Louisiana state Rep. Lenar Whitney (R) is accusing liberals, such as former Vice President Al Gore, of advancing "the greatest deception in the history of mankind" -- man-made climate change -- in a scheme to empower the executive branch and increase taxes.
“A specter is haunting America,” Whitney, who is running for Congress in Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District, warned in a campaign video released Wednesday. “It is perhaps the greatest deception in the history of mankind.”
Mocking Gore’s 2006 Academy Award–winning climate change documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth,” Whitney claimed that the planet "has done nothing but get colder each year since the film’s release.”
“Quite inconveniently for Al Gore, and for the rest of the politicians who continue to advance this delusion, any 10-year-old can invalidate their thesis with one of the simplest scientific devices known to man: a thermometer,” Whitney said, citing record sea ice in the Antarctic sector.
Numerous GOP lawmakers and climate change contrarians have pointed to below-zero temperatures and seasonal snowfall as evidence against the legitimacy of human-induced climate change, despite numerous scientific reports debunking their claims.
Although many parts of the U.S. witnessed record-low temperatures this past winter, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are still rising, winters have become increasingly warmer over the past century and Arctic sea ice is still melting.
Whitney’s own state is one of the most vulnerable regions in the country to climate change, with rising coastal sea levels estimated to submerge the Louisiana coastline by 2100.
