Clinton: Canada trip showed dangers of climate change

A 2005 Senate trip to Canada opened Hillary Clinton’s eyes to the dangers of climate change and inspired her to push for aggressive actions to fight it, the former secretary of state wrote in her book released Tuesday.

Clinton , then a senator representing New York, described flying over the Yukon Territory with three Republican senators and seeing large areas of spruce trees that had been killed by beetles driven north temperature changes, the Canadian Press reported. She also saw the marks of forest fires that had become more frequent.

{mosads}“Virtually everyone I spoke to on that trip had a personal wake-up call about what was happening,” she wrote.

“A tribal elder recounted how he had returned to a lake where he had fished as a boy only to find it dried up,” Clinton said in her second book, “Hard Choices.” “I met lifelong participants in dogsled races who told me they no longer even needed to wear gloves.”

Clinton also argues that protecting the environment can go hand-in-hand with economic growth, the Canadian Press said. She endorsed natural gas as a fuel that could reduce greenhouse gas emissions while growing the economy.