“You know the climate deniers are really in some ways similar to all of those almost 400 law enforcement officers in Uvalde, Texas, who were waiting outside an unlocked door while the children were being massacred. They heard the screams, they heard the gunshots and nobody stepped forward,” said Gore, the environmentalist who was vice president from 1993 to 2001 in the Clinton administration.

While most “active shooter” attacks in the U.S. end within minutes, the attack on the children of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde lasted an hour — the length of time police had waited for backup instead of moving on the gunman, who killed 19 kids and two teachers.

“God bless those families who suffered so much,” Gore, 74, said on Saturday, in a recorded interview set for release Sunday, “and law enforcement officials tell us that’s not typical of what law enforcement usually does.”

The nation’s response to climate change is also not rational, he continued.