Former Vice President Al Gore warned that rapid flooding from "rain bombs" - like in Louisiana now and Houston this spring - will come more frequently because of climate change unless more action is taken, including by the oil and gas sector.

Gore came to Houston - the world's energy capital - to launch The Climate Reality Project's three-day leadership training conference on Tuesday to push for more grass-roots efforts to drive governments and businesses to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is the first time his 10-year-old organization has hosted training in Houston, where the event attracted 600 participants during the same month the Green Party held its convention here.

The overwhelming consensus of scientists is the global climate is rapidly warming and that it is largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. These fuels emit carbon dioxide, a gas that traps heat in the atmosphere, creating what is known as the greenhouse effect.

Gore noted that July was the hottest month ever recorded and there's a 99 percent chance 2016 will surpass 2015 as the hottest year on record. Fourteen of the hottest 15 years have occurred since 2001.

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"Every storm now is different because of how we're modifying the climate of the Earth," Gore said.

Texas susceptible

Warmer air can hold more water vapor and unleash in the form of what Gore called "rain bombs." He lamented the latest flooding in Louisiana that's taken at least 10 lives and flooded tens of thousands of homes.

He noted Texas has suffered more multibillion-dollar climate disasters in the past 35 years than any other state. Houston was hit by five major floods from May 2015 through this May - two 100-year floods and one 1,000-year flood. In May 2015, he added,Texas had its rainiest month ever at "almost Noah-like" proportions.

"We have built a civilization for conditions that we are now in the process of rapidly changing, and the consequences are extreme," Gore said. "These statistics that say once in 1,000 years or once in 500 years are not accurate anymore."

Gore said the oil and gas industry must change the way it operates and how it values its assets. He likened the condition of the sector to that of the housing market during the era of sub-prime mortgages. Banks carried the mortgages on their books as assets, even though they ultimately proved worthless; energy companies still place high paper values on their reserves, even though tightening climate regulations around the world mean the companies may never be able to extract the oil and natural gas from the ground.

Just as the inflated housing market collapsed and rocked the financial system, so could the revaluing and write-down of oil and gas reserves unlikely to be tapped, Gore said.

"There is a sub-prime carbon bubble," Gore said. "If these assets cannot be burned, then a day of reckoning lies ahead."

While major oil and gas companies are acknowledging the threats of climate change, and even supporting so-called carbon taxes, many executives and analysts don't expect a quick end for fossil fuels, which still drive the global economy. Many developing nations need more electricity to provide power for their growing economies and middle classes.

And while more renewable power such as wind and solar is coming into the system, its role remains limited because of the intermittent nature of these technologies, requiring natural gas and other fossil fuels to provide a bridge.

Gore, however, said he was optimistic about slowing climate change. The growth of wind and solar power in the United States and much of the rest of the world is far exceeding previous projections. The vast majority of all new electricity generation coming online globally is from renewable power.

Texas is by far the largest wind generator in the United States. For instance, he noted, the very conservative and very Republican city of Georgetown, near Austin, plans to get all its electricity from renewable resources by the end of 2017.

Legislative options

Gore has long supported Congress adopting a carbon tax to put a financial price on each ton of carbon emitted from fossil fuels. The idea is to raise the cost as an incentive for industries and individuals to use less.

Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and some other energy giants have come out in favor of a revenue-neutral carbon tax - lowering some other taxes to offset any increase - although environmentalists and industry often disagree on how such a tax would be implemented. Any carbon tax proposal is considered dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled Congress.

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, said her hometown is the right place to make the climate activism push to encourage energy companies to develop solutions for the future.

"We are the first witnesses to climate change," she said about Houston residents, citing the recent flooding and past hurricanes.

Ken Berlin, chief executive of The Climate Reality Project, said the effort has trained more than 10,000 people globally to speak about climate change, make presentations and inform communities about the threat, one neighbor at a time.

"Our country is so divided. People tend to listen to people from their own community," Berlin said.