Bernie Sanders compares climate change threat to 9/11 terrorist attacks

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) compared the threat of climate change to the September 11 terrorist attacks at Thursday night’s Democratic debate.

Sanders hit rival Hillary Clinton for donations from fossil fuel workers to her campaign, and he said that people had to realize it was a “global environmental crisis of unprecedented urgency.”

“If we, God forbid, were attacked tomorrow, the whole country would rise up and say, ‘We’ve got an enemy out there, we’ve got to do something about it,” Sanders said. “That’s what 9/11 was about. We have an enemy out there, and that enemy is going to cause drought and floods and extreme weather disturbances. There is going to be international conflict.”

He added he was proud to have introduced comprehensive climate change legislation, which includes a tax on carbon.

Sanders has previously argued at a debate that climate change is directly related to the growth of global terrorism.