Gore: Global warming will cause more hurricanes like Harvey

Former Vice President Al Gore speaks at Tudor Fieldhouse at Rice University Oct.23, 2017, in Houston, TX. (Michael Wyke / For the Chronicle) Former Vice President Al Gore speaks at Tudor Fieldhouse at Rice University Oct.23, 2017, in Houston, TX. (Michael Wyke / For the Chronicle) Photo: Michael Wyke, For The Chronicle Photo: Michael Wyke, For The Chronicle Image 1 of / 80 Caption Close Gore: Global warming will cause more hurricanes like Harvey 1 / 80 Back to Gallery

Al Gore warned Texans on Monday that global warming will lead to more Hurricane Harveys in coming years - but he urged them not to be discouraged.

Change, he said, can be made.

"We have to realize how big this thing is," Gore said. "We have got to change."

Gore, a former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, spoke Monday night at Rice University about climate change and the role it plays in major storms, such as Harvey. The speech comes just a few months after the release of his new climate change documentary, "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power." Gore's first climate change documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," was released about 10 years ago and won an Oscar.

Hurricane Harvey made landfall Aug. 25, pummeling South Texas with feet of rain and biting wind. The storm was one of the worst in U.S. history. And that, largely, has to do with climate change, Gore said.

A large problem is carbon dioxide releases, he said, which mostly come from fossil fuels.

"We can't treat the world like an open sewer," said Gore, the 2000 Democratic presidential candidate. "Every day we're dumping 110 million tons of CO2 in the sky, and it traps heat."

In fact, he said, the amount of global warming pollution produced by humans "traps as much extra heat energy in the earth … as would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs going off every 24 hours."

That has led to the warming of oceans, Gore said, which has led to more intense hurricanes that intensify more rapidly.

And it's not just Harvey. This year, the world saw Hurricanes Irma and Maria, both of which left devastation in their paths.

In talking to reporters, Gore called Houston one of the cities vulnerable to climate change in the coming years because of its "vulnerability to repeated record downpours."

He also said that Houstonians deserve to know what has been released into the air and water after Hurricane Harvey.

"That should be given priority absolutely," he said.

But Texans shouldn't lose hope, he said during his talk.

The amount of global carbon dioxide emissions has stayed flat three years in a row, he said, and the number of coal plants in the U.S. is dwindling.

Renewable energy is taking off, with solar and wind energy use skyrocketing. Texas currently is the largest producer of wind power in the U.S., he added, with solar usage not far behind in the Lone Star state.

U.S. cities are committing to relying 100 percent on renewable energy. Georgetown, Texas, he said, is already there.

A number of countries also are pushing toward all-electric vehicles in the coming years, he said.

Gore said he finds it especially encouraging that climate change is becoming less of a partisan issue.

"Can we change? You bet we can," he said.