My deepest sympathies to anyone having to spend time at an airport tonight. CNN’s climate crisis town hall is on the air. This won’t matter to most folks not at an airport, since very few people who have a choice of channels ever tune into CNN anymore.
I predict that CNN’s viewership will be even lower than usual for the next six or seven hours. Yes, that’s how long this ten-candidate tirade against capitalism, modernity, and progress will go on. Even hard-core environmentalists and socialists (but I repeat myself) are going to have a hard time staying conscious throughout.
Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown (emphases in original):
What’s a worse TV programming idea than six straight hours of Democratic campaigners talking climate change? Honestly, I’m not sure. But this is the fresh hell that CNN has planned for America this Wednesday night. And while, sure, you can choose not to tune in to this particular political pageantry, there’s no avoiding its fallout, as Democratic 2020 candidates compete to outdo each other with grand regulatory plans.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) wants a plan similar to the “Green New Deal” proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) and company. It would entail an initial $3 trillion investment over 10 years. That’s the same price tag we see for Sen. Cory Booker’s (D–N.J.) plan, which includes $50 billion for an Environmental Justice Fund and a promise to plant 100 million trees.
Julián Castro’s plan would cost $10 trillion and includes a plank to dismantle “environmental racism,” which is:
a type of discrimination where communities of color and low-income communities are forced to live in close proximity to environmentally hazardous or degraded environments, such as hazardous waste sites or pollution. To that end, Castro said he’d propose new civil rights bills like requiring all federal actions be reviewed for environmental and health impacts on low-income and marginalized communities.
Joe Biden’s plan is cheap in comparison, at a projected $1.6 trillion.
Biden, Booker, Castro, and Warren will all appear as part of the CNN climate extravaganza starting tonight at 5 p.m. EDT, along with Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.), Beto O’Rourke, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), and Andrew Yang.
“Most candidates have the goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, although some aim to accelerate by a few years to 2040 or 2045,” notes CBS News. “Many candidates also hope to cut emissions by half by 2030 and get to net-zero emissions for electricity by that year,” and all have vowed to rejoin the Paris Climate Accords.
Actually, it might be a good thing if more Americans were aware that the Democrats intend to spend mind-boggling sums to reduce our CO2 emissions, crippling the economy and wrecking their household budgets, while India, China, and others are building over a thousand new coal-fired power plants.
