An environmental group, Climate Power 2020 has condemned US President, Donald Trump, for what it considers to be his silence on wildfires destroying California and other Western States.
The group is convinced that the President’s silence underscores his usual habit of dismissing climate disasters in Democratic strongholds.
President Trump had in August this year observed that the wildfires in California were caused by unclean forest floors. It’s been three weeks since he made that remark and has since not mentioned anything about the fires burning across the West Coast.
The group confirmed that Mr Trump has not mentioned the ongoing crises at any of his 46 public events or on Twitter since mid-August, when he made this suggestion to California: “You gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests.”
In the opinion of the environmental group, Mr Trump mentioned neither climate change, a much bigger factor in these disasters, nor the fact that many of the state’s biggest fires have burned on federally managed land.
In a statement, Executive Director of Climate Power 2020, Lori Lodes, indicated that “President Trump’s silence and complete disregard for the millions of people at risk is horrifying.”
The Executive Director says “It shouldn’t matter if it’s a red state or a blue state, the president should be above politics in moments of crises. He calls climate change a ‘hoax’ when we can all see our nation is burning. Voters see through his BS.”
Fires across 13 states have burned an area nearly the size of Connecticut, according to officials.
In Oregon, five entire towns have been destroyed.
Recent fires in California have pushed the number of acres burned in 2020 past 2 million, nearly a 2,000% increase in land burned by this time last year.
But Mr Trump has remained mute about the wildfires.
By Melvin Tarlue