Buttigieg: Climate Change ‘Is the Security Challenge of Our Time’

EXCERPT:

BUTTIGIEG: “It would also help, when we are getting ready to deal with what I think is the security challenge of our time, to be ready to act on climate. And to define climate as a security issue. (Applause) Extreme weather events are happening more and more and more often, just like they warned us they would. Just like in Marshalltown, where they just recovered from a devastating tornado. Our river cities from Iowa to South Bend have faced increased frequency in severity of river flooding. In my city we had to fire up the emergency operations center twice in less than two yeas for floods that should have been more rare than once in a lifetime; first one was a 1000 year flood, next one was a 500 year flood. You do the math on that. That's 125,000:1 that that would happen 18 months apart. So, either the laws of mathematics are changing or the climate is changing around us. We know this, and lives are on the line. So, why not talk about this as the security issue that it is?"