Joe Biden has been roundly mocked on Twitter after making the unlikely claim to a young activist appealing for a presidential debate on climate change that he kicked-off the whole global warming movement back in the late 1980s.

A young activist from US Youth Climate Strike asked Biden if he would support a presidential climate policy forum organized by the group. Biden interrupted the girl before she was finished, asking, “By the way, did you know I’m the guy who did all this? Read ‘Real Clear Politics’ – it will tell you about how I started this whole thing back in 1987 – climate change.”

Social media users were quick to criticize Biden’s response, with some mocking him for saying he had started climate change, and others pointing out that his 1987 effort didn’t really work out so well.

He will not, guaranteed. — CapnSasquatch (@CapnSasquatch) May 19, 2019 "By the way that thing? The climate change? I started that. 87." Lol looks like it worked, Joe. — Donal Thoms-Cappello (@donaltc) May 19, 2019

Biden has repeatedly boasted of his 80’s climate change concern, telling voters he was the first to introduce a climate bill. In 1987, Biden delivered a Senate speech warning of the dangers of global warming, and his Global Climate Protection Act called for setting up a task force to plan to tackle the issue.

While he is the first to have a climate bill passed, he certainly isn’t the first politician to raise the alarm about climate change, let alone have ‘started’ the whole thing.

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Congressman Al Gore held House hearings on climate change in 1976, and as a senator introduced a resolution calling for a research program into greenhouse gas emissions in 1985. The following year, Republican Senator John Chafee held Senate climate hearings warning of the “serious problem” and featuring an expert explaining that ‘significant’ warming could happen within 5-15 years.

Biden has been criticized for reportedly planning a ‘middle ground’ approach to climate policy that is accused of lacking urgency and not going far enough.



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