Al Gore: 'We Can Reclaim Control of Our Destiny'

Al Gore sounded a familiar theme in an end-of-year interview with CNN—the climate change situation is "dire." But the former VP also sounded a distinct note of optimism about the ability to fix it. "The good news is we can reclaim control of our destiny," said Gore, per Politico. Gore laid out his thinking in the interview with Jake Tapper: If the world stops adding to greenhouse gas pollution—achieving what's known as "true net zero"—temperatures will stop rising. And if true net zero is maintained, "human-caused greenhouse pollution will fall out of the atmosphere in as little as 25 to 30 years," he said.

Gore thinks it's possible because "we now have the cheapest new source of energy in the history of the world with solar electricity and wind electricity," adding that electric vehicles will further help the cause. However, he said it's up to advocates to exert "grassroots pressure" on governments around the world to make changes. Such pressure is the "crucial element," he said, per the Hill. "We just have to break the political power that the fossil fuel industry exerted with its fixers and its lobbyists and its bags of money and its revolving-door colleagues." (More Al Gore stories.)