If Donald Trump becomes president, he could roll back years of progress in the continued fight against climate change, former vice-president Al Gore warned Monday.
"He has said some things on the climate crisis that I think should concern everybody," Gore, whose Oscar-winning movie "An Inconvenient Truth" was released 10 years ago Tuesday, told NBC's
"Today" show.
"I'm not Pollyanna-ish, but I do think that there is still some basis for hope."
News broke last week that Trump has asked North Dakota Republican
Rep. Kevin Cramer to write a white paper on energy policy. Also, Cramer and some other Trump energy advisers also recently met with lawmakers from western energy states, who hope Trump will open more federal land for drilling.
Further, Trump has often said that he does not believe that humans played a role in climate change, and has commented that the issue is a "very, very expensive form of tax."
On Monday, Gore told the program that "President [Jimmy] Carter said that he hopes [Trump] will be malleable, so I don't know."
Overall, he called the tone of Trump's campaign "unusual," commenting that he's "one of the millions who sometimes just does a double take: 'Whoa, what was that?'''
But he hasn't endorsed Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, even though he served as husband Bill's vice-president, or Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, but he does praise them for addressing climate change issues. Instead, Gore said he will back the eventual Democratic nominee.
And even though many Republicans deny climate change is real, Gore said he does have "some tea party allies" who have been nicknamed the "Green Tea Party."
Gore's movie is being offered on Tuesday by Paramount through free downloads on Amazon, XFINITY On Demand, iTunes, and in other locations to mark its 10th anniversary, and he said Monday he still is often attacked for the predictions he made in the movie.
"It's not unusual to see attacks on a messenger by people who don't like the message,'' Gore said. "I don't own a private plane. My house runs on 100 percent renewable energy. I do walk the talk."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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