Last week, former Vice President Al Gore took to the pages of Rolling Stone magazine to criticize various elements in our political culture for not championing the cause of stopping anthropogenic climate change. Gore aimed right for the top — President Barack Obama.
On his Friday night program on HBO, “Real Time” host Bill Maher doubled down on Gore’s claim, offering anecdotal evidence that climate change (not global warming) is real. (h/t Real Clear Politics Video)
“I mean, Al Gore wrote this week in Rolling Stone, which was mostly critical of the media but also critical of Obama for not leading on climate change,” Maher said. “I don’t call it global warming anymore because that’s bad – because it is climate change. And I’m looking at what’s going on with the weather in this country. You see droughts. You see floods. You see these giant fires. I mean, cattle are dying in Texas. This is what i used to see in Ethiopia.”
Despite climate change being known as a global phenomenon and not isolated to one country, Maher had a grim warning for the commander-in-chief: Do something or the country will face the perils of a third-world nation.
“You know, I understand we’re on our way to being a third-world country, could we just stop at second-world before we get there?” Maher said. “Why doesn’t he point to this and say this is all because of climate change. He doesn’t seem to use what he has to make a case. I don’t hear the Democratic case being made. That’s my point.”
There was one problem with Obama using climate change as a campaign issue, New York Times columnist David Carr added. “It’s tough to run on the weather,” Carr said.