Sam Donaldson blasts George Will’s climate denial.

Today on ABC This Week’s roundtable, right-wing columnist George Will mocked the Nobel Peace committee for awarding Al Gore the Peace Prize, saying that all Gore does is engage in “hyperbole.” Will continued to argue that there is no “planetary crisis,” until Sam Donaldson of ABC News interrupted him:

Now if you and Sen. Inhofe want to continue to stick your heads in the sand, I’m going to make it out. I’m old enough and I’ll will probably get out of here before the earth collapses. But I have grandchildren, George.

Watch it:

Will also stated that just one percent of the American public consider global warming their top concern. Donaldson then pointed out that “not long ago, the vast majority of the American people endorsed the strike against Iraq too. You telling me now that people haven’t gotten on to this problem, as they should, is not to say that the problem does not exist.”

Transcript:

STEPHANOPOULOS: But I do want to begin, and I have to do this for George, with the Al Gore Nobel Peace Prize. Because George, when I heard this on Friday morning, I said, “This is designed to drive you — George Will — crazy.” You don’t like the Nobel Peace committee, you don’t like Al Gore, you don’t think global warming is a crisis.

WILL: Right on all three counts. The New York Times, in one of those headlines that I’m sure it really believes is without editorial content, said, “Gore Vindicated.” I guess in that sense, Yassir Arafat, the world’s foremost terrorist, was “vindicated” by getting the Nobel Peace Prize.

It actually was two prizes. They say he’s sharing the prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But they’re doing two different things. The panel does the science. He does the hyperbole that gets people to pay attention to the science and there are all kinds of scientists who are quite candid about this.

The panel says, over the next century, we might anticipate a one foot increase in the sea levels, approximately what we’ve had since 1860, without a planetary crisis. Mr. Gore says 20 feet, hence the scene in his movie where Ground Zero is inundated, because he assumes all of the ice in Greenland melts, which, scientists say, could happen in 1,000 years or more.

DONALDSON: There are now studies that suggest within 30 years, the polar ice cap may melt.

WILL: Polar. I’m talking about Greenland.

DONALDSON: Well, it’s near enough that it would work. Al Gore deserved the prize. He’s pointed out something, and he’s been the leading exponent publicly about something that’s very important. Now if you and Sen. Inhofe want to continue to stick your heads in the sand, I’m going to make it out. I’m old enough and I’ll probably get out of here before the earth collapses. But I have grandchildren, George.

WILL: The American people, sensible that they are, told ABC’s recent poll that one percent of them consider global warming their top problem. The policy question, that we now come to, now that he’s had his Oscar and the Nobel Prize –

STEPHANOPOULOS: And the Emmy too.

WILL: The policy question is going to be –

ROBERTS: And he won the popular vote.

WILL: — how much are the developed nations — the underdog nations are not interested in this drama of the rich — How much are the developed nations willing to pay in cash, forgone productivity, inconvenience, circumscribed freedom, in order to have no measurable effect on global warming?

DONALDSON: George, not long ago, the vast majority of the American people endorsed the strike against Iraq too. You telling me now that people haven’t gotten on to this problem, as they should, is not to say that the problem does not exist. You cannot prove this by saying people out there don’t know yet.