The Older A Voter Gets The Less They Care About The Climate Crisis And The More They Admire Status Quo Joe

I often speak with candidates who tell me they support the Green New Deal, eventually revealing they don't really understand what it is or nit even what the frame work is. AOC's House Resolution 109 is not a proposed law, just a resolution "recognizing the duty fi the federal government to create a Green New Deal. But even that was too much for Pelosi, who buried it in the confines of committees controlled by several of her worst hatchet men, like corrupt New Jersey bribe taker, Frank Pallone, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, as well as far right Blue Dog Collin Peterson's Agriculture Committee and Massachusetts hack Richard Neal's Rules Committee. When AOC originally introduced it on February 7, she had 67 co-sponsors. That has now grown to 94, although several have signed on not because they believe in how Ocasio-Cortez has explained the framework but so they can use it to try to stave off primary challengers from the left-- such as Juan Vargas (New Dem-CA), Stephen Lynch (New Dem-MA), Eliot Engel (New Dem-NY), Gregory Meeks (New Dem-NY) and Ben Ray Lujan, who became a co-sponsor, after he saw polling that showed his primary opponent, Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver was gaining traction with New Mexico voters because of her support for the Green New Deal.

I turned to a few candidates running against this phony Green New Deal "supporters" to get a read. Brianna Wu, running for a Boston area seat occupied by conservative Stephen Lynch told me she sees it as "a being played in Congress. Talk is cheap, and so people like Lynch will SAY they’ll support it. But you have to look deeper and notice what they do. Is Lynch out there spending political capital on the Green New Deal? Is he meeting with activists? Does he speak about why it’s important? Those answers are no, no, and no. Lynch doesn’t care about climate change, he cares about marketing himself. This is personal to me, because I’m going to have to live in the world we’re creating. Lynch won’t step up, but I will." One candidate who didn't want to go on record yet, suggested that there are more than a few co-sponsors who continue to take campaign contributions from fossil fuel executives, lobbyists and interests.

Yesterday in San Francisco-- the day after Jay Inslee dropped out of the presidential race and as he announced he will be running for governor of Washington again-- the Democratic establishment in the form of the DNC voted 17-8 to reject a proposal that they sanction a climate crisis debate. The predominant reason they voted down the proposal is because the Biden campaign threatened to not participate. Biden doesn't understand the Climate Crisis, can't relate to it, knows he'll be dead before the biggest effects are manifest and has literally no idea what the Green New Deal is. His campaign told the DNC the whole idea of a debate about it would be dangerous. Status Quo Joe sees a debate about the Climate Crisis as more dangerous than the Climate Crisis itself. That helps explain that most of his support comes from the very, very old-- like himself-- and that younger people for whom this is an existential threat are threatening to not vote at all if Biden is the candidate. His polling numbers among people under 30 generally has him in 4th or 5th place. His ignorance and lack of interest in the Climate Crisis is one of the main reasons. Hundreds of activists showed up at the San Francisco meeting, activists who now realize their enemies are just Republicans. Oh-- and there was another reason the DNC gave the thumbs down to a Climate Change debate: As Sludgepointed out: the majority of corrupt old DNC hacks always put campaign cash before life on planet earth. Like Biden, they are out of touch with what the grassroots of the party wants. 

Since January, the DNC has taken at least $60,750 from owners and executives of fossil fuel companies. The DNC’s fossil fuel industry donors include George Krumme, owner of Krumme Oil Company, who contributed $20,000, and Stephen Hightower, president and CEO of Hightower Petroleum Company, who contributed $35,500. Other donors include Duke Energy President CJ Triplette, Crystal Flash Energy executive Thomas Fehsenfeld, and Southern Petroleum Resources President David Simpkins.

Unlike the leading Democratic presidential candidates who have all signed the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge, a promise to reject campaign contributions over $200 from fossil fuel PACs, lobbyists, and executives, the DNC is welcoming fossil fuel money. In August 2018 it approved a resolution from Chairman Tom Perez stating that it will accept donations from fossil fuel industry employees and their political action committees. The resolution, which also references “America’s all-of-above-energy economy”-- meaning the burning of coal, oil, and gas alongside renewable energy sources-- was criticized by environmental groups for gutting an earlier resolution that barred the DNC from accepting contributions from fossil fuel PACs.

The DNC has former fossil fuel lobbyists among its leadership. Associate Chairman Jaime Harrison [the establishment-favored Democratic nominee to run against Lindsey Graham next year] lobbied for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity from 2009 to 2012 while working for Podesta Group. The coalition represents major American coal companies like Murray Energy and Peabody Energy, and while Harrison was lobbying for the group it fought against President Obama’s Clean Power plan and other climate-related regulations.

