The Democratic Platform Drafting Committee held a series of hearings to solicit input on what issues should be front-and-center during the general election. Michael Mann spoke as follows:
“What is disconcerting to me and so many of my colleagues is that these tools that we’ve spent years developing increasingly are unnecessary because we can see climate change, the impacts of climate change, now, playing out in real time, on our television screens, in the 24-hour news cycle. Regardless of how you measure the impacts of climate change — be it food, water, health, national security, our economy — climate change is already taking a great toll… The stakes could not be greater in this next election — the future of our children and grandchildren literally hangs in the balance — nor could the contrast be any more stark. We have on the one hand a Republican Party whose standard bearer, Donald Trump, and a great majority of its congressional representatives deny that climate change even exists. We have on the other hand a Democratic Party that understands full well that while we can debate the policy specifics for dealing with this crisis, we cannot bury our heads in the sand and avoid dealing with the growing threat.”