Black Activists Criticize Al Gore for Comparing Climate Activism to Civil Rights, Abolitionist Movements

For Release: July 14, 2017
Contact: Judy Kent at (703) 759-7476 or cell (703) 477-7476 or [email protected] and David W. Almasi at (703) 568-4727 or [email protected]

Washington, D.C. – Earlier this week, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Jr. compared climate activism with moral movements to abolish slavery, end apartheid and promote women’s suffrage. Black conservatives with the Project 21 leadership network question the accuracy and sincerity of Gore’s wild comparison.

“This is truly rich coming from the son of a segregationist. When his father was filibustering against the civil rights for blacks in the Senate, where was Al Gore, Jr.’s concern?” asked Project 21 Co-Chairman Horace Cooper, a former assistant law professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. “Study after study demonstrate that the radical climate policies advocated by Al Gore, Jr. will hurt blacks and the poor most. Just as segregation and interracial marriage bans were purported to be for the good of all while clearly done to generate political support, today’s climate alarmism is pushed solely to get the support of a small group of so-called eco-warriors at the expense of blacks. Please spare us any more of this.”

At the EcoCity World Summit in Melbourne, Australia, Gore asserted global warming activism was “in the tradition of all the great moral causes.” In the July 13 address, Gore added: “The abolition of slavery, woman’s suffrage and women’s rights, the civil rights movement and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, the movement to stop the toxic phase of nuclear arms race and more recently the gay rights movement… All of these movements have one thing in common. They all have met with ferocious resistance…”.

“The abolitionist movement, the suffrage movement, the civil rights movement and the anti-apartheid movement were all unmistakably moral movements. Each sought social and economic equality and were met with ‘ferocious resistance’ to preserve a status quo of separate and unequal second-class citizenship,” noted Project 21 member Derryck Green, who has earned a doctorate in theology and spiritual leadership. “When Al Gore, Jr. associates these moral movements of history with one grounded in questionable data, he gives climate change activists unearned moral credibility they haven’t earned and don’t deserve. Gore trivializes the historical suffering and accomplishments of blacks and women in both the United States and South Africa. Climate change isn’t and will never be the moral movement Gore and his acolytes want it to be.”

“The hysteria over America’s cancelled participation in the Paris climate accord has the greens’ minister-in-chief, Al Gore, Jr., behind the podium uttering nonsense,” said Project 21 Co-Chairman Stacy Washington, a syndicated talk radio host. “Gore’s latest statement comparing efforts to redistribute hard-earned American taxpayer dollars to his cronies and other countries with the abolition of slavery in America, the anti-apartheid campaign in South Africa and other historic efforts is utter nonsense. Fighting people being owned as property and debased in an entrenched system enshrined in law is akin to worshiping the idea that humans can materially impact the climate? He cannot be serious!”

To book an interview with a Project 21 about this or another nonpartisan issue, contact Judy Kent at (703) 759-7476.

Project 21 members have been quoted, interviewed or published over 40,000 times since the program was created in 1992. Project 21 is sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research. Contributions to the National Center are tax-deductible and greatly appreciated, and may be earmarked exclusively for the use of Project 21.

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