Major cities all over the world will be under water “within the next eight or nine years” due to climate change, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) predicted at Wednesday night’s Democrat presidential debate.
Sen. Sanders said that this means that climate change legislation must be enacted immediately:
“You talked about the need to make climate change a national emergency. I've introduced legislation to just do that. Now, I disagree with the thrust of the original question because your question has said, ‘What with we going to do in decades?’ We don't have decades.
“What the scientists are telling us, if we don't get our act together within the next 8 or 9 years, we're talking about cities all over the world, major cities, going under water.
“We're talking about increased drought. We're talking about increased extreme weather disturbances. The United Nations is telling us that, in the years to come, there are going to be hundreds of millions of climate refugees causing national security issues all over the world.”
Sanders went on to advocate prosecuting the fossil fuel companies, claiming that their industry “is probably criminally liable” for destroying the planet through climate change:
“What we have got to do tonight, and I will do as president, is to tell the fossil fuel industry that their short-term profits are not more important than the future of this planet.
“And, by the way, the fossil fuel industry is probably criminally liable, because they have lied and lied and lied when they had the evidence that their carbon products were destroying the planet, and maybe we should think about prosecuting them as well.”