Former Secretary of State John Kerry referred to the coronavirus as America’s “great wake-up call with respect” to climate change and argued that ignoring climate experts will have worse results than the virus.
“The fact is that coronavirus may be America’s moment of truth in the sense that a lot of us were despairing that we were losing the capacity to decide in our country, in our democracy, what the baseline of truth is,” the former presidential candidate said. “And there has been a different kind of war taking place, it’s a war on science. It’s a war on scientists. It’s a war on facts.”
Kerry then argued that ignoring facts on climate change is similar to facts being ignored about the coronavirus.
“There’s another similarity to this great cause that we face, really the monumental choice of generations now, which is responding to the climate crisis. The same willingness to distort the truth, to put your head in the sand and not pay attention to the facts, and, mostly, to listen to the experts that has characterized coronavirus, which brings you a pandemic, is the same mischaracterization and avoidance of truth that has characterized the response to climate and the climate crisis.”
“Coronavirus may be America and the world’s great wake-up call with respect to the challenge of climate because this is coming at us. If you think pandemics are bad today, wait until you have the warming at a greater level than it is now. And we’re headed there.”
