While appearing on NBC’s 3rd Hour Today show Friday morning, former Vice President Al Gore hailed weatherman Al Roker for his “consistent advocacy” pushing the liberal climate change agenda. Co-host Craig Melvin then asked Gore how people could maintain the supposed environmental “progress” caused by the devastating coronavirus pandemic.
After discussing some current events, like nationwide protests against police and the 2020 presidential campaign, Roker eagerly asked Gore about his “Climate Reality Project,” a virtual training course on how to be a climate activist. Before hawking the effort, Gore thanked Roker: “Yeah, and first of all, Al, thank you for your consistent advocacy of solutions to the climate crisis. You’re really doing great work on it. And I did – I want to thank you for it.”
The Democrat then touted his political push: “This will be the 44th time that I have trained people from around the world to become climate activists.” Gore claimed: “We give them everything they need to know about the science, about the solutions, communications and advocacy skills, and connect them with a network and mentors.”
Clearly Roker didn’t need a course to become a spokesperson for the cause.
Gore reiterated: “And thank you again, Al, for what you’re doing.” Co-host Craig Melvin chimed in: “Amen to that, Mr. Vice President.” The anchor then wondered how all the alleged climate “progress” made as the world suffered from coronavirus could continue:
MELVIN: You just mentioned the pandemic. And one of the positive effects that it’s had, one of the few positive effects, an 8% drop in greenhouse gases because of those stay-at-home orders. How do we build on that progress, specifically, Mr. President, especially as folks do start to get out more?”
GORE: Well, that’s a little bit of an illusion because, you know, as economist Paul Krugman said, we put the economy in the equivalent of a medically induced coma, countries around the world have done that. And naturally the emissions are gonna go down as economic activity goes down, without changing over to other fuel sources. But we saw with the great recession a similar effect and then when the economy came back, the emissions came back. And most of the experts think that’s going to happen this time as well.
The liberal media, and especially NBC News, have repeatedly touted decreased pollution as a “silver lining” of the global health crisis. You know, around the dark cloud of hundreds of thousands being dead and tens of millions unemployed across the globe.
Friday was not the first time Gore showed up on the morning show to praise Roker’s climate activism. Back in 2018, he appeared on 3rd Hour Today to cheer the longtime NBC weatherman for his “long-time attention to the climate crisis.”
Here is a transcript of the June 19 exchange with Gore:
9:06 AM ET
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AL ROKER: Okay, let’s talk about the Climate Reality Project. You’ve got this training program coming up, but it’s going to be held virtually for the first time.
AL GORE: Yeah, and first of all, Al, thank you for your consistent advocacy of solutions to the climate crisis. You’re really doing great work on it. And I did – I want to thank you for it. This will be the 44th time that I have trained people from around the world to become climate activists. We give them everything they need to know about the science, about the solutions, communications and advocacy skills, and connect them with a network and mentors. And this is
the first global training and the first virtual training, although the previous 43 have had people from around the world. But this one is unique. It’s July 18th through July 26th, 90 minutes to two hours each day during that week-plus period.And this is part of a continuing effort to build grassroots momentum to pressure policymakers and countries all over the world to get busy with the solutions to the climate crisis. You know, we’ve seen from the coronavirus pandemic the dangers of ignoring the scientists when they issue these dire warnings and the consequences of climate are not just for months or years, but for centuries or even longer, unless we get our act together.
So this training, you can sign up by going to climatereality.com. And I hope people will and thank you again, Al, for what you’re doing.
CRAIG MELVIN: Amen to that, Mr. Vice President. You just mentioned the pandemic. And one of the positive effects that it’s had, one of the few positive effects, an 8% drop in greenhouse gases because of those stay-at-home orders. How do we build on that progress, specifically, Mr. President, especially as folks do start to get out more?
GORE: Well, that’s a little bit of an illusion because, you know, as economist Paul Krugman said, we put the economy in the equivalent of a medically induced coma, countries around the world have done that. And naturally the emissions are gonna go down as economic activity goes down, without changing over to other fuel sources. But we saw with the great recession a similar effect and then when the economy came back, the emissions came back. And most of the experts think that’s going to happen this time as well.
However, this is a occurring, Craig, against a backdrop of renewable electricity from solar and wind coming down so rapidly in cost, it’s now cheaper than fossil fuel electricity in most of the world. And with the mandates in many places to use the cheapest electricity first, we’re seeing fossil electricity go down even as renewable electricity is going up. Same thing with electric vehicles. Within a couple of years, they’re going to be cost competitive and people already who try them already prefer them. And so, I think this is a time for a great reset. We’ve got to fix a lot of these problems that have been allowed to fester for way too long. And the climate crisis is an opportunity to create tens of millions of new jobs and clean up the air, reduce the death rate from pandemics by the way, because the air pollution from burning fossil fuels heightens the death rates from coronavirus. So this is a time for a reset, to fix a bunch of challenges, first among them, the climate crisis.
ROKER: Alright, well, Mr. Vice President, Al Gore, thank you so much. We appreciate the insights and we’ll be talking to you again.
