Dozens of House Democrats are calling for the climate crisis to be a central focus of the upcoming presidential and vice presidential debates.

In a letter Wednesday to the Commission on Presidential Debates, 70 lawmakers stressed that their constituents must hear from the candidates about how they plan to tackle one of the most pressing and all-consuming issues currently facing our country.

The demand comes on the heels of record-setting wildfires in California, an extremely active Atlantic hurricane season and brutal August heat throughout much of the West. And a new survey of NASA satellite data shows that climate change has increased the volume of glacial lakes worldwide by about 50% since 1990.

Even a single question on climate change at the upcoming debates would be an improvement over 2016, when presidential debate moderators did not once bring up the rapidly worsening global crisis .

This cannot happen again, reads the letter, spearheaded by Rep. Mike Levin of California. Given the dire nature of the crisis, we ask that you break precedent and publicly call on the moderators to include climate in the topics that will be addressed during the debates.