Biden hits Trump on climate: Western fires foreshadow ‘unending barrage of tragedies’

Joe Biden hit President Trump over climate change Saturday, with the former vice president saying the White House is taking insufficient action to battle burgeoning wildfires in the West. 

“The science is clear, and deadly signs like these are unmistakable — climate change poses an imminent, existential threat to our way of life. President Trump can try to deny that reality, but the facts are undeniable. We absolutely must act now to avoid a future defined by an unending barrage of tragedies like the one American families are enduring across the West today,” Biden said in a statement.

“Left unchecked, wildfires and other extreme weather disasters will only continue to grow in frequency and intensity, endangering the lives of tens of millions of Americans, ravaging our lands and waterways, rendering the air unbreathable, and laying waste to our economic security,” he added. “In the years ahead, there will be no challenge more consequential to our future than meeting and defeating the onrushing climate crisis.” 

The statement comes as wildfires ravage California and parts of Oregon and Washington state. There are currently 28 major wildfires in the Golden State, and 19 people in the state have died as of Saturday afternoon. 

Activists and lawmakers have said the wildfires are a sign of the burgeoning threat of climate change, which will only exacerbate future blazes.

“The debate is over, around climate change,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) told reporters this week. “This is a climate damn emergency. This is real and it’s happening.”

Democrats have increasingly cast themselves as champions of climate change solutions, with liberals backing the Green New Deal amid dire warnings of the possibly irreversible effects of a warming climate.