Issues&Insights: Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently gave an impassioned pitch for her “Green New Deal” on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. After stating that her opponents were misrepresenting the legislation, she read the full text of it into the Congressional Record and claimed that the reason it is “so, so controversial” is “because for years we have prioritized the pursuit of profit at any and all human and environmental cost.”
That statement, along with the actual text of her bill, are at odds with numerous facts about pollution, regulations, and the economics of energy.
Environmental Trends
Contrary to AOC’s allegation that the U.S. doesn’t prioritize the environment, the nation’s air has become significantly cleaner over the past 40 years. Under federal law, the EPA monitors the outdoor concentrations of six major “criteria pollutants” that are widespread and likely “to endanger public health or welfare.” According to the latest and earliest primary measures of these pollutants, the average U.S. outdoor levels of:
- carbon monoxide declined by 84% from 1980 through 2017.
- ozone declined by 32% from 1980 through 2017.
- lead declined by 99% from 1980 through 2017.
- nitrogen dioxide declined by 60% from 1980 through 2017.
- 10 micron particulate matter declined by 34% from 1990 through 2017.
- 2.5 micron particulate matter declined by 41% from 2000 through 2017.
- sulfur dioxide decreased by 90% from 1980 through 2017.
Beyond criteria pollutants, the EPA estimates the emissions of 187 hazardous air pollutants, which are those that present “a threat of adverse human health effects” like cancer and birth defects. Combined emissions of these substances have declined by about 50% since the earliest available data, which stretches back to the 1990s. read more
Sounds like 1 of the goals of communism
as stated in 1963… Imagine that!
Why is it noteworthy that something AOC said is “unhinged from reality”? Is “rats gnaw” or “fleas jump” noteworthy?
Her pitch isn’t the only thing about her detached from reality.
She is just plain stupid, and incredibly ignorant.
And she is polling low in her district.
dear Oblivious: please just answer us one simple question … what should the proper temperature be for any given moment, for any given pinpoint on Earth?
since you want to be in charge of temperatures, you should know the answer
btw, what ever happened to the ozone hole panic? … acid rain? … etc., etc., etc, …
…should read..
“AOC ’̶s̶ ̶P̶i̶t̶c̶h̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶G̶r̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶N̶e̶w̶ ̶D̶e̶a̶l̶ Is Unhinged From Reality”
…still correct, and covers every thing she says that way…
Perhaps a better phrase would be unencumbered by reality, AoC stumbles from one topic to the next, fully prepared for her listeners not to comprehend what she means. She has no idea what she’s talking about on her good days.
Here we sit at 400 ppm of CO2. Apparently that’s too high if you ask any liberal. Yet we know for a fact that life was living when levels were as high as 8000 ppm. 20 times higher than now.
The question to ask is, “What’s an appropriate level of CO2 in the atmosphere?”
Sit and wait for an answer. It has to be lower than 400. You’ll probably get 100 or 0 or 50 or something absurd.
Then ask why they hate life so much. Well, we get it as liberals want to kill babies before they get a chance to see the world.
Then reveal actual scientific facts that can easily be reproduced in a scientific (liberals love that word) lab.
All plants will cease to live if CO2 in the atmosphere is less than 170 ppm.
The goofy liberals will say, “well then 170 ppm is the ideal level.”
So you’d prefer to live your own life with minimum levels of O2 just as plants are expected to live with minimum levels of CO2?
The only reason why the planet can sustain 8 billion people is primarily because of an abundance of CO2 and O2. We can’t feed people or breathe without it.
That’s their agenda though: to kill as much as possible. For the benefit of Earth, of course.
Trees are made up of damn near 100% carbon. Animals are made up of damn near all carbon. What happens when trees/plants and animals/humans die? They sink into the ground and Earth absorbs the carbon.
The only way for life to thrive is if CO2 is extracted from the ground and released into the atmosphere. It’s BASIC science. Lab proven. Human activity (aka global warming) is essential to life. It’s the only thing that’s around in a mature calm Earth without major global storms and colliding/separating continents.
Liberals are haters to everything that is life as we know it and would prefer to kill it all.
Pollution we’re against. Carbon and oxygen are not pollutants. Let’s get on the same page.
The more C02 the more plants like it,
The more plants that like the atmosphere the more food you can grow
The more food you can grow means less hungry bellies
How is that bad?
FOR THE CHILDREN!!!11!!
(But not letting up on killing them before and right after birth though.)
This doesn’t have anything to do with CO2 concentrations or
climate changeweather. Greed for power and riches is the game.I hope a Republican proposes a Greener New Deal
that only costs $500 Quadrillion over 10 years. Every house and building torn down and made energy compliant.
If the democrats don’t sign on, then they “are not serious about climate change.”
Ridicule, beat ’em to the punch, then beat them over the heads with it, as the voters won’t know it’s parody anyway.
she has a nice rack though