Democratic presidential candidate Jay Inslee claims in a July 31 CNN editorial, “I’ve witnessed the devastation that climate change can cause.” The question is, in what alternate reality or foreign country did Inslee see this devastation?

The U.S. Climate Reference Network, a network of more than 100 impeccably maintained temperature stations throughout the United States, reports no warming temperatures since the network became operational in 2005.

U.S. temperatures recorded by the U.S. Climate Reference Network, reported here.

In fact, 2019 has been colder than the initial year of the Climate Reference Network – 2005. As noted by meteorologist Anthony Watts, “The data, taken directly from NOAA’s national climate data page, shows not only that much of 2019 was below average, but that the US Temperature average is actually cooler now for 2019 than we were in 2005, when the dataset started.”

Feebly attempting to support his point, Inslee said that he recently visited a Detroit neighborhood that he claims has the nation’s most polluted air. Would no neighborhood have polluted air without global warming? He then mentioned floods in Davenport, Iowa and wildfires in California, as if the Mississippi River floodplain was created during the past decade or there was never a Smokey the Bear created way back in 1944.

Regardless, if there has been no warming in our nation since at least 2005, how can Inslee claim to have “witnessed the devastation that climate change can cause”? Is he running in the 2004 presidential election or the 2020 presidential election?