South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg said it will take a massive effort to stop the negative effects of climate change, so much so that it will take more of a nationwide effort than what was put out during World War II.
Buttigieg said while cities are leading the effort to become greener, the entire country must take steps to turn things around.
“The fundamental question is how are we actually going to get it done? Because we’ve been having the same conversation for years,” the Democratic presidential candidate said Wednesday on CNN’s climate town hall.
“In order for that to happen, we have to actually unify the country around this project. And that means bringing people to the table who haven’t felt they have been part of the process. I mean, this is the hardest thing we will have done, certainly in my lifetime, as a country. This is on par with winning World War II, maybe more challenging than that,” he added.
Nearly 417,000 U.S. soldiers were killed throughout the course of World War II, a number that pales in comparison with countries such as the Soviet Union, which lost more than 10 million men by some estimates.