So guess who released his detailed plans for filling in the Green New Deal framework just when Tom Perez was once again disappointing and de-motivating climate activists? Yep, the candidate the Democratic Party establishment wants to defeat even more than they want to defeat Trump. "The climate crisis," reads Bernie's website, "is not only the single greatest challenge facing our country; it is also our single greatest opportunity to build a more just and equitable future, but we must act immediately. Climate change is a global emergency. The Amazon rainforest is burning, Greenland’s ice shelf is melting, and the Arctic is on fire. People across the country and the world are already experiencing the deadly consequences of our climate crisis, as extreme weather events like heat waves, wildfires, droughts, floods, and hurricanes upend entire communities, ecosystems, economies, and ways of life, as well as endanger millions of lives. Communities of color,  working class people, and the global poor have borne and will bear this burden disproportionately. The scientific community is telling us in no uncertain terms that we have less than 11 years left to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy, if we are going to leave this planet healthy and habitable for ourselves, our children, grandchildren, and future generations. As rising temperatures and extreme weather create health emergencies, drive land loss and displacement, destroy jobs, and threaten livelihoods, we must guarantee health care, housing, and a good-paying job to every American, especially to those who have been historically excluded from economic prosperity. The scope of the challenge ahead of us shares similarities with the crisis faced by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940s. Battling a world war on two fronts-- both in the East and the West-- the United States came together, and within three short years restructured the entire economy in order to win the war and defeat fascism. As president, Bernie Sanders will boldly embrace the moral imperative of addressing the climate crisis and act immediately to mobilize millions of people across the country in support of the Green New Deal. From the Oval Office to the streets, Bernie will generate the political will necessary for a wholesale transformation of our society, with support for frontline and vulnerable communities and massive investments in sustainable energy, energy efficiency, and a transformation of our transportation system."

Dealing with this is almost an anyone but Trump or Biden proposition! "We need a president who has the courage, the vision, and the record to face down the greed of fossil fuel executives and the billionaire class who stand in the way of climate action. We need a president who welcomes their hatred. Bernie will lead our country to enact the Green New Deal and bring the world together to defeat the existential threat of climate change." Here's the plan:

As president, Bernie Sanders will launch the decade of the Green New Deal, a ten-year, nationwide mobilization centered around justice and equity during which climate change will be factored into virtually every area of policy, from immigration to trade to foreign policy and beyond. This plan outlines some of the most significant goals we have set and steps we will take during this mobilization, including:

• Reaching 100 percent renewable energy for electricity and transportation by no later than 2030 and complete decarbonization by at least 2050-- consistent with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change goals-- by expanding the existing federal Power Marketing Administrations to build new solar, wind, and geothermal energy sources.
• Ending unemployment by creating 20 million jobs needed to solve the climate crisis. These jobs will be good paying, union jobs with strong benefits and safety standards in steel and auto manufacturing, construction, energy efficiency retrofitting, coding and server farms, and renewable power plants. We will also create millions of jobs in sustainable agriculture, engineering, a reimagined and expanded Civilian Conservation Corp, and preserving our public lands.
• Directly invest an historic $16.3 trillion public investment toward these efforts, in line with the mobilization of resources made during the New Deal and WWII, but with an explicit choice to include black, indigenous and other minority communities who were systematically excluded in the past.
• A fair transition for workers. This plan will prioritize the fossil fuel workers who have powered our economy for more than a century and who have too often been neglected by corporations and politicians. We will provide five years of unemployment insurance, a wage guarantee, housing assistance, job training, health care, pension support, and priority job placement for any displaced worker, as well as early retirement support for those who choose it or can no longer work.
• Declaring climate change a national emergency. We must take action to ensure a habitable planet for ourselves, for our children, and for our grandchildren. We will do whatever it takes to defeat the threat of climate change.
• Saving American families money by weatherizing homes and lowering energy bills, building affordable and high-quality, modern public transportation, providing grants and trade-in programs for families and small businesses to purchase high-efficiency electric vehicles, and rebuilding our inefficient and crumbling infrastructure, including deploying universal, affordable high-speed internet.
• Supporting small family farms by investing in ecologically regenerative and sustainable agriculture. This plan will transform our agricultural system to fight climate change, provide sustainable, local foods, and break the corporate stranglehold on farmers and ranchers.
• Justice for frontline communities-- especially under-resourced groups, communities of color, Native Americans, people with disabilities, children and the elderly-- to recover from, and prepare for, the climate impacts, including through a $40 billion Climate Justice Resiliency Fund. And providing those frontline and fenceline communities a just transition including real jobs, resilient infrastructure, economic development.
• Commit to reducing emissions throughout the world, including providing $200 billion to the Green Climate Fund, rejoining the Paris Agreement, and reasserting the United States’ leadership in the global fight against climate change.
• Meeting and exceeding our fair share of global emissions reductions. The United States has for over a century spewed carbon pollution emissions into the atmosphere in order to gain economic standing in the world. Therefore, we have an outsized obligation to help less industrialized nations meet their targets while improving quality of life. We will reduce domestic emissions by at least 71 percent by 2030 and reduce emissions among less industrialized nations by 36 percent by 2030-- the total equivalent of reducing our domestic emissions by 161 percent.
• Making massive investments in research and development. We will invest in public research to drastically reduce the cost of energy storage, electric vehicles, and make our plastic more sustainable through advanced chemistry.
• Expanding the climate justice movement. We will do this by coming together in a truly inclusive movement that prioritizes young people, workers, indigenous peoples, communities of color, and other historically marginalized groups to take on the fossil fuel industry and other polluters to push this over the finish line and lead the globe in solving the climate crisis.
• Investing in conservation and public lands to heal our soils, forests, and prairie lands. We will reauthorize and expand the Civilian Conservation Corps and fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Corps to provide good paying jobs building green infrastructure.
• This plan will pay for itself over 15 years. Experts have scored the plan and its economic effects. We will pay for the massive investment we need to reverse the climate crisis by:

