Former vice president and global warming activist Al Gore claimed in a pre-recorded interview Saturday that those who deny climate change are comparable to police officers who refuse to enter a school to stop a shooting.
In an interview set to air on Sunday, Gore told NBC, “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. They heard the screams, they heard the gunshots, and nobody stepped forward.”
Following the Robb Elementary School shooting tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, which left 19 children and two adults dead, a report compiled by the Texas House committee indicated that almost 400 officers were gathered outside the school before anyone attempted to breach the school and take down the shooter who had barricaded himself inside.
The report detailed a series of missteps on a number of fronts — from the shooter’s family failing to identify warning signs to the school’s apparent habit of leaving doors unlocked or propped open — but the strongest condemnation was reserved for law enforcement officers who arrived on the scene and then waited to act for over an hour.
“God bless those families who suffered so much,” Gore added.
Gore, who has been pontificating about the purported dangers of climate change for nearly two decades now, continued to scold individuals who do not act to lower carbon emissions.
“Confronted with this global emergency, what we’re doing with our inaction, and failing to walk through the door, and stop the killing, is not typical of what we are capable of as human beings,” Gore said.
“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 said. “We have to have unify as a nation to come together and stop making this a political football.”
Gore has taken some steps to help reduce dependency on fossil fuels, but it is unclear that they had any major impact on his own carbon footprint.
The Nobel Prize winner was awarded an Oscar for his 2006 climate change documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” The following year, he appeared to put his money where his mouth was by revamping his Tennessee home with 33 solar panels. Yet, a 2017 report indicated that the former vice president was still using more than 21 times the amount of energy in a 12-month span than the average household. Solar energy accounted for just 5.7% of that consumption at that time.
Gore has also found success in the TV world while profiting off the backs of fossil fuel-producing countries.
In 2016, Current TV was sold to the Qatar state-owned media network Al-Jazeera. Gore had a 20% stake in Current TV and made a reported $100 million. One of Qatar’s top exports has consistently been petroleum and it is also home to one of the largest natural gas fields in the entire world.