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Opinion: Al Gore likens global warming to Nazi threat

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Al Gore is now comparing the battle against global warming to the fight against Adolf Hitler in World War II.

In a speech to students at Oxford on Tuesday, the former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate conceded that there is still work to do to convince political leaders that the threat of climate change is as urgent as that from the Nazis. The Senate is beginning debate on a cap-and-trade bill to curb emissions, predicted to be an even tougher fight than in the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to twist arms and trade votes to win a narrow victory. Gore seemed to acknowledge the difficulty of converting grassroots passion into political will.

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‘The level of awareness and concern among populations has not crossed the threshold where political leaders feel that they must change,’ he said at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment. ‘The only way politicians will act is if awareness raises to a level to make them feel that it’s a necessity.’

Mindful of his British audience, Gore said the fight to cut carbon dioxide emissions will require a leader with the fortitude of Winston Churchill, who steered Britain through four years of hardship, bombings and economic deprivations to victory against the Nazis.

‘Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilization in World War II,’ he said.
‘We have everything we need except political will, but political will is a renewable resource.’

Not everyone was impressed. At Fox News, as you can see from the clip above, they’re still worried about global cooling.

-- Johanna Neuman

The Ticket goes inside politics several times a day. Click here for Twitter alerts of each new item. Or follow us @latimestot

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