Thursday, May 16, 2019

Sanders Says Biden's "Middle Ground" Approach to Climate Crisis Would "Doom Future Generations"

An excellent article. One important thing to reflect upon, explore, and come to deeply understand is how we got to the 12th hour and yet still continue full speed ahead towards the cliff of our annihilation? Certainly it’s not Trump alone who’s brought us here. Not by a long shot. The verdict was in decades ago that the human causes behind our warming climate were threatening life on Earth and that there is an imperative to radically change directions. Yet these many years have all been squandered — and especially by the powerful corporate interests of the fossil fuel industry and all those in positions of political power who were incestuously beholden to these interests. Centrism and all middle of the road advocates must be seen for what they are: doing the bidding for the exact fossil fuel, military, Wall Street industries that have brought us to the brink. We can not afford to buy what they are selling one more time! We must say a resounding NO! No more status quo and greed and toxic lies and utterly false promises! Let’s instead go for a radical New Story — one which is so different because it holds at its core a reverence and love of life! Rather than destroy life, honor and protect it! Radical indeed. Let’s all be radical together!! — Molly


The Vermont senator and 2020 presidential candidate said the U.S. must commit to "fully transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels"
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Without mentioning Joe Biden by name, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday slammed the centrist climate policy reportedly being crafted by the former vice president's 2020 campaign as a dangerously inadequate approach that would "doom future generations."

"There is no 'middle ground' when it comes to climate policy," the Vermont senator tweeted, quoting from a Reuters report on Biden's efforts to develop a climate plan that would leave the door open to so-called "fossil fuel options."

"If we don't commit to fully transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels, we will doom future generations," wrote Sanders, who is also a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. "Fighting climate change must be our priority, whether fossil fuel billionaires like it or not."
As Common Dreams reported in April, Sanders won praise from environmental groups after he unveiled a sweeping climate agenda calling for a Green New Deal, an end to oil exports, a complete ban on fracking, and a moratorium on all new fossil fuel infrastructure projects.

Environmentalists were not pleased with reports of Biden's middle-of-the-road approach to confronting the climate crisis, which has pushed a million species to the brink of extinction and threatens the future of human civilization.

Echoing Sanders and the chorus of green groups voicing their concerns, Greenpeace USA climate campaigner Charlie Jiang said in a statement, "There is no such thing as a middle ground on climate change."

"We either doom millions of people to climate catastrophe or we don't," said Jiang.

Author and climate activist Naomi Klein also weighed in, tweeting, "there is bold, transformative action or there is sinking ground, burning ground, and churning ground."
Climate scientists joined environmentalists in criticizing what is known of Biden's draft plan—which will reportedly center around re-joining the Paris Climate Agreement—as insufficient to the task of dramatically curbing carbon emissions, as the scientific evidence says is necessary to avert planetary disaster.

"The greatest fault in his proposal is the suggestion that natural gas can be part of the solution," Michael Mann, head of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, told HuffPost. "The solution to a problem created by burning fossil fuels cannot be the burning of fossil fuels."

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