Likening the recent record-setting warm temperatures to hot political rhetoric, Colorado Sen. Mike Weissman, D-Aurora, pleaded for an end to death threats and other hate speech directed at lawmakers of both parties.

“The increasingly tragic reality of our politics, however, like the increasingly tragic reality of our climate, is one of combustibility,” Weissman said from the well of the Senate Monday.

He spoke about the record warm temperatures throughout the state, and the risk of wildfires from those dry conditions, and that the heat from the weather is not the only heat lawmakers are dealing with.

“Algorithms of anger like hot winds suck the resiliency out of our online discourse and our social fabric,” he said, comparing dangerous political rhetoric to the heated climate.

He added that the exercise of judgment should not be met with threats of violence or death, which he said risks the health of representative government.

Weissman’s comments came in reaction to several emails he’s received since Friday.

One caused Weissman to warn his legislative aide to keep the office door locked. The email called him a piece of [excrement] and to expect a visit soon.

Another email was “virulently antisemitic” and one that Weissman said he couldn’t read due to profanity.

A half hour before he went to the Senate well, Weissman got an email that said: “Just die slowly.”

A member of the legislature should not have to be accompanied by a plainclothes police officer when holding a town hall, he continued, or have their partner worry at night that the member could be killed, just for doing their job.

Weissman acknowledged he is far from alone on this, that it happens to members of both parties.

“You shouldn’t have to endure that to do your job either,” he told his Senate colleagues.

Continuing with the fire analogy, he added that “We are all living under political and rhetorical red flag conditions, and I don’t see that improving anytime soon.”

He asked his colleagues to urge others to act as they would in any combustible environment: “Be careful with open flames; better yet, don’t play with fire at all.”

“And if you happen upon a fire already burning, please, for God’s sake, don’t pour gasoline on it,” he concluded.