Al Gore: Sarah Palin and Warming Skeptics in "Air of Unreality"
4760191Former Vice President Al Gore said today that the evidence of global warming is unequivocal and that those who claim otherwise -- such as Sarah Palin -- "persist in an air of unreality."
Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed today that President Obama should boycott the United Nations summit on global warming in Copenhagen because the issue has become politicized. In a recent Facebook post, she called climate science "junk science and doomsday scare tactics."
Gore hit back at Palin and other global warming skeptics on MSNBC today.
"The entire North Polar ice cap is disappearing before our eyes," Gore said. "What do they think is happening?"
The discovery that CO2 traps heat was made 150 years ago, Gore points out. He adds: "That is a principle in physics. It's not a question of debate. It's like gravity; it exists."
"The scientific community has worked very intensively for 20 years within this international process, and they now say the evidence is unequivocal," he said.
The Republican party has "gotten into a global warming denier posture," Gore said, even though the issue should not be political.
"It really is a moral issue," he said. "It speaks to the responsibility of the present generation to take steps to safeguard those generations yet to come, because this has now reached the level where, if we were not to act, the consequences already beginning at a low levels are predicted to reach catastrophic levels, unless we take steps to prevent it from that."
Furthermore, the former politician said, the response to global warming can bring jobs back the United States. He pointed out that Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm -- who represents one of the states hit hardest by the bad economy -- is a strong advocate for "green" jobs.
"Building the smart grid, building the solar, wind, geothermal, renewable energy systems, planting trees -- these are all job-creators that help to stimulate the economy and produce sustainable growth," Gore said.
