days after the Trump administration signaled its continued retreat from Obama-era climate change policies, former Vice President Al Gore will open his latest Climate Reality Leadership Corps training program in Pittsburgh this week.
The three-day training event, from Tuesday through Thursday at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, is aimed at building public awareness and initiating local action on what Mr. Gore has long believed is the globe’s most pressing problem.
“With the president’s abdication on climate matters, it is now left to local and state governments to save our planet,” said Mayor Bill Peduto, one of 27 speakers at the workshop. “Vice President Gore is helping us build a grassroots army that will greatly help that mission.”
The program comes on the heels of the Trump administration’s efforts to scrap the Clean Power Plan, which set lower pollution rules for power plants, thus reducing emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a draft proposal that would upend established ways of calculating costs and benefits of controlling polluting carbon emissions, and thus have the effect of discounting the cost of climate change.
Ken Berlin, president and chief executive officer of The Climate Reality Project, acknowledged that the Trump administration is in denial about climate change, but said burning forests in California and throughout the West this summer and a steady string of hurricanes are forcing a public reality check.
“The Trump administration insists on slowing climate action at every turn, making reckless, irrational and short-sighted decisions that not only ignore the danger we face as our world warms and our climate grows increasingly unstable, but also ignore the clean energy revolution already underway in this country,” Mr. Berlin said.
“While California burns and millions in Puerto Rico are still without power thanks in part to our changing climate, the administration continues to stick its head in the sand, showing it’s woefully out of touch with both the American people and the global community, and risking our air, water and public health.”
Mr. Berlin said there’s momentum behind the businesses, cities, states, universities and citizens taking climate action every day. For example, mayors in more than 100 cities around the country — including Pittsburgh — have committed to reaching 100 percent renewable electricity, he said, and prices for wind and solar renewable energy are falling rapidly, and in many places are comparable to or cheaper than fossil fuels.
Mr. Berlin said that since Mr. Trump mentioned Pittsburgh in his announcement about withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, the city has become a symbol of local climate leadership, “and that is certainly something we will address substantially throughout the training.”
Grant Oliphant, president of The Heinz Endowments, which is sponsoring the training program, said climate change is a scientific fact and evidence of it abounds.
“Many of the environmental and human health challenges we are experiencing in Pittsburgh are connected to issues of environmental deterioration,” Mr. Oliphant said. “But the only way we are going to reverse that is if individual citizens take and demand action, which is why we are so excited to help bring to Pittsburgh the Climate Reality Leadership Training Corps workshop.”
Mr. Gore will offer welcoming remarks Tuesday morning and is scheduled to participate in all three days of the program.
The Pittsburgh workshop is the 36th conducted by Mr. Gore and the first following the release of Mr. Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.” The movie is a follow-up to his film “An Inconvenient Truth,” which won two Academy Awards in 2006 for best documentary feature film and best original song.
Sign-up for the Pittsburgh training is closed. For more information visit www.climaterealityproject.org or follow on Twitter at @ClimateReality.