As world leaders convene in Copenhagen for the global climate conference, Former Vice President Al Gore has been making the interview rounds pushing back on "ClimateGate" and promoting his new book , Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis.
In a wide-ranging interview with Slate, Gore talks about environmental policy, why the Copenhagen meeting matters, and the hacked climate science emails. The emails, Gore stresses, were "taken wildly out of context" and the uproar surrounding them is "sound and fury signifying nothing."
His frustration with the hacked-email fallout is palpable. "The basic facts are incontrovertible. What do they think happens when we put 90 million tons up there every day? Is there some magic wand they can wave on it and presto!--physics is overturned and carbon dioxide doesn't trap heat anymore?" Gore asked, and pressed his point harder: "And when we see all these things happening on the Earth itself, what in the hell do they think is causing it?
Slate asked about Gore's conversation with President Obama on Monday, but the climate change leader declined to discuss it, saying only that they had talked about Copenhagen, and the Senate legislation, and that he'd like to keep the rest of their conversation private.
Gore also appeared on CNN Tuesday night, in a lengthy interview covering similar ground. Watch it below. On Wednesday, he was interviewed by Andrea Mitchell, who tweeted preview bits of their conversation. To Mitchell, on Palin's controversial Washington Post op-ed, Gore's message was simple: "It's a principle. It's like gravity. it exists."
FULL INTERVIEW WITH MITCHELL
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CNN INTERVIEW: