Secretary of State John Kerry said those who are trying to make climate change a political fight are placing the U.S. and the rest of the world at risk.
“Those that continue to make climate change a political fight put us all at risk,” Kerry said, addressing Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va.
Kerry was at the university to give a keynote address on the national security effects of climate change. Although he said some skepticism can be good, those who continue to question manmade global warming because they “aren’t scientists” are fooling themselves, he said.
Kerry said most people accept that the Earth revolves around the sun, even though most people are not scientists.
“I am an environmentalist,” Kerry said, even before becoming a politician. “But the reason I have made it a priority” as secretary is because “climate change is a threat to the U.S. and security and stability of countries everywhere.”
Kerry said it isn’t about “polar bears” and “butterflies” as “people try to mock it,” but “we are talking about people.”
“Climate change is not just about Bambi, its about all of us,” he said. That has been demonstrated with the refugee crisis in Syria, the Ebola crisis in West Africa, sea-ice melting in the Arctic, Kerry said.
He said he is not saying climate change caused the Syrian civil war, but the strain that global warming places on resources exacerbates regional conflicts.
