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Al Gore: ‘Treat Climate Deniers like Racists’

Says it’s time to call them out on their lies and propaganda

Former V.P. Al Gore says it’s time to stop pussyfooting around people who want us to believe that the climate isn’t changing and that we humans aren’t causing global warming.

Gore, who has called global warming a “planetary emergency,” says that the climate change denial lobby has become so strong that in some circles, it’s even politically incorrect to mention the words “climate change.” All of this, he says, has to change.

A passionate spokesperson for taking action against the dangerous pollution of the atmosphere and the oceans, Gore is organizing a global event called 24 Hours of Reality, to take place in two weeks’ time. According to his website:

“On September 14, the world will focus its attention on the truth about the climate crisis. For 24 hours, we will all live in reality. Pick a faraway place or a city near you. Make it yours for one day. We’re hitting every time zone — but only once. 7 p.m. in your time zone. Choose a location and get involved.”

To promote 24 Hours of Reality, Gore is giving interviews and explaining how to “win the conversation” against the skeptics and the deniers.

“Powerful polluters … see it as a useful strategy to try to convince the public that the scientists are liars and that they’re greedy and they’re making stuff up. [This is] all in the service of their overarching strategy of creating enough doubt to persuade people that there shouldn’t be any sense of urgency about addressing this crisis.”

Gore, who grew up in Tennessee, compares trying to talk about climate change to the difficulties people like him, who were Southerners, used to have in talking about the evils of racism. The moral component, he says, is the same.

The opposition is constantly aided by people like presidential candidate Rick Perry dropping verbal grenades into the discussion by saying that scientists have “manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their pockets.” (Perry was, in fact, once a Gore supporter until his “truths” became “inconvenient” for running for office in Texas.)

Gore responds:

“This is an organized effort to attack the reputation of the scientific community as a whole – to attack their integrity, and to slander them with the lie that they are making up the science in order to make money.”

Here’s a whole discussion between Gore and Alex Bogusky, a former advertising executive who’s volunteering to promote the upcoming event. Note: the video runs nearly an hour.


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