(D-N.Y.) on Thursday introduced a new climate change resolution with aims to bring the progressive Green New Deal to life legislatively and push the U.S. to take a lead role in reducing carbon emissions through the economy.
The proposal, titled “Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal,” has a goal of creating millions of “good, high-wage jobs” by striving for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) is introducing a companion proposal in the upper chamber.
The legislation offers a natural transition for Ocasio-Cortez, who before even formally entering office championed the idea of a Green New Deal as the basis for creating a special committee on climate change.
Engaging in a sit-in at Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office with members of the youth climate advocates the Sunrise Movement, Ocasio-Cortez pushed to make climate change a main focus of the Democratic Party as they took back control of the House.
Her proposed special committee was ultimately rejected by Democratic leaders, who opted instead for a panel on climate crisis that lacks legislative and subpoena power. Pelosi Thursday announced the names of eight members of Congress who will sit on that panel. Ocasio-Cortez is not one of them.
The resolution aims to continue the tenants of that committee, priming congressional leaders to accept the dire climate situation as laid out in this November’s United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that the world has 12 years to reverse emissions trends in order to thwart irreversible global warming.
“Whereas, because the United States has historically been responsible for a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gas emissions, having emitted 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions through 2014, and has a high technological capacity, the United States must take a leading role in reducing emissions through economic transformation,” the resolution reads.
The proposal says that accomplishing the plan would take a 10 year “national mobilization” and would include resilience building, a 100 percent renewable-energy driven power grid, updating “smart” power grids and increasing building energy efficiency. Buried in the resolution is also a commitment that all future infrastructure bills would specifically address climate change.
The text also calls for a long wish list for Ocasio-Cortez, including seeking environmental changes not directly related to climate change such as supporting family farming, guaranteeing universal access to clean drinking water and investments in high-speed railroads.
“Even the solutions that we have considered big and bold are nowhere near the scale of the actual problem that climate change presents to us, to our country, to the world,” Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview on NPR on Thursday.
“This is really about providing justice for communities and just transitions for communities. So, really the heart of the Green New Deal is about social justice.”
In a statement released Thursday, Varshini Pakash, founder and executive director of the Sunrise Movement, said, “Young people put the Green New Deal on the national agenda. The historic support for this resolution, especially among 2020 contenders, shows how far the movement has shifted the political conversation.”
The proposal has been met in some instances with scorn from people on the right, who criticize it as a radical pipe dream rather than an achievable climate goal.
While a number of 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls, from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) to Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), have openly embraced “the concept” of the Green New Deal, they too at times have been reserved in what components of the massive undertaking they are getting behind.
The proposal comes a day after two congressional hearings Wednesday focused on addressing climate change. The hearings in the House Natural Resources and the Energy and Commerce committees were the first on the topic in nine and six years, respectively, and Democratic leadership has vowed to make the issue of curbing greenhouse gas emissions front and center in their new majority.
While many Republicans on the committees said they would try to work with Democrats to find common ground on the issue, at least one lawmaker, Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), called the proposal “radical.”
“We should be open to the fact that wealth transfer schemes suggested in the radical policies like the Green New Deal may not be the best path to community prosperity and preparedness,” Shimkus said.
According to The Washington Post, Gillibrand and Booker will sponsor the plan along with other 2020 hopefuls Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is also considering a run for the White House, will also back the plan.
Scientists behind a headline-grabbing climate study admitted they “really muffed” their paper.
Their study claimed to find 60 percent more warming in the oceans, but that was based on math errors.
The errors were initially spotted by scientist Nic Lewis, who called them “serious (but surely inadvertent) errors.”
The scientists behind a headline-grabbing global warming study did something that seems all too rare these days — they admitted to making mistakes and thanked the researcher, a global warming skeptic, who pointed them out.
“When we were confronted with his insight it became immediately clear there was an issue there,” study co-author Ralph Keeling told The San Diego Union-Tribune on Tuesday.
Their study, published in October, used a new method of measuring ocean heat uptake and found the oceans had absorbed 60 more heat than previously thought. Many news outlets relayed the findings, but independent scientist Nic Lewis quickly found problems with the study.
“We’re grateful to have it be pointed out quickly so that we could correct it quickly,” Keeling said.
In a statement posted online Friday, Keeling said “the combined effect of these two corrections to have a small impact on our calculations of overall heat uptake.” However, Keeling said the errors mean there are “larger margins of error” than they initially thought.
So, while Keeling said they still found there’s more warming than previously thought, there’s too much uncertainty to support their paper’s central conclusion that oceans absorbed 60 percent more heat than current estimates show.
“Our error margins are too big now to really weigh in on the precise amount of warming that’s going on in the ocean,” Keeling told The Union Tribune. “We really muffed the error margins.”
Keeling and his co-authors used the study to debut a new way of estimating ocean heat uptake by measuring the volume of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the atmosphere. Scientists are still intrigued by this method, but all the kinks need to be worked out.
