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PRESS RELEASE

October 12, 2016

 

Addressing Climate Change Now

 

FRESNO—Hillary Clinton knows that global warming is real. It is shocking that this issue could form a dividing line between this year’s presidential candidates, but that is what we have come to.

Donald Trump has spent years perpetuating the dangerous lie that climate change is not real. He has repeatedly declared that the whole concept was “made up by the Chinese to make American industry less competitive.” He is afraid that improvements to our energy economy might cost his wealthy friends some money so he would rather the entire planet suffer.

Trump claims that there is no drought in California. “We have plenty of water,” he says. “We shove it out to sea.” Anyone who has felt the temperatures in our summers and the lack of rain in our winters knows that is not true.

“Perhaps no issue before us today is as urgent as addressing climate change,” says Michael D. Evans, chair of the Fresno County Democratic Party. “Our inability to build a consensus around solutions to climate change is embarrassing. The future of humankind is at stake, yet there are still prominent leaders in society denying the scientific evidence. Get real!”

The glaciers that feed us water during the summer are not getting enough snow to build, and then they are melting in high temperatures, giving farmers no choice but to pump our aquifers dry. Perhaps someone bribed or fooled Trump to buy into the conspiracy theory that Democrats in Sacramento are somehow stealing all our nonexistent rain. On this issue, one side holds Trump’s misguided assessment and the other includes every bit of data we have as well as our own eyes. A person who ignores our problems cannot fix them.

One day soon we are going to be forced to confront the changing world weather. Greenhouse gases are making rain harder to rely on as California rivers become dry arroyos. Oil and natural gas are harder to get, forcing fracking techniques that poison our water and increase earthquakes. Coal is burning our planet alive and will eventually go the way of whale-oil lamps.

If we do not prepare our economy for the future, we will face a day when our country falls off a cliff of lost jobs when we are the equivalent of carriage-makers looking at the first Ford cars. Every dollar we spend now on this transition will give us hundreds in a decade.

Clinton has a plan to make America the clean energy superpower of the 21st century. She will generate enough renewable energy to power every home in the country, cutting energy waste in homes, schools, hospitals and offices and reducing oil consumption by one-third through clean fuels and advanced cars and trucks.

When she was Secretary of State, Clinton made climate change a diplomatic priority. She and President Obama fought to get China, India and other major polluters to agree—for the first time in history—to be part of the solution. Their efforts laid the groundwork for the Paris Agreement, whereby 195 nations signed on to a global climate change agreement last December.

The Fresno County Democratic Party is united behind Hillary Clinton for President. The official Coordinated Campaign headquarters is at 1035 U Street in downtown Fresno. To volunteer or for more information, contact 559-495-0606 or fresnocountydemocrats@yahoo.com.

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Media Inquiries:
Michael D. Evans
704-975-8874
evansm@usa.net