Al Gore blasts Trump, will revise Inconvenient Truth sequel to include Paris pullout

Since yesterday’s catastrophic announcement by current president Donald Trump that he was pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord, the reaction has been overwhelmingly negative. For example, soon after the announcement, 61 U.S. mayors, calling themselves the “Climate Mayors,” released a statement saying they would continue to uphold the goals set by the Paris agreement, in spite of the president’s idiotic decision.

Entertainment Weekly reports that Al Gore has released his own statement on his website and social media accounts:

In the statement, Gore lambasts Trump for the astoundingly ill-advised and short-sighted announcement, saying:

Removing the United States from the Paris Agreement is a reckless and indefensible action. It undermines America’s standing in the world and threatens to damage humanity’s ability to solve the climate crisis in time. But make no mistake: if President Trump won’t lead, the American people will.

Civic leaders, mayors, governors, CEOs, investors and the majority of the business community will take up this challenge. We are in the middle of a clean energy revolution that no single person or group can stop. President Trump’s decision is profoundly in conflict with what the majority of Americans want from our president; but no matter what he does, we will ensure that our inevitable transition to a clean energy economy continues.

Like Barack Obama’s own statement yesterday, Gore invites a call to action as he denounces this potentially catastrophic decision. The former vice-president is well-known for his ecological activism, with his 1992 book Earth In The Balance in 1992 and starring in the documentary An Inconvenient Truth in 2006, which focused on his efforts to promote awareness of climate change and global warming.

That film’s sequel, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power, kicked off the Sundance film festival this year and focuses on how the Paris climate agreement came to be. Variety announced today that Gore is revising the film to include Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement. The film is due for release on July 28, and couldn’t be premiering at a better time.