Are we able and ready?

Tuesday, July 22, 2008 | 2:04 a.m.

A presidential speech was given last week, challenging Americans to change their long-held notions about energy and help move this country swiftly toward a new age.

Too bad the speech wasn’t given by the president.

It was instead given by Al Gore, who has over the past several years filled the void left by the White House on issues associated with climate change and its link to fossil fuels.

Gore’s outspokenness and activism earned him the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, as well as the respect of millions of people who look to him as the voice of authority and reason on renewable energy.

Speaking Thursday in Washington, Gore said, “Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.”

The former vice president offered a litany of reasons why the switch to a new energy age must begin now, including: the rapid melting of Arctic ice, longer droughts, more record floods and forest fires, increased numbers of tornadoes and the threat of populations around the world becoming destabilized.

These terrible scenarios are not embellishments spoken by an ambitious office seeker. Gore isn’t running for anything, and scientists the world over vouch for their veracity.

Whether 10 years is a reasonable time frame for achieving revolutionary change is beside the point, in our view, and we hope debate over Gore’s speech does not get bogged down in that particular argument.

What is important is that the world is rapidly warming because of the unnaturally high amount of greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere. Drastically cutting back on the burning of oil and other fossil fuels is our only chance of avoiding more severe climate change over the next decades.

No leader has really set a major challenge for our country since President Kennedy, and even that challenge mostly involved the space industry. Gore has offered a challenge that needs everyone’s participation, in ways large and small. Let’s take him up on it.