The climate change candidate: Washington State Governor Jay Inslee

There are almost two dozen Democrats hoping to become the presidential nominee. They run the gamut in age and experience. They’re also running on a gamut of issues, from health care to corporate power, foreign policy, race relations and internet privacy.

But one candidate is insisting that there’s only one issue that matters: climate change. Washington State Governor Jay Inslee isn’t trying to make things simple. Instead, he’s arguing that climate change will impact everything needed for human life as we know it: food, water, shelter, the land, the air, and the oceans.

He says he’s “the only candidate who has said from day one that this has to be job one for the United States.” His ambitious plans calls for phasing out coal by 2030 and having “100 percent clean cars beginning in 2031.”

There’s no alternative, he says, calling climate change a crisis of “existential threats to our health and our security.”

Inslee also suggests some practical first steps to make it easier for Washington to legislate on climate change--like eliminating the filibuster in the US Senate, “We cannot allow Mitch McConnell to weaponize this antebellum artifact of a bygone age to stop our ability to fight the climate crisis.”

He says that in the ’”60s Kennedy said we could go to the moon, in the ‘40s we rallied together to beat fascism.” Inslee says that we need that spark of inspiration of someone who believes in the American people, and that with the right leadership, America is capable of beating the climate crisis.