Gore Knocks Bush on Environment

Oct. 27 -- Trying to fend off rivals on both his left and right, Vice President Al Gore is touting his environmental record and saying Texas Gov. George W. Bush will not address global warming.

Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee, has been under fire this week from Green Party nominee Ralph Nader for his environmental record. But Thursday the vice president pointed the finger at Bush, saying his Republican opponent was not committed to stopping global warming.

Stumping in Missouri, Gore called global warming “a moral issue,” citing a report released today by a United Nations-sponsored panel of scientists that concludes pollution has “contributed substantially” to the phenomenon.

Talking to workers at a diner in Kansas City, Gore said Bush was not committed to acting in order to stop the rise in the earth’s temperature.

“[Bush] has said that he’s not convinced that the pollution is causing it, and that he’s not convinced we should do anything other than just study it — and I disagree with that.” Gore said.

Later, at a speech in Davenport, Iowa, Gore referred again to the study, saying it showed global warming was a more severe threat than most scientists previously believed.

“Instead of just going up a few degrees in the lifetimes of these kids, unless we act, the average tempeture is going to go up ten or eleven degrees,” Gore said.

The vice president, author of the 1992 best-seller Earth in the Balance, has long called the environment as one of his pet concerns.

But his credentials as an environmentalist have been sharply challenged by Nader. Wednesday, Nader said the “best case Al Gore has made for being an environmentalist in the campaign is that he is not George W. Bush.”

Appearing on ABC’s Good Morning America Thursday, Gore responded, “where issues like the environment are concerned, I’ll put my record up against anybody’s.”