He made the same claim last Tuesday.
President Obama’s weekly remarks:
Hi everybody. A few days ago, I unveiled a new national plan to confront the growing threat of a changing climate.
Decades of carefully reviewed science tells us our planet is changing in ways that will have profound impacts on the world we leave to our children. Already, we know that the 12 warmest years in recorded history have all come in the last 15, and that last year was the warmest in American history.
And while we know no single weather event is caused solely by climate change, we also know that in a world that’s getting warmer than it used to be, all weather events are affected by it — more extreme droughts, floods, wildfires, and hurricanes.
Those who already feel the effects of a changing climate don’t have time to deny it — they’re busy dealing with it. The firefighters who brave longer wildfire seasons. The farmers who see crops wilted one year, and washed away the next. Western families worried about water that’s drying up.
The cost of these events can be measured in lost lives and livelihoods, lost homes and businesses, and hundreds of billions of dollars in emergency services and disaster relief. And Americans across the country are already paying the price of inaction in higher food costs, insurance premiums, and the tab for rebuilding.
The question is not whether we need to act. The question is whether we will have the courage to act before it’s too late.