News and Commentary

Elizabeth Warren Says She Fights Climate Change By ‘Mostly Flying Commercial’

   DailyWire.com
Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts and 2020 presidential candidate, speaks during the Second Step Presidential Justice Forum at Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina, U.S., on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2019.
Logan Cyrus/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) didn’t appear to have the best answer when asked, specifically, how her campaign was trying to fight climate change and reduce its carbon footprint.

Speaking at an event for New Hampshire Public Radio on Wednesday, Warren was asked about her efforts to battle climate change by host Laura Knoy, who had received a question from a listener about the subject.

“What specific steps have you taken in your campaign to ensure that your campaign’s environmental impact is as limited as possible?” Knoy asked, adding that billionaire Tom Steyer – who is also running for president – said that he only flies commercial. “He said ‘that means a lot of time waiting at airports for me and my staff’ but there’s a huge carbon footprint of a private jet so that’s the sacrifice he said he was willing to make. How about you?”

Flying commercial and waiting with us plebs? Wait until Steyer finds out that most Americans don’t regularly fly at all, unlike the many, many celebrities who fly around the world to warn about an impending doom caused by climate change.

Warren failed to adequately address the question.

“So, I’ve mostly been flying commercial, um, but we’ve been trying to look at other ways that we can reduce our carbon footprint and it’s everything from the kind of car we drive, uh and down to … do we purchase offsets, can we make that work as a way to try to reduce the footprint.”

So, Warren doesn’t always fly commercial, and her campaign is merely looking into other ways to reduce their carbon footprint? So basically, she’s doing nothing while stoking fears about a climate crisis.

There was no follow-up question about whether the Warren’s campaign had actually followed through on anything they were looking into or what results their campaign has seen on the issue.

Breitbart News reported that Warren went on to talk about proposals to reduce U.S. carbon emissions, including one from Gov. Jay Inslee, who briefly ran for president.

“He talked about the importance of regulating three industries — that by 2028 no new buildings, no new houses that have any carbon footprints — zero carbon footprint on new buildings. By 2030, all newly built cars and trucks — zero carbon footprint. And by 2035, all electric production — zero carbon footprint.” Warren said. “We do those three things, we cut carbon emission in our country by 70%. Think about that, three things, 70% reduction.”

Three major things. Those changes aren’t as simple as asking people to turn off the lights more often; they require major shifts in the economy.

Warren could choose to forgo airline travel all together and take public transportation or lower-emission cars across the country. But that won’t get her to as many campaign stops as quickly as a plane. It’s easy to talk about reducing carbon emissions (or, for the wealthy, paying other people to reduce their emissions by purchasing offsets), but it’s quite another thing to actually live one’s life the way they would need to in order to actually reduce their carbon footprint.

Got a tip worth investigating?

Your information could be the missing piece to an important story. Submit your tip today and make a difference.

Submit Tip
The Daily Wire   >  Read   >  Elizabeth Warren Says She Fights Climate Change By ‘Mostly Flying Commercial’