随着肆虐美国西部的野火造成的破坏持续到第二周，前副总统乔·拜登他星期一在特拉华州的威尔明顿发表了一次演讲，演讲的中心是他打击日益增长的气候变化以及它对日益恶化的极端天气遍布全球。
“如果你让一个气候纵火犯在白宫多呆四年，如果我们有更多的美国人在燃烧，为什么会有人感到惊讶?如果你让一个否认气候的人在白宫多呆四年，当更多的美国人在水下时，为什么会有人感到惊讶?”拜登在事先准备好的讲话中说。
指其中之一特朗普的主要论点在他关于郊区安全的连任竞选中，拜登说，“你知道什么实际上威胁着我们的郊区吗?野火正在燃烧西部的郊区，洪水正在摧毁中西部的郊区。”
到星期一早上根据加州林业和消防部门的数据，今年金州已经有超过330万英亩的土地被烧毁，是2019年的27倍多。一个多世纪以来，该州的消防队员从未见过这样的季节，当时1910年的大火烧毁了300多万英亩土地。
上周野火还夺去了27人的生命，官员们仍然担心本周的天气状况不会给该地区带来喘息的机会。
2020年9月14日，民主党总统候选人、前副总统乔·拜登在德尔威尔明顿谈到影响西部各州的气候变化和野火。
拜登在讲话中试图将总统对冠状病毒大流行和气候变化的反应联系起来，批评特朗普“蔑视科学和事实”。
“他再次辜负了一个国家最基本的责任。他未能保护我们免受流行病、经济自由落体、种族动乱、气候变化的蹂躏。很明显，我们和唐纳德·特朗普的美国都不安全。这是唐纳德·特朗普的美国。他是负责人，”拜登说，选择了特朗普竞选团队经常使用的反对他的路线。
拜登的讲话还强调了投资绿色能源工作在应对气候变化方面可以发挥的作用特朗普访问了加州接受萨克拉门托市附近地方官员关于野火的简报。
在特朗普的加州之行之前，拜登认为特朗普“没有兴趣”应对气候变化的挑战，称这是“另一场他不会负责的危机”，这是对政府应对冠状病毒大流行的挖苦。
“当(特朗普)今天飞往加州时，我们知道他没有兴趣迎接这一时刻。拜登说:“我们知道他不会听专家的话，也不会像任何总统在国家紧急情况下应该做的那样，以紧急程度对待这场灾难。”他补充说，“西方确实着火了，他指责那些家园和社区着火的人。”
民主党总统候选人、前副总统乔·拜登在特拉华州威尔明顿自然历史博物馆的竞选活动中谈到气候变化。，2020年9月14日。
拜登将对气候变化的回应视为在团结起来应对问题或投降并忽视问题之间的选择。
“我们有一个选择。拜登说:“我们可以投资于我们的基础设施，使其更加强大和更具弹性，改善美国人的健康，创造数百万个高薪工作，同时解决气候变化的根本原因。”“或者我们可以沿着唐纳德·特朗普让我们走的路继续走下去——一条冷漠的道路，需要数百亿美元来重建。”
周一的言论与拜登在气候变化问题上攻击特朗普的开始相去甚远。
在周六发布的一份声明中，拜登表示支持那些遭受火灾影响的人，以及消防队员和紧急情况第一线的第一反应人员，同时还指责特朗普“否认”...气候变化在当前危机中的作用。
“科学是清楚的，像这样的致命迹象是明确无误的——气候变化对我们的生活方式构成了迫在眉睫的生存威胁。特朗普总统可以试图否认这一现实，但事实是不可否认的。拜登写道:“我们现在绝对必须采取行动，以避免一个未来被无休止的悲剧所定义，就像今天美国家庭在西方忍受的那样。”。
在解决气候变化问题上，拜登和特朗普提出了截然不同的愿景。
2020年9月11日，加州蒙罗维亚北部，山猫大火烧毁了洛杉矶国家森林。
前副总统已经提出了一个全面的建议这要求美国到2035年实现无碳电力部门，并在他任职的头四年投资2万亿美元用于绿色能源和基础设施，以应对气候变化的威胁。
在第一个任期内，特朗普取消了奥巴马时代的一系列环境法规，包括对美国制造的汽车设定排放标准的法规和奥巴马政府的清洁能源计划(Clean Power Plan)，该计划将限制燃煤和燃气电厂的碳排放，并使美国退出具有里程碑意义的《巴黎气候协议》(Paris Climate Agreement)。
尽管出现了这些倒退，特朗普在一次上周在佛罗里达的演讲，在那里，他宣布延长在该州海岸以及乔治亚州和南卡罗来纳州海岸的石油和天然气开采的10年禁令。
Biden blasts 'climate arsonist' Trump in speech about West Coast fires
As the devastation from the wildfires raging across the western United States continues into its second week, former Vice PresidentJoe Bidendelivered a speech Monday in Wilmington, Delaware, centered around his plans to combat the growing threat ofclimate changeand its contributions to worsening instances of extremeweatheraround the globe.
