2023-10-18 12:09:00
US President Joe Biden has reprimanded a man who interrupted his speech to call for greater climate protection during a speech on democracy. “If you keep your mouth shut, I will meet you right following this,” Biden said Thursday in Tempe, Arizona.
Biden was in Tempe to remember Senator John McCain, who died in 2018. During his speech, he was interrupted by a man who asked Biden why he had not yet declared a climate emergency, “because hundreds of people in Arizona had already died.”
Biden asked the man to keep quiet, but invited him to have a conversation following the speech.
Arizona is experiencing extreme and prolonged heat. Last week, local authorities in the capital Phoenix announced that at least 289 people have died this year as a direct result of successive suffocating heat waves. That number might rise significantly as 262 other deaths are currently being investigated for possible weather-related reasons.
‘Democracy in danger’
The president warned in his speech that democracy is in danger. He referred several times to former President Donald Trump and extreme Republicans. “There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy: the Maga movement,” Biden said. Maga represents Trump’s campaign slogan: ‘Make America Great Again’.
The activist posted a video of the action on X, formerly Twitter. “My conscience forced me to interrupt his speech today to ask why he has not yet declared a climate emergency,” he wrote. The man said he would have liked to meet Biden, but the Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting the president , and the police allegedly escorted him from the site.
The White House considered a climate emergency last year when the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which also includes extensive climate protection measures, was temporarily held up in the US Congress. Climate activists argue that an emergency ordinance might serve as a legal basis to block oil and gas drilling, for example. (AP)
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