GORE  (CONT)

leadership gave Gore extra time and advantages not afforded typical witnesses. Inhofe then grilled Gore about his personal energy use at his Tennessee mansion and showed the final frame of Gore's film that read, "Are you ready to change the way you live?"

When Gore tried to respond at length, Inhofe cut him off.

Democratic Chairwoman Barbara Boxer kept trying to bring order to the hearing. She told Inhofe he can't control things anymore now that Republicans have lost their majority. "Elections have consequences, so I make the rules," she said, holding up her gavel to cheers from the audience.

Gore sighed heavily and proposed that he and Inhofe have breakfast and privately discuss it away from the cameras.

Gore said he hopes whoever is elected president in 2008 "can use his or her political chips" to lead the world toward a new global climate treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto protocol that requires 35 industrial nations to cut greenhouse gases. The Bush administration argues Kyoto would hurt the U.S. economy and objects that high-polluting developing nations like China and India are not required to reduce emissions.

"I fully understand that Kyoto, as a brand if you will, has been demonized," Gore said.

Gore was warmly welcomed back by some of his critics, such as Rep. Ralph Hall, R-Texas, who remembered serving with Gore's father and bantered with Gore about an evening boat ride they took together. "You're dear to us, but I just don't agree with you on this," Hall said.

Gore advised lawmakers to cut carbon dioxide and other warming gases 90 percent by 2050 to avoid a crisis. Doing that, he said, will require a ban on any new coal-burning power plants -- a major source of industrial carbon dioxide -- that lack state-of-the-art controls to capture the gases.

He said he foresees a revolution in small-scale electricity producers for replacing coal, likening the development to what the Internet has done for the exchange of information.

"There is a sense of hope in this country that this United States Congress will rise to the occasion and present meaningful solutions to this crisis," Gore said. "Our world faces a true planetary emergency. I know the phrase sounds shrill, and I know it's a challenge to the moral imagination."

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