Al Gore Compares Climate Change Skepticism to Racism

Just as an unusually large Hurricane Irene bore down on the East Coast, Al Gore upped the ante in the global warming debate.

In an interview with FearLess Revolution founder Alex Bogusky on Friday, Gore tackled topics like eating less meat, the challenges of industrial agriculture, and the dubious nature of mountaintop mining.

But as Politico reports, he also offered up some advice to those who support curbing carbon emissions. When engaging in debate with climate change skeptics, Gore said that those who believed the issue was a serious one needed to “win the conversation” by directly challenging nay-sayers, just as civil rights activists did in the face of racism.

Gore’s comment:

“There came a time when people said, ‘Hey man, why do you talk that way? That’s wrong, I don’t go for that so don’t talk that way around me. I just don’t believe that.’ That happened in millions of conversations, and slowly the conversation was won. And we still have racism, God knows, but it’s so different now and so much better. And we have to win the conversation on climate.”