Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore took a swipe at "government officials" (read Republicans) saying persons that continue to deny the veracity of climate change should pay a "price".
He told his audience at the ongoing South by Southwest (SXSW) music, culture and technology conference in Austin, Texas that climate change is an "accepted science," saying 99 percent of scientists supported this fact.
"We need to put a price on carbon to accelerate these market trends," Gore said. "And in order to do that, we need to put a price on denial in politics."
Gore was referring to a proposed federal cap-and-trade system that would penalize companies that exceeded their carbon emission limits.
That "price" will also be paid come election time when people decide not to vote for climate change deniers.
"We have this denial industry cranked up constantly," Gore said. "In addition to 99 percent of the scientists and all the professional scientific organizations, now Mother Nature is weighing in."
Gore, one of the acknowledged leaders in the fight against climate change, took a dig at Florida Governor Rick Scott, a Republican, who banned officials in Florida's Department of Environmental Protection from using the terms "climate change" and "global warming."
Earlier, Secretary of State John Kerry also took issue with Scott.
"Now, folks, we literally do not have the time to waste debating whether we can say 'climate change,'" Kerry said at an earlier speech in Washington, as quoted by Tech Times.
"Because no matter how much people want to bury their heads in the sand, it will not alter the fact that 97 percent of peer-reviewed climate studies confirm that climate change is happening and that human activity is largely responsible."
As an environmental advocate, Gore is better remembered for his famous 2006 documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," about global warming based on a lecture Gore gave on the subject.
The documentary has since served to educate many Americans about the dangers of global warming.