SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – California Gov. Newsom offered some of his most impassioned comments on climate change, denouncing the “ideological BS” of those who deny the danger and vowing Friday to accelerate the state’s already ambitious goals for reducing greenhouse gases.
Newsom spoke against a backdrop of ghost-like trees and ground covered in snow-like gray ash left by the deadliest of the record-breaking fires that have charred huge swaths of California in recent weeks.
“The data is self-evident, the experience that we have in the state of California just underscoring the reality of the ravages of climate change,” he said. “Mother Nature is physics, biology and chemistry. She bats last and she bats one thousand. That’s the reality we’re facing, the smash mouth reality – this perfect storm. The debate is over around climate change.”
Two Republican state lawmakers who represent the Northern California region where Newsom spoke countered that the governor is using climate change as an excuse for years of failed policies by fellow Democrats who control nearly all aspects of California government.
The state’s former governor, Jerry Brown, who championed combating climate change, said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press that the massive fires in the West may get more people thinking about the role of climate change “as they cough and choke on this terrible air.”