Former Vice President Al Gore said Sunday that President Trump ignored science and Mother Nature in pulling out of the Paris climate change accord, saying nightly news reports resemble “a nature hike through the Book of Revelations.”
That helps explain the Trump administration’s clumsy explanation for the president’s decision to exit the agreement, said Mr. Gore, who is chairman of the Climate Realty Project and a leading advocate for reducing carbon emissions.
“The administration comes off as tongue-tied and confused about the climate crisis because the truth is still inconvenient for the large carbon polluters and they don’t want to stop the polluting of the atmosphere — it interferes with their business plan,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Mr. Trump said last week that he was pulling out of the Obama-era agreement with nearly 200 other nations because it was a bad deal, imposing burdens on the U.S. that would harm the economy while excusing other countries that are top polluters, including India and China.
Mr. Gore said the U.S. should move more quickly to adopt a clean energy-based economy. It already is happening, he said, with rapid growth in the solar and wind industries.
He said the U.S. also suffered a setback when President George W. Bush pulled out of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
“We lost a lot of time when the U.S. did not join the rest of the community then,” he said.
Noting drought across most of Florida, flooding in Missouri and 11 once-in-a-millennium rainfalls in the past decade, Mr. Gore said the impact of global warming has reached biblical proportions.
“It’s not just the scientific community warning us now, it’s Mother Nature. Every night on TV news is like a nature hike through the Book of Revelations,” he said.
He said that the American people would continue to lead on climate change even if Mr. Trump refused.
“We have to move faster. It’s good news that the rest of the world is,” he said. “It’s good news that states and cities and businesses are, but we need leadership. Since he’s not going to lead, the American people will.”
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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