Chris White Tech Reporter
- July 23, 2019 4:49 PM ET
House Democrats rolled out a climate agenda Tuesday as their caucus attempts to draw a distinction between New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s approach to tackling global warming and a more moderate plan.
Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee announced they would pursue legislation calling for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a far less ambitious plan than the Green New Deal, which aims to complete the emissions target by 2030. Democrats criticized Ocasio-Cortez’s idea during the roll-out.
“The majority of the Democratic caucus is behind aggressive, but not socialist, climate policies,” Paul Bledsoe, who advised former President Bill Clinton on climate issues, told reporters, according to Bloomberg. “They worry the Green New Deal rhetoric could alienate rather than attract swing voters needed in 2020.”
U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) hold a news conference for their proposed “Green New Deal” to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in 10 years, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. February 7, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
“The climate crisis is here, and it requires serious federal leadership that’s up for the challenge,” Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey told reporters.
Reps. Paul Tonko, head of the Environment and Climate Change subcommitee, and Bobby Rush of Illinois, head of the energy subcommittee joined Pallone in the press conference. Ocasio-Cortez didn’t attend, Bloomberg reported.
The GND, as it has come to be known, sought for a “10-year national mobilization” to shift the country to 100% “zero-emission energy sources” — a lofty mission given that fossil fuels account for more than 80% of U.S. energy consumption in 2018. (RELATED: The Green New Deal Would Cause ‘Significant Environmental Damage,’ Report Finds)
Ocasio-Cortez’s brainchild was torpedoed in the Senate in March after Republicans voted en masse against the resolution while most Democrats voted present.
Tuesday’s proposal also comes as President Donald Trump attempts to associate moderate House Democrats with left-wing members of the caucus. Some House Democrats believe they played right into the president’s hands after they voted on a July 17 resolution condemning Trump’s tweets targeting Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
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The issue with it is very simple: tell us what effect this will have on the total level of global emissions.
If we are doing this to ‘tackle climate change’ by way of reducing the world’s emissions, then how high will those emissions be in 2050 if we do not act in this way, and how high will they be if we do?
I think the answer is probably something like this. They are at the moment a bit over 37 billion tons a year.
If the US does not do this, and we carry on as normal, they will probably be 45-50 billion tons a year in 2040-50.
If the US does do this, they will probably be 40-45 billion instead. You could actually argue it will not make this much difference, but best case.
How much difference will that make to global temperatures, assuming the theory is correct?
Negligible.
If people are going to advocate doing things to ‘tackle climate change’, could they at least start by explaining how doing them is going to make any material difference to what they claim to be the drivers of climate change?
Fear doesn’t need facts. Only until and unless Trump destroys the arguments head-on will the greens be deterred.
As a salesman (in another life) among the first things I learned is that facts do not overcome emotion based beliefs, they only cause the person to ‘dig in’ to defend their emotion based belief system (and put you in the ‘enemy zone’).
Seven men and a baby.
…except “net-zero” is still a myth. Same as it ever was.
(If someone said this already, I apologize.)
“….net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050…”
In other words, “The elite (such as ourselves and certain Hollywood people) will continue emitting. All of you lower carbon-based lifeforms will have to eliminate your emissions to compensate.”
Watered down crazy is still crazy…after all these years.
Keeping the door open for donors and a carbon tax outside possibility are also important to the Party of miscreants.
I’m a Socialist!
I – and my spouse – get Medicare (great system, BTW. Sooo inexpensive!) and free money from Social Security (free because we don’t need it). QED
know who else are ‘Socialists’? ever farmer. so far this year $20B of our money to compensate for China tarriffs. Not to mention the billions we all pay to corn farmers to provide us with below-market ethanol (which is a net loss to the climate).
Now, remind me: how does a ad hominion attack on AOC inform the readers of this blog on climate science?
You mean “ad hominem,” right? If you’d bothered to look up the spelling, you’d have seen the definition and know that’s not what’s happening here.
If I call her a Marxist, that’s not ad hominem. The truth is by definition not ad hominem. It is also relevant to her outlook on climate change, since it’s a political, not scientific outlook.
Same thing applies if I call her an idiot. All clear? Good. Next!
And speaking if fallacies, I smell red herring. How does your being a Socialist contribute to the discussion? Who cares? Further, hate to state the obvious but a person can take advantage of social programs without being “a Socialist.”
Next time, try being honest and start your post with “I’m a Democrat! Please don’t say mean stuff about Democrats even if they demonstrably have the brains of an earthworm.” Thanks in advance.
Poor little chrisee, failed again.
You paid into SS and Medicare. How exactly is that “free” to you?
Unless you didn’t. Then you’re a freeloader.
