Pete Buttigieg makes a point during the forum.
Two Democratic presidential candidates appeared at forums in Cedar Rapids this holiday weekend to discuss climate change.
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg met with a group of educators, public officials and activists on Labor Day.
“If any foreign terrorist or govermment threat had the capacity to destroy as much property and endanger as many lives as these accelerating climate-related weather disasters, we would literally be up in arms,” Buttigieg said, “and so we’ve got to be up in a different kind of arms when it comes to climate.”
Buttigieg said rather than blaming certain people and industries for being part of the problem, it’s important to invite everyone to be part of the solution.
“The quest for the negative emissions farm, to me, is as exciting as splitting the atom or going to the moon,” Buttigieg said.
Former Vice President Joe Biden — speaking with reporters at a Labor Day picnic in Cedar Rapids — accused President Trump of being “in a state of denial” about climate change.
“It is an existential threat. This guy can no longer deny the science,” Biden said. “…What’s he need? Does he need Gabriel to come down and say: ‘Hey, this is a real problem?’ I mean, it’s gigantic what’s happening here.”
Biden pointed to Dorian, the most powerful hurricane to ever hit the Bahamas. Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar appeared at a climate-related forum on Sunday in Cedar Rapids. On Monday, she told reporters in Cedar Rapids that Dorian shows changing weather patterns should be a cause for concern.
“I was just reading that the president didn’t know there were Category 5 hurricanes when, in fact, we’ve had a number of them in the last few years,” Klobuchar said.
State Senator Rob Hogg of Cedar Rapids has hosted Klobuchar, Buttigieg and other Democratic presidential candidates in a series of “climate conversations.”