California governor: 'Trump says global warming is a hoax. I say Trump is a fraud.'

(Image credit: Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)

last updated 28 July 2016

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) takes climate change seriously, and slammed Donald Trump for not doing the same.

"Make no mistake: Climate change is real," Brown said. "The vast majority of world leaders and climate scientists like those at NASA and the Department of Defense — indeed almost anyone who chooses to think — believes in the crisis of climate change and sees the moral imperative to take action." Listening to Trump talk at the Republican National Convention last week for "76 long and painful minutes," Brown said he heard Trump "conjure up a host of dark threats but never once mentioned the words 'climate change' or 'global warming.'"

Brown called climate change "unlike any other threat we humans face," and said it "will take heroic effort on the part of many people and many nations" to combat it. "Trump says global warming is a hoax," Brown said. "I say Trump is a fraud. Trump says there's no drought in California. I say Trump lies. It's not surprising that Trump chose as his running mate a man who denies there's such a thing as evolution." As president, Hillary Clinton will continue the work she did to fight climate change as secretary of state, Brown said, and will usher in a "clean energy revolution." This year is like no other, Brown added, since "rarely in American history have two parties diverged so profoundly. Even the know-nothing, anti-immigration party of the 1850s did not stray this far into sheer ignorance and dark fantasy as have the Republicans and their leader, Donald Trump."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.