… and therefore has every right to call himself a Socialist! 😀
Sigh. This is right out of the Democratic Party playbook, and so predictable. Propose something so bad and insane that everyone will freak out. Then propose something half way as bad and everyone will clamor for it. Never mind that without the first, you would have freaked out on the second. And don’t for a moment think that if you give them the half way point that the rest is not far behind. Progressive 101 folks.
It looks like the GND might be just what we need.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/current-warming-is-unparalleled-in-the-past-2-000-years/
Scientific “journals” have been corrupted for decades & are run by socialist sycophants. Didn’t know that?
Scientists who are on board obviously get their funding from somewhere. Sometimes that funding comes from wealthy celebrities, environmental NGOs, and government. Nobody in the alarmist camp gives a damn about this rather obvious form of conflict of interest, any more than they do when Albert Gore makes a stupendous fortune on “green investment” or Rajendra Pachauri is involved in a company that recovers depleted oil reserves and is forced out of the IPCC because of sexual harassment.
Just for laughs I had a look at the WHOIS record for the PAGES 2K website. Guess what? Any information that might tell us who registered the domain etc has been redacted, because they registered with an agency that hides that info. The only instances I’ve found this before – and there have been a great many – was for sites that are either totally sketchy or worse, actually fraudulent, e.g. identity theft phishing sites. In short, whoever registered (and probably pays for hosting) the website wants to remain anonymous for some reason.
Purely circumstantial stuff I know – but interesting nonetheless. 🙂
Maybe what YOU need Andy. Don’t lump us all together with the sock puppets of global social engineers please. Believe whatever crap you like; when I see repeated stupidities like “debunking another argument by those who reject climate science” I know right away I’m looking at the same old same old.
Oh hey- one minute into my research I learn Science-y American is a bit late to the ballgame; this “news” is six years old: https://skepticalscience.com/pages2k-confirms-hockey-stick.html. Funny how their own map shows regional bias in their sampling when their biggest beef seems to be that e.g. The Medieval Warm Period was”only a regional event.”
Try doing some of your own research Andy. Can’t tell you how satisfying it is.
Yes, Michael, I have done my own research and it is very satisfying to be in agreement with 99% of the world’s scientists who concur with me that the current climate crisis is caused by man-made carbon emissions.
According to the 2016 survey of the American Meteorological Society (Maibach et al., 2016)…
Climate change is real: 96%
Only 96% of “scientists” agree that climate change is real.
Climate change is man-made: 67%
Only 67% of “scientists” characterized climate change as real and man-made.
Climate Change has been harmful over the past 50 years: 38%
Only 38% of “scientists” characterized climate change as having been dangerous (primarily or exclusively harmful impacts) over the past 50 years.
Climate change will be dangerous over the next 50 years: 50%
Only 50% of “scientists” characterized climate change as being dangerous (primarily or exclusively harmful impacts) over the next 50 years.
Climate change can largely be ignored: 40%
Only 18% of “scientists” thought that there was any point in destroying our economy in order to prevent the weather from changing. Fully 41% of “scientists” indicated that climate change might as well be “ignored.”
In summary…
Furthermore… 53% of AMS survey respondents agreed there was conflict about climate change among atmospheric scientists and 63% thought the conflict was a good thing (Stenhouse et al. 2017)
I won’t even venture into my branch of science… Because more than half of government and academic economic geologists disagree with the 67% majority of the AMS (Doran and Kendall Zimmerman, 2009).
References
Doran, P. T., and Zimmerman, M. K. ( 2009), Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change, Eos Trans. AGU, 90( 3), 22– 23, doi:10.1029/2009EO030002.
Maibach, E., Perkins, D., Francis, Z., Myers, T., Englbom, A., et al. (2016). A 2016 National
Survey of American Meteorological Society Member Views on Climate Change: Initial Findings. George Mason University, Fairfax, VA: Center for Climate Change Communication.
Stenhouse, N., A. Harper, X. Cai, S. Cobb, A. Nicotera, and E. Maibach, 2017: Conflict about Climate Change at the American Meteorological Society: Meteorologists’ Views on a Scientific and Organizational Controversy. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 98, 219–223, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00265.1
I can’t believe you brought that dishonest, and thoroughly debunked statistic to the discussion. But, of course you did.
Yes Michael, I have done my research and it is very satisfying to know that 99% of the world’s scientists agree with me that the current climate crisis is caused by man-made carbon emissions.
Further: believing whatever the mass media tells you to believe is not equivalent to “research.” Not even close. Your (repeated) post should read,
“I have been as ingenuous and easily led as a three-year old.”
You’re welcome. I’m a great believer in precision in communication and always happy to lend a hand.
Well, you just go on believing whatever stupid bullshit you like, Including that ridiculous statement about 99%. And by all means come coming back here, completely ignoring the ever-increasing mountain of countervailing evidence, and trying to change our minds. That is absolutely your right as a witless sock puppet.