Al Gore Schooled on Climate Change By the Mayor of an Eroding Virginia Island
Nick Kangadis , @Kangadis44
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
It's that level of panic climate change alarmists like professionally monotone former Vice President Al Gore want everyone to rise to. But when people like Gore are called out on their rhetorical hot garbage, it they just tend to double down on their stance.
Gore was speaking at a town hall event, moderated by CNN's Anderson Cooper, to talk about climate change. Go figure. It couldn't have been a coincidence that CNN would host Gore for a town hall days after his new documentary, "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power," saw a limited release in movie theaters.
Mayor James Eskridge, of Tangier Island, Va., was one of the lucky audience members that got to ask Gore a question -- one Gore was not prepared to answer.
Here's what Eskridge had to say:
I'm a commercial crabber, and I've been working the Chesapeake Bay for 50-plus years. And I have a crab house business out on the water. And water level is the same it was when the place was built in 1970. I'm not a scientist but I'm a keen observer, and if sea level rise is occurring, why am I not seeing signs of it? Our island is disappearing, but it's because of erosion and not because of sea level rising, unless we get a seawall, we will lose our island. But, back to the question, why am I not seeing signs of the sea level rising?
Gore seemed blindsided by the question, even though he kept his composure. Typically, when someone doesn't have an immediate answer to a question they weren't expecting, they answer the question with a question.
"What do you think the erosion is due to, Mayor?" Gore responded.
"Wave action, storms," Eskridge answered.
Gore, seeking a way to turn Eskridge's answer into climate change fodder, asked Eskridge yet another question.
"Has that increased any?" Gore asked.
"Not really," Eskridge began. "This erosion has been going on since Capt. John Smith discovered the island and named it."
That discovery happened in the early 1600s, well before the rise of the Industrial Age that climate alarmists point to as the beginning of The End.
Apparently unable to rebuff Eskridge's claim of erosion causing Tangier Island to waste away, Gore instead doubled down.
"It won't necessarily do you any good for me to tell you that the scientists do say that sea level is rising in the Chesapeake Bay," Gore told Eskridge.
It's funny how people like Gore are always supposedly quoting scientists, but they never actually provide any data. Well, unless you go see his movie and it's part of the prewritten script.
Eskridge responded perfectly to Gore.
"If I see sea-level rise occurring, I'll shout it from the housetops," Eskridge said. "But, I'm just not seeing it."
For video of the exchange, watch below:
CNN Town Hall
James Eskridge