Bernie and AOC Push Congress to Declare a ‘Climate Emergency’

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are pushing Congress to declare a “climate emergency,” the lawmakers announced Tuesday.

Ocasio-Cortez is teaming up with Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) to issue a resolution in the lower chamber, which would declare a “climate emergency.” This will reportedly coincide with Sanders’ efforts.

“The global warming caused by human activities, which increase emissions of greenhouse gases, has resulted in a climate emergency,” the resolution states.

It “severely and urgently impacts the economic and social well-being, health and safety, and national security of the United States,” it continues, while demanding “national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization of the resources and labor of the United States at a massive-scale” to respond to this “crisis.” It teases options, such as reversal, mitigatio, or preparation for what it says are the impending “consequences of the climate emergency.”

This effort, it seems, is rooted in what Democrats say is President Trump’s inaction.

“President Trump has routinely declared phony national emergencies to advance his deeply unpopular agenda, like selling Saudi Arabia bombs that Congress had blocked,” a Sanders spokesperson said, according to the Guardian.

The spokesperson continued:

On the existential threat of climate change, Trump insists on calling it a hoax. Senator Sanders is proud to partner with his House colleagues to challenge this absurdity and have Congress declare what we all know: we are facing a climate emergency that requires a massive and immediate federal mobilization.

Ocasio-Cortez has been a massive proponent of climate change action, introducing the Green New Deal this year. It experienced a rough rollout, outlining lofty goals of achieving net-zero emissions and eventually eliminating “farting cows” and “airplanes.”

The outline reads:

We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast, but we think we can ramp up renewable manufacturing and power production, retrofit every building in America, build the smart grid, overhaul transportation and agriculture, plant lots of trees and restore our ecosystem to get to net-zero.

The freshman Democrat’s Green New Deal proposal also promised economic security to Americans “unwilling to work.”

Ocasio-Cortez recently said any solid climate change plan would need to come with at least a $10 trillion price tag to have a real “shot” at making a difference.

“I know it’s a ton,” she told the Hill in June. “I don’t think anyone wants to spend that amount of money, it’s not a fun number to say, I’m not excited to say we need to spend $10 trillion on climate, but … it’s just the fact of the scenario.”

Sanders, on the other hand, made combating climate change a cornerstone of his presidential campaign and warned that America has 12 years to “aggressively” address the crisis or face “irreparable damage.”

He spoke at Howard University in Washington, D.C. in May in an effort to promote the Green New Deal, calling climate change an “existential threat” that will ultimately lead to “international havoc and war.”

In January, he argued that U.S. must view climate change as a “devastating military attack against the United States and the entire planet.”

All of that comes in spite of the fact that there is no final consensus on anthropogenic climate change. The original paper progressives consistently cite  – written by Australian global warming activist John Cook – has been revealed to carry many red flags. Prior to writing the paper, Cook admitted his bias, noting his effort to establish a “strengthening consensus” on climate change.

The Daily Caller reported:

This is misleading, writes Andrew Montford of GWPF, since the methodology of Cook’s report reveals that the researchers cast such a wide net to create the 97 percent consensus that it encompasses people who don’t believe in catastrophic global warming.

To be part of the “consensus” one need only agree that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that human activities have warmed the planet “to some unspecified extent” — both of which are uncontroversial points.

There are other reasons to remain skeptical. As Breitbart News pointed out, “John Cook’s Internet home is an alarmist propaganda website called Skeptical Science.”

“Unfortunately for Cook, a security lapse at his site in 2012 led to the disclosure of private email exchanges between Cook and his co-conspirators,” Breitbart News added.