• Making the fossil fuel industry pay for their pollution, through litigation, fees, and taxes, and eliminating federal fossil fuel subsidies.
• Generating revenue from the wholesale of energy produced by the regional Power Marketing Authorities. Revenues will be collected from 2023-2035, and after 2035 electricity will be virtually free, aside from operations and maintenance costs.
• Scaling back military spending on maintaining global oil dependence.
• Collecting new income tax revenue from the 20 million new jobs created by the plan.
• Reduced need for federal and state safety net spending due to the creation of millions of good-paying, unionized jobs.
• Making the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share.

The cost of inaction is unacceptable. Economists estimate that if we do not take action, we will lose $34.5 trillion in economic activity by the end of the century. And the benefits are enormous:  by taking bold and decisive action, we will save $2.9 trillion over 10 years, $21 trillion over 30 years, and $70.4 trillion over 80 years.

We cannot accomplish any of these goals without taking on the fossil fuel billionaires whose greed lies at the very heart of the climate crisis. These executives have spent hundreds of millions of dollars protecting their profits at the expense of our future, and they will do whatever it takes to squeeze every last penny out of the Earth. Bernie promises to go further than any other presidential candidate in history to end the fossil fuel industry’s greed, including by making the industry pay for its pollution and prosecuting it for the damage it has caused.

And most importantly, we must build an unprecedented grassroots movement that is powerful enough to take them on, and win. Young people, advocates, tribes, cities and states all over this country have already begun this important work, and we will continue to follow their lead.

That barely skims the surface of Bernie's plan. Click here to read the whole thing. These are more of the three top line bullet points:

1) Transform Our Energy System to 100 Percent Renewable Energy and Create 20 Million Jobs

2. End the Greed of the Fossil Fuel Industry and Hold them Accountable

3) Rebuild Our Economy and Ensure Justice for Frontline Communities and a Fair Transition for Workers

Please consider contributing what you can to Bernie's campaign by clicking on the thermometer on the right. And remember this: "For decades, fossil fuel corporations knowingly destroyed our planet for short-term profits. The fossil fuel industry has known since as early as the 1970s that their products were contributing to climate change and that climate change is real, dangerous, and preventable. Yet, they kept going. Instead of working to find solutions to the coming crisis, the fossil fuel industry poured billions into funding climate denialism, hiring lobbyists to fight even the slightest government regulation and oversight, and contributing to politicians who would put the interests of fossil fuel executives over the safety and security of the planet. Fossil fuel corporations have fought to escape liability for the pollution and destruction caused by their greed. They have evaded taxes, desecrated tribal lands, exploited workers and poisoned communities. Bernie believes this is criminal activity, and, when he is President, he will hold the fossil fuel industry accountable.

"Transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy cannot be done without standing up to fossil fuel corporations. Bernie will make fossil fuel corporations pay for the irreparable damage they have done to our communities and our planet, and he will ensure that all fossil fuel workers affected by the transition are entitled to new jobs, health care, pensions, and wage support. He will not allow fossil fuel executives to reap massive profits while endangering the future of humanity. He will not leave it to the market to determine the fate of the planet. The science is clear on what is necessary. As president, Bernie will take immediate action to end the fossil fuel industry’s greed once and for all.

"As we rapidly move toward renewable energy and energy efficiency, we must ensure that the workers employed in the fossil fuel industry see that their standards of living are not only protected, but improved. A fair transition for workers means guaranteeing the incomes, training, and pensions of affected workers, as well as major targeted investments in fossil-fuel-dependent communities. The clean energy economy, which will create three times more jobs and a full-employment economy, must also build strong unions, high wages, and benefits. Finally, the Green New Deal will redress historical injustices, by tackling poverty, inequality, and the disproportionate impacts of environmental damage on poor neighborhoods, communities of color, First Nations, and rural America."