Al Gore has revived the climate change summit canceled by the CDC

A summit on climate change canceled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this week is back on, thanks to former vice president and environmental activist Al Gore.

"They tried to cancel this conference, but it is going forward anyway," Gore said in a statement. "Today we face a challenging political climate, but climate shouldn't be a political issue. Health professionals urgently need the very best science in order to protect the public, and climate science has increasingly critical implications for their day-to-day work. With more and more hot days, which exacerbate the proliferation of the Zika virus and other public health threats, we cannot afford to waste any time."


Gore is teaming up with the American Public Health Association and other organizations to hold the event, which the CDC scrapped after President Trump's inauguration. The CDC said it was "exploring options to reschedule the meeting," but rumors began to spread that it was canceled out of fear of the Trump administration, The Hill reports. The CDC is under the Department of Health and Human Services, and Trump's nominee to head the agency, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), is a climate change skeptic.

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