Newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is doubling down on her first week’s agenda in Congress, calling on her colleagues in the House of Representatives to pass a “Green New Deal” because “people are going to die” from climate change.
Ocasio-Cortez cited a report released Friday by the U,S. Global Change Research Program, a voluntary committee of scientists from 13 federal agencies and a number of outside pressure groups, that warned that thousands could die, and the United States could suffer a striking 10% reduction in its gross national product by the end of this century if humans do not curb their fossil fuel consumption.
CNN reports that the US Global Change Research Program estimates tens of thousands of “premature deaths” from the effects of climate change, including deaths from starvation, mosquito-borne illnesses, extreme heat, flooding and other natural disasters.
The report seems extreme on its face, and critics were quick to point out that the computer models used to predict the “thousands” of deaths may be outdated, but leftists, including Ocasio-Cortez, soaked up the report without question, inciting mass panic.
People are going to die if we don’t start addressing climate change ASAP.
It’s not enough to think it’s “important.” We must make it urgent.
That’s why we need a Select Committee on a Green New Deal, & why fossil fuel-funded officials shouldn’t be writing climate change policy. https://t.co/bn6NloGlaY
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) November 23, 2018
“People are going to die if we don’t start addressing climate change ASAP,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “It’s not enough to think it’s ‘important.’ We must make it urgent. That’s why we need a Select Committee on a Green New Deal, & why fossil fuel-funded officials shouldn’t be writing climate change policy.”
The U.S. Global Change Research Program makes no recommendations on how to curb “climate change,” but it’s quite clear that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez believes the only way to make real in-roads on the subject is to enact a massive, socialistic environmentally focused legislative package, using taxation and other “incentives” to help Americans cut down on fossil fuel usage, while pouring millions into “green jobs” and “alternative energy.”
The issue is obviously important to Ocasio-Cortez; her first act upon finding herself in Washington, D.C., as a freshman Congresswoman was to join a sit-in protest at Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) Capitol Hill offices, designed to pressure the presumptive House Majority Leader into tackling the “climate change” issue with a select committee. Ocasio-Cortez called the protest “important work,” but seemed to heavily temper her follow-up criticism of Pelosi, announcing late last week that she intends to support Pelosi’s bid to reclaim the Speakership.
But Ocasio-Cortez seems to miss that the United States is well ahead of its global peers when it comes to curbing fossil fuel emissions, with or without a complex “climate change” legislative scheme. According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, the United States ranks at the top of most major countries in regularly reducing its own carbon footprint.
“The major reason for the reduced pollution levels is the shale oil and gas revolution that is transitioning the world to cheap and clean natural gas for electric power generation,” the Daily Signal reports. “Meanwhile, as our emissions fell, the pollution levels rose internationally and by a larger amount than in previous years. So much for the rest of the world going green.”
The worst climate offender? China. But Ocasio-Cortez’s plan doesn’t include any foreign policy recommendations.