“So far as I can see, their method vastly underestimates the uncertainty,” Lewis told The Washington Post in an interview Tuesday, “as well as biasing up significantly, nearly 30 percent, the central estimate.”
Lewis pointed out the errors in Keeling’s study in a blog post published Nov. 6 on climate scientist Judith Curry’s website. Lewis wrote that “[j]ust a few hours of analysis and calculations … was sufficient to uncover apparently serious (but surely inadvertent) errors in the underlying calculations.”
Lewis’s corrections were quickly confirmed by University of Colorado professor Roger Pielke Jr. Pielke called Keeling’s acceptance and willingness to correct the mistakes a “lesson in graciousness.”
Climate skeptic uncovers scientific error, upends major ocean warming study
Scientists with UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Princeton University recently walked back a claim made last month that oceans had been heating up dramatically faster than the…
“Unfortunately, we made mistakes here,” Keeling told WaPo. “I think the main lesson is that you work as fast as you can to fix mistakes when you find them.”
A tough guy at college only. Why don’t he move to a socialist country?

Dartmouth College lecturer Mark Bray made the argument to abolish capitalism in a recent op-ed for Truthout, linking capitalism to the prioritizing of profit over the environment and everything else.
The professor has previously donated half of the profits from his book chronicling Antifa to the organization, written an introduction to an Antifa comic book, and tweeted glowingly about Antifa flags made by kids at a summer camp.
A Dartmouth professor argued on Tuesday that “if we don’t abolish capitalism, capitalism will abolish us.”
Dartmouth College lecturer Mark Bray made the remark in an op-ed for Truthout, titled “How Capitalism Stokes the Far Right and Climate Catastrophe.”
“We must recognize that the climate crisis and the resurgence of the far right are two of the most acute symptoms of our failure to abolish capitalism.” Tweet This
“We are on a deadline,” Bray says. “Lesser-evilism among capitalist politicians may have some rationale when spending five minutes casting a ballot on Election Day, but we don’t have time for it to be a guiding strategical outlook. We need to organize movements to build popular power and shut down the industries that threaten our existence.”
“Fascism is ascendant,” the Ivy League professor continues. “The world is on fire. This is no time to be patient. If we don’t abolish capitalism, capitalism will abolish us.”
Bray claims that the far right advocates for environmentally destructive policies, alleging that the faction prioritizes interests of certain groups over those of the entire planet, but takes his argument a step further by blaming capitalism.
“We must recognize that the climate crisis and the resurgence of the far right are two of the most acute symptoms of our failure to abolish capitalism,” the scholar asserts. “A capitalist system that prioritizes profit and perpetual growth over all else is the mortal enemy of global aspirations for a sustainable economy that satisfies needs rather than stock portfolios.”
Bray’s faculty profile lists the Dartmouth lecturer as an associated visiting scholar of the school’s Gender Research Institute. It also describes him as “a historian of human rights, terrorism, and political radicalism in Modern Europe.” But Bray seems to have done more than just document issues of radicalism.
The professor donated half of the profits from his book “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook” to Antifa.
[RELATED: Dartmouth prof to donate half of book proceeds to Antifa]
He has also authored the introduction to an Antifa comic book and in a tweet displaying photos of what he suggested were Antifa flags made by kids at a summer camp, said “super rad!”
Campus Reform contacted Bray, asking him what his preferred alternative to capitalism would be among other questions, but the professor did not comment in time for press.
Al Gore Should Be Arrested For Making Millions Off The Fake Man Mad Global Warming.
A $240 PER GALLON GAS TAX TO FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING? NEW UN REPORT SUGGESTS CARBON PRICING
A new U.N. report suggests a $240 per gallon gas tax equivalent is needed to fight global warming.
The U.N. says a carbon tax would need to be as high as $27,000 per ton in the year 2100.
If you think that’s unlikely to ever happen, you’re probably right.
A United Nations special climate report suggests a tax on carbon dioxide emissions would need to be as high as $27,000 per ton at the end of the century to effectively limit global warming.
Tree Hugging Idiot.
For Americans, that’s the same as a $240 per gallon tax on gasoline in the year 2100, should such a recommendation be adopted. In 2030, the report says a carbon tax would need to be as high as $5,500 — that’s equivalent to a $49 per gallon gas tax.
Political Correctness Gone Amuck.
If you think that’s an unlikely scenario, you’re probably not wrong. However, it’s what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report, released Sunday night, sees as a policy option for reducing emissions enough to keep projected warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Nuff Said!
The IPCC’s report is meant to galvanize political support for doubling down on the Paris climate accord ahead of a U.N. climate summit scheduled for December. The report calls for societal changes that are “unprecedented in terms of scale” in order to limit future global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the stretch goal of the Paris accord.
In order to effectively keep future warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the IPCC says carbon taxes would need to range from $135 to $5,500 per ton in 2030, $245 to $13,000 per ton in 2050, $420 to $17,000 per ton in 2070 and $690 to $27,000 per ton in 2100.
