Al Gore, well-known climate activist and former Democratic Vice President, stated that “climate deniers” were in the same boat as the police officials who chose not to act while the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas was happening.
While sitting as a guest on “Meet the Press,” from NBC, Gore went off on Republicans and the use of tactics such as the Senate filibuster that, as he says, has been stopping Democrats from pushing through legislation to try and deal with global warming. Gore compared these “climate deniers” in Congress to the police officials who have been trained and are equipped to deal with the mass shooting but failed to put a stop to the tragic events that took place in Uvalde at Robb Elementary School.
“You know, the climate deniers are really in some ways similar to all of those, almost 400 law enforcement officers in Uvalde, Texas, who were waiting outside an unlocked door while the children were being massacred,” Gore stated to the show’s host Chuck Todd.
“They heard the screams. They heard the gunshots and nobody has stepped forward,” he went on. “God bless those families that suffered so much. And law enforcement officials tell us that’s not typical of what law enforcement usually does.”
“And confronted with this global emergency, what we’re doing with our inaction in failing to walk through the door and stop the killing is not typical of what we are capable of as human beings. We do have the solutions. And I think these extreme events that are getting steadily worse and more severe are really beginning to change minds. We have to have unity as a nation to come together and stop making this a political football. It shouldn’t be a partisan issue.”
Gore then went on to complain about the filibuster for its role in preventing Congress from immediately taking action, once again drawing the comparison of climate change to the tragic Uvalde school shooting.
“The same reason it is seemingly impossible for the Congress to pass legislation banning these weapons of war, these assault rifles that are being used to murder children in classrooms and create hundreds of mass casualty events already this year and that’s getting worse, the same reason we can’t pass legislation to, for example, to reinstate the ban on assault weapons is the same reason that we can’t pass climate legislation: we have the minority government,” stated Gore.
“We have the filibuster still, which ought to be eliminated,” he went on. “We have big money playing much too large a role in our politics, lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry, and they’re still running all of these advertisements trying to convince people that ‘it’s not that bad’ or ‘they’ve got this, don’t worry about it.’ We have got to rise to this challenge.”
“We, the people, have to solve this, and we have to instruct those who are in positions of leadership to start doing the right thing. Our survival as a species may depend upon it.”