NEWS Bernie Sanders finds 57 scientists who support his climate plan despite Biden doubts.
January 29, 2020: For the original in Salon, click here.
Joe Biden told a voter that no scientists agreed that his presidential primary rival Bernie Sanders’s plan to combat climate change could work. The Sanders campaign responded by releasing a list of 57 scientists who agree with him.
“The Green New Deal you are proposing is not only possible, but it must be done if we want to save the planet for ourselves, our children, grandchildren, and future generations,” said the statement signed by the scientists on Tuesday. “Not only does your Green New Deal follow the [United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] timeline for action, but the solutions you are proposing to solve our climate crisis are realistic, necessary, and backed by science.”
The list includes professors and researchers across the country and abroad, such as Peter Kalmus of UCLA, Sonya Legg of Princeton University, and Daniel M. Kammen of University of California, Berkeley.
Last week, Biden, 77, told a voter in New Hampshire that the Vermont senator’s climate plan was unrealistic.
“Not a single solitary scientist think it’d work,” said the former vice president. “You can not get to zero emissions by 2030. It’s impossible.”
The Sanders campaign’s Green New Deal plan calls to “reduce domestic emissions by at least 71% by 2030 and reduce emissions among less industrialized nations by 36% by 2030,” as well as “achieve 100% sustainable energy for electricity and transportation by no later than 2030 and to fully decarbonize the economy by 2050 at the latest.”
Biden’s climate plan calls to “establish an enforcement mechanism to achieve net-zero emissions no later than 2050.”
Biden often faces protesters and adversaries on the campaign trail who say that his 2050 goal is too late. On Tuesday, he told an Iowa climate activist to “vote for someone else” and assumed that the man supported Sanders, but he supports businessman-turned-activist Tom Steyer.
Sanders, 78, hit back at Biden in a tweet last week in response to the confrontation.
“The climate crisis is an existential threat, putting at risk our very existence. I have proposed the most aggressive, comprehensive plan to address this crisis. Why? Because we have no other choice,” Sanders said.
In a related story in Gizmodo on January 28, 2020:
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