Opinion: Failed presidential candidate Al Gore attacks winning candidate Obama over his environment policies
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Former newspaper reporter Al Gore is attacking President Barack Obama for a lack of ‘bold action on climate change.’
In a 7,000-word essay you won’t want to fail to miss in ‘Rolling Stone,’ the former member of the House of Representatives charges that his fellow Democrat, the former state senator, ‘has never presented to the American people the magnitude of the climate crisis. He has not defended the science against the ongoing withering and dishonest attacks. Nor has he provided a presidential venue for the scientific community ... to bring the reality of the science before the public.’
The article, titled ‘Climate of Denial,’ appears in the July 7 issue of Rolling Stone.
In it, the former senator from Tennessee likens the thoughtful people in the Science and Reason crowd to the good guy in a rigged professional wrestling match.
In Gore’s scenario the bad guy in the black hood is played by ‘Poisonous Polluters and Right-Wing Ideologues.’
The stumble-bum referee who is always looking the wrong way to catch unfairness is played by the news media.
The former vice president says he has some empathy for the White House occupant, but adds: ‘President Obama has thus far failed to use the bully pulpit to make the case for bold action on climate change.’
The former presidential candidate then ticks off a string of inactions he sees Obama having done to not push enviromnental protection as vigorously as possible. This list of wrongs is capped by Obama’s worst sin, calling for an expansion of domestic oil drilling to help reduce dependence on foreign resources.
Gore offers no explanation or excuse for his own role in worsening global warming by hiring Keith Olbermann to talk to thousands of people on Gore’s cable channel.
-- Andrew Malcolm
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