"If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if we have more of America ablaze? If you give a climate denier four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised when more of America is underwater?" Biden said in prepared remarks.
Referring to one ofTrump's main argumentsin his re-election campaign about the safety of suburbs, Biden said, "You know what is actually threatening our suburbs? Wildfires are burning the suburbs in the West, floods are wiping out suburban neighborhoods in the Midwest."
By Monday morning, more than 3.3 million acres have been burned in the Golden State this year -- more than 27 times more than in 2019, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Firefighters in the state have not seen anything like this season in more than a century, when the Great Fire of 1910 blazed through more than 3 million acres.
The wildfires also claimed the lives of 27 people last week, and officials remain concerned that this week's weather conditions will not bring a respite to the region.
Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden speaks about climate change and wildfires affecting western states, Sept. 14, 2020, in Wilmington, Del.
Throughout his remarks, Biden sought to tie together the president's response to the coronavirus pandemic and climate change, criticizing Trump for "his disdain for science and facts."
"Once again, he fails the most basic duty to a nation. He fails to protect us from the pandemic, from an economic freefall, from racial unrest, from the ravages of climate change. It's clear that we're not safe and Donald Trump's America. This is Donald Trump's America. He's in charge," Biden said, co-opting a line often used by the Trump campaign against him.
Biden's speech, which also emphasized the role that investing in green energy jobs can play in combatting climate change, came asTrump visited Californiato receive a briefing on the wildfires from local officials near the city of Sacramento.
Preempting Trump's California stop, Biden argued Trump has "no interest" in confronting the challenge of climate change, saying it's "another crisis he won't take responsibility for," a dig at the administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic.
"As [Trump] flies to California today, we know he has no interest in meeting this moment. We know he won't listen to the experts or treat this disaster with the urgency it demands as any president should do during a national emergency," Biden said, adding, "The West is literally on fire, and he blames the people whose homes and communities are burning."
Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden speaks about climate change during a campaign event at the Delaware Museum of Natural History in Wilmington, Del., Sept. 14, 2020.
Biden cast the response to climate change as a choice between uniting to fight the problem or surrendering and ignoring it.
"We have a choice. We can invest in our infrastructure to make it stronger and more resilient, improving the health of Americans and creating millions of good paying jobs while at the same time tackling the root causes of climate change," Biden said. "Or we can continue down the path Donald Trump has us on -- a path of indifference, costing tens of billions of dollars to rebuild."
Monday's remarks were far from the beginning of Biden's attacks on Trump over the issue of climate change.
In a statement released Saturday, Biden expressed his support for those suffering from the effects of the fires, as well as the firefighters and first responders on the front lines of the emergency, while also blasting Trump for "deny[ing] ... reality" on climate change's role in the ongoing crisis.
"The science is clear, and deadly signs like these are unmistakable — climate change poses an imminent, existential threat to our way of life. President Trump can try to deny that reality, but the facts are undeniable. We absolutely must act now to avoid a future defined by an unending barrage of tragedies like the one American families are enduring across the West today," Biden wrote.
Biden and Trump have offered vastly different visions when it comes to tackling the issue of climate change.
The Bobcat Fire burns through the Angeles National Forest on Sept. 11, 2020, north of Monrovia, Calif.
The former vice president hasproposed a sweeping proposalthat calls for the United States to achieve a carbon-free power sector by 2035 and make a $2 trillion investment over his first four years in office in green energy and infrastructure to combat the threat of climate change.
Throughout his first term in office, Trump has rolled back a slate of Obama-era environmental regulations, including ones that placed emissions-standards on American-made cars and the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, which would have limited carbon emissions from coal and gas-fired power plants, and withdrew the United States from the landmark Paris Climate Agreement.
Despite those rollbacks, Trump declared himself "a great environmentalist," during aspeech in Florida last week,where he announced the extension of a 10-year moratorium on oil and gas drilling off the state's coast as well as the Georgia and South Carolina coasts.
