In a seg­ment on the rag­ing West Coast wild­fires, Fox News host Tuck­er Carl­son tried to make the baf­fling argu­ment that Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers’ warn­ings about cli­mate change are “like sys­temic racism in the sky.” He extend­ed the bizarre metaphor, lament­ing that there was sup­pos­ed­ly no expla­na­tion for how cli­mate change caus­es more wild­fires (there is!) and mock­ing Democ­rats for not explain­ing sci­ence to him: “You can’t see it, but rest assured, it’s every­where, and it’s dead­ly. Like sys­temic racism, it is your fault. The Amer­i­can mid­dle class did it. They caused cli­mate change. They ate too many ham­burg­ers. They drove too many SUVs. They had too many chil­dren.” > Tuck­er Carl­son argues that cli­mate change is like “sys­temic racism in the sky” in that it does­n’t exist but lib­er­als want you to believe its there. pic.twitter.com/dMaZ1QOtqy> > — nik­ki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) Sep­tem­ber 12, 2020Carlson’s show is part of the prime­time Fox News line­up that makes up the most-ed tele­vi­sion in Amer­i­ca, aver­ag­ing 3.5 mil­lion view­ers per night along­side Lau­ra Ingra­ham and Sean Han­ni­ty, accord­ing to Nielsen Media Research.Scientists agree the ris­ing aver­age year-round tem­per­a­tures brought about by human activ­i­ty are caus­ing more fires along the West Coast. Cli­mate change, specif­i­cal­ly drought span­ning mul­ti­ple years, has accel­er­at­ed the rate at which wild­fires appear and their inten­si­ty, accord­ing to a joint report released ear­li­er this year by sci­en­tists from Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado, and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ida­ho. The blazes in Wash­ing­ton, Ore­gon, and Cal­i­for­nia have col­lec­tive­ly already burned more than four mil­lion acres—three mil­lion in Cal­i­for­nia and one mil­lion in Oregon—the most of any record­ed fire sea­son in either state. Experts say the West’s year­ly wrestling match with wild­fire is just begin­ning. Cal­i­for­nia Gov. Gavin New­som has warned res­i­dents that the peak of the con­fla­gra­tion is yet to come, and Ore­gon Gov­er­nor Kate Brown told Ore­go­ni­ans to pre­pare for what “could be the great­est loss of human lives and prop­er­ty due to wild­fire in our state’s his­to­ry.” More than 100,000 peo­ple have already been evac­u­at­ed from their homes in Ore­gon, and at least five have died. In Cal­i­for­nia, 20 peo­ple have died from the fires. > This is hands down the most con­cussed defense of cli­mate change denial I’ve ever heard: “A cli­mate change denier is any­one who thinks the rul­ing class has done a poor job” pic.twitter.com/61NgsHaxCN> > — nik­ki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) Sep­tem­ber 12, 2020Speaking before an image of New­som, Carl­son defend­ed cli­mate change denial as a mat­ter of polit­i­cal pow­er and wealth rather than one of science.“What is a cli­mate change denier? A cli­mate change denier is any­one who thinks the rul­ing class has done a very poor job run­ning their state, run­ning their coun­try, or pro­tect­ing the peo­ple they were hired to pro­tect and over,” he said. “So are we cli­mate change deniers if we point out that the state of Cal­i­for­nia has failed to imple­ment mean­ing­ful defor­esta­tion that might have dra­mat­i­cal­ly slowed the spread of these wild­fires? Does that make us deniers?”Carlson will­ful­ly mis­un­der­stands for­est man­age­ment in the same way Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump does. Both have blamed the state, run by a Demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nor, for inad­e­quate for­est man­age­ment, but the Cal­i­for­nia gov­ern­ment man­ages less than 3 per­cent of the state’s forest­ed land. The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, by con­trast, over­sees over half of all California’s forest­ed acres. Despite the imbal­ance, Trump has threat­ened to with­hold dis­as­ter fund­ing from Cal­i­for­nia over the fires.Read more at The Dai­ly Beast.Get our top sto­ries in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Mem­ber­ship: Beast Inside goes deep­er on the sto­ries that mat­ter to you. Learn more.