Of the multiple challenges facing our nation, only one has been called “an existential crisis,” repeatedly and unanimously, by all the leading Democratic presidential candidates.

Not terrorism, threats from a nuclear Iran, or the ongoing quagmire in Afghanistan.

Not a raging opioid epidemic that claims 70,000 American lives every year.

DANIEL TURNER: REJOICE IN AMERICA'S ENERGY BOOM – AND DON'T LET DEMOCRATS TAKE IT AWAY IN 2020

No, the crisis that threatens our very existence, the life of mankind, is climate change.

“This is our World War II,” opined New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. “I think it will be harder to tackle,” said Mayor Pete Buttegeig, comparing the climate issue to the mobilization of millions of American boys across Europe and the Pacific.

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“Existential threat” is a grave phrase and, at least for the sake of this article, I will take these Democrats at their word that this is a deeply held belief and not merely campaign jargon.

The only way to face an existential threat is to kill it before it kills you. Otherwise, it is not a threat. And certainly not “existential.”

During World War II, America did not face the existential threat of Hitler by fighting Nazis at home. We did not face down the existential threat of the Cold War with speeches. When Muslim extremists brought existential violence to our nation on 9/11, we took the fight to them.

No. In every existential threat we have faced, we brought war, and millions of men and women have served, some paying the ultimate price. Enacting the radical “Green New Deal,” which all the Democratic presidential candidates have endorsed, is not enough as the threat is global. That was the purpose of the Paris Climate Accord: bind us all to the same resolution and conscript us to the duty of eradication.

What country is leading the global existential threat? China.

China is the world’s leading polluter of air and ocean. It is the world’s leader in CO2 emissions and has no intention of decreasing them.

Democratic candidates speak of oil, gas and coal the way Churchill spoke of fascism. Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have vowed “on my first day” to ban fracking, fossil fuel development on federal land, and offshore drilling.

War with China, then, is an absolutely essential component of addressing the climate crisis if, indeed, it is existential. We cannot stand by and their actions contribute to the death of all humanity.

No one wants war. No young men wanted to storm the beaches of Normandy, but they did it because the crisis was existential. So, if not a military war with China, surely the presidential candidates would support at minimum a trade war. China producing less means they would pollute less and that is essential in combating climate change. Yet, the Democrats running for president oppose the tariffs currently crippling China’s economy.

“The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change,” AOC said earlier this year. That, too, is a serious claim. What’s a serious response?

Sanders supports population control and using taxpayer dollars for abortions in “poor” countries. If people feed the climate change virus, the reasoning goes, then we need fewer people in the world.

But people are not really the problem, other candidates suggest, consumers are. So, we must cut back on consumption, and therefore we see proposals for limiting the amount of meat people consume, banning cars, air travel and of course, plastic straws. Eliminate consumer goods and we fight climate change.

Democratic candidates advocate for much more. They speak of oil, gas and coal the way Churchill spoke of fascism. Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have vowed “on my first day” to ban fracking, fossil fuel development on federal land, and offshore drilling. “Middle-class Joe” Biden from Pennsylvania, which employs hundreds of thousands of energy workers, has declared, “There is no place in my administration for fossil fuels”.

Let’s hope a Commander in Chief Biden wouldn’t extend this sophomoric affirmation to the military and have our Navy’s ships powered by sails.

The real mission of the Democratic candidates, and most environmental leftists, is this: punish Americans. Even though climate change is a global problem, and China is the leading cause, we will eliminate freedoms, reduce market choices, curtail prosperity, and most egregiously, destroy jobs. Americans must suffer because China pollutes.

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Americans have a choice: take these candidates at their word or consider it all political blathering. If the latter, these candidates can be ignored. But if the former, we must prepare for war. After all, climate change is an existential threat.

Isn’t it?

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