ASHINGTON - Vice President Al Gore conducted a science class on global warming yesterday for a group of fifth graders and told them Republicans in Congress were blocking funds that could help save the environment.
As a torrid heat wave that has covered the eastern half of the United States relaxed its grip a little, Gore warned the children that many more heat waves were coming.
''You may have been seeing on the television news the effects of this heat wave on kids and old people and families and it's really been very hot,'' Gore told the group of children attending a science camp who gathered to hear him at the National Geographic headquarters in Washington.
''Of course we had heat waves long before there was a threat of global warming. But because the atmosphere of the whole earth is warming up, it's more common now to have these very, very hot days,'' he said.
He could not resist a political dig at congressional Republicans and their $792 billion tax cut package at the end of the hour-long seminar.
''The Congress of the United States is voting now on whether or not we should have funding for these programs that help ... to speed up the making of these new kinds of technologies and cars,'' Gore said, referring to the development of environmentally friendly vehicles.
''And they've been cutting that budget way back. I don't think most people in the country agree with that. They want to use all the big surplus we have for a big risky tax scheme. We think we ought to use some of it for these programs that will help save the environment,'' he said.
Frank Maisano of the Global Climate Coalition, which represents the coal, oil, mining and auto industries, said that contrary to Gore's assertion, the causes of global warming were still far from scientifically proven.
''Gore talking to the students in that manner was like he was polluting their minds,'' he said.
Gore was known as an avid environmentalist throughout 16 years in Congress.
