NEWS Bernie Sanders finds 57 scientists who support his climate plan despite Biden doubts.

Jan­u­ary 29, 2020: For the orig­i­nal in Salonclick here.

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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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