To meet the goals of the Paris accord, which seeks to limit future warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, the IPCC says carbon taxes would have range between $10 and $200 in 2030 and $160 and $2,125 in 2100.
That’s equivalent to a gas tax as high as $1.70 per gallon in 2030 to nearly $19 per gallon at the end of the century. That’s less onerous than limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, but still no walk in the park.
California and many European countries have policies to price carbon dioxide emissions and mandate green energy, including cap-and-trade systems and carbon taxes. But carbon prices under those systems are nowhere near where the IPCC says they need to be.
The IPCC said the “price of carbon would need to increase significantly when a higher level of stringency is pursued.” However, the group’s report tacitly acknowledges the unlikelihood that governments will enact astronomical taxes on energy.
“While the price of carbon is central to prompt mitigation pathways compatible with 1.5 [degree Celsius]-consistent pathways, a complementary mix of stringent policies is required,” reads the IPCC’s report.
In the U.S., Republican lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposed to carbon taxes in July. Democrats called for a price on carbon dioxide in their 2016 party platform, but they haven’t made much effort on that front since the failure of cap-and-trade legislation in 2010.
Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida introduced carbon tax legislation shortly after all but five of his GOP colleagues in the House voted to oppose such a bill. Curbelo’s bill would tax carbon dioxide at $23 a ton — nowhere near what the IPCC calls for.
However, the IPCC suggested a lower carbon tax could be used in conjunction with command and control policies, like regulations and bans on coal plants, could achieve “generate a 1.5˚C pathway for the U.S. electric sector.”
But that point only serves to undermine Curbelo’s bill, which would put a moratorium on some environmental regulations and possibly eliminate some if emissions goals are reached.
The IPCC noted the “literature indicates that the pricing of emissions is relevant but needs to be complemented with other policies to drive the required changes in line with 1.5°C-consistent cost-effective pathways.”
Idiots wasting taxpayer money on fake Climate Change.
Los Angeles officials are going forward with a $40,000-a-mile program to coat public streets to fight climate change, despite the city’s many financial challenges — including a $73 million budget shortfall for dealing with the ever-expanding homeless population.
The program uses a light-colored sealant to cover the streets, which decreases the pavement temperature of so-called “heat-islands,” according to media reports.
The LA Street Services began rolling out the project last May, which preliminary testing shows has reduced the temperature of roadways by up to 10 degrees.
The project involves applying a light gray coating of the product CoolSeal, made by the company GuardTop.
Los Angeles painting city streets white in bid to combat climate change
California officials are hoping their latest attempt to stem the rising tides of climate change leads to a more socially conscious — and cooler — summer.
“CoolSeal is applied like conventional sealcoats to asphalt surfaces to protect and maintain the quality and longevity of the surface,” according to the company website. “While most cool pavements on the market are polymer based, CoolSeal is a water-based, asphalt emulsion.”
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Last year, the L.A. Daily Newsreported on the high cost of the project — and that local officials approved it nonetheless.
The morning temperature of the black asphalt in the middle of a nearby intersection read 93 degrees. The new light gray surface on Jordan Avenue read a cool 70 — on what would turn out to be the first heat wave of the year.
“It’s awesome. It’s very cool — both literally and figuratively,” exclaimed Councilman Bob Blumenfield, whose Los Angeles district includes Canoga Park, squinting into the laser handheld thermometer. “We are trying to control ‘the heat island effect’ ” — or hotter temperatures caused by urban sprawl.
“The downside: we won’t be able to fry eggs on the streets,” Blumenfield said.
Los Angeles painting city streets white in bid to combat climate change
California officials are hoping their latest attempt to stem the rising tides of climate change leads to a more socially conscious — and cooler — summer.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who is eyeing a run for the White House in 2020, has embraced the program “as part of an overall plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the city by 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2025,” according to Fox News.
And environmental activists are praising L.A.’s street-sealing project.
“Advocates are confident that advances in asphalt technology will drive down the cost,” Mother Nature Network reported on Sunday.
“There’s also the related economic benefits to consider: in once-sweltering neighborhoods where streets are now painted white, residents will be less likely to crank the air conditioning on full blast, leading to significant savings on energy bills and decreased emissions,” the website reported.
“What’s more, the highly reflective nature of white-coated asphalt means that street lighting doesn’t have to kick in quite as early in the evening, saving additional energy.”
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Hollywood star Robert De Niro took aim at the Trump administration’s stance on climate change, telling a packed audience in the Middle East that he was visiting from a “backward” country suffering from “temporary insanity.”
He said that in the country he’s describing, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency suggested last week that global warming may be a good thing for humanity.
This POS Robert De Niro loved the communist queer Obama.
“I am talking about my own country, the United States of America. We don’t’ like to say we are a ‘backward’ country so let’s just say we’re suffering from a case of temporary insanity,” he added.
De Niro received applause and laughs when he said the U.S. “will eventually cure itself by voting our dangerous leader” out of office. He spoke Sunday at Dubai’s World Government Summit.
