Al Gore on climate change: ‘I think we're going to win this’

Amid making the press rounds for his upcoming documentary-style film “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power,” former Vice President Al Gore shared some rather mind-blowing statistics concerning climate change but also a strong sense of optimism for the planet’s future.

The avid environmentalist’s interview with Business Insider specifically touched on Miami as well, as one of his past trips to South Florida involved seeing “fish from the ocean swimming in the streets.” Gore also mentioned how someone shared a picture with him of an octopus in a Miami Beach parking garage—view that wild visual here.

However, unlike many disheartening studies and projections hitting the news in recent months, Gore came off as rather confident in the planet’s battle against climate change despite President Trump’s stance on the issue.

“I think we're making a lot of progress,” Gore said. “I think we're going to win this, but it matters how quickly we win it.”

Among the specific positives Gore outlined: “Electricity from solar and wind is cheaper than electricity from fossil fuels” and Trump “does not speak for the country on this issue, and that was vividly illustrated in the aftermath of his speech pulling the US out of the Paris Agreement.”

“Almost immediately, not only did the rest of the world double down on its commitments, but also here in this country, governors, mayors, business leaders, they said, we're still in the Paris Agreement, and they're doubling down. A lot of cities have now made a decision to go 100 percent renewable energy, and the latest studies indicate that the US is certainly going to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement, regardless of what Donald Trump says.”

Additionally, Gore dropped a couple of jarring figures when asked about the more frightening statistics in regards to climate change.

“The cumulative amount of man-made global pollution that's in the atmosphere now traps as much extra heat energy every day as would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every day. It's a big planet, but that's an awful lot of energy.

Now the second statistic is, we're still putting 110 million tons of that stuff into the air every single day as if the sky is an open sewer. And all of the increase temperatures that people talk about, that's air temperature. More than 90% of the extra heat energy is going into the oceans, and that's why superstorm Sandy was so much more destructive, that's why the ice is melting more rapidly, that's why the water cycle is being disrupted and we get a lot more water vapor coming from the oceans into the sky, and that's why we get these enormous downpours and big floods.”

Gore’s upcoming documentary is currently rated as 70 percent fresh, according to critics on Rotten Tomatoes. It hits Miami theaters in early August.

Climate change coverage [Curbed]

Al Gore explains our chances against climate change, and his fateful meeting with Donald Trump [Business Insider]