President Barack Obama who was only reminiscing about the ideal scenarios was brought to the congress for a vote.

Most people see that it is a fantasy and cannot be enacted in its present form.

All it is doing is dividing Democrats for the benefit of a few ultra-left ideologues and their headline seeking behavior.

I hope the Democrats in the senate vote it down valiantly and tell the American people that the party stands for solutions to climate change but not those solutions that appear to be written by Lewis Carroll.

Most Republicans do, and some Democrats.

So what's the plan to address climate change? It's perfectly legal to propose other options, but no major proposals seem to be gaining traction.

So we wait and see what happens, or what?

Because it is just a framework. It isn't meant to be enacted in it's present form.

and pixie dust fantasy. Frameworks don't need legislation except for publicity for sponsors and such attempts only end up scaring a whole bunch of people and hardens their opposition.

Actual policy can be legislated and such policy should be workable and enforceable without being disruptive to people's lives.

The so called "Green New Deal" looked like it was written by Lewis Carroll or Hans Christian Andersen.

The belief that we can just keep going spewing massive amounts of carbon dioxide and toxins into the atmosphere and "Everything will be fine!®" sounds like a fairy tale written by Lewis Carroll or Hans Christian Andersen.

many of whom refuse to believe there is a climate change.

Bringing fantasy proposal and scaring people is not the way to move ahead. Educating people, building a consensus and THEN moving workable policy proposals forward is the correct way.

The stunt of the Green New Deal resolutions set the fight on climate change back and didn't move it forward. They should never have let it become a butt of jokes.

You have to have people on your side who move the politicians.

And neither party will have any control or say over it.

has no political power. There has been a mass youth movement to legalize marijuana for some 40 years and produced results when the "kids" became "old men" and got into power.

Mass youth movement belongs in the other fantasy categories of pink unicorns and fairy dust.

WILL NOT occur for all life on this planet if we all do not start to plan how to radically change the fossil fuel-driven matrix the globe operates under.

The Green New Deal is just one of the opening frameworks (and is not at all fully fleshed out) that is needed to attempt to solve this oncoming freight train.

Gotta start somewhere. What's the alternative?

Well, duh! It's not like some mild stripped legislation is getting through the Senate anyway. It got people talking. It's an issue for 2020. That was the whole point. It already worked it's magic.

of how extreme the Democrats want to be in disrupting the way of life.

Why do you think the Democrats voted "present" and not vote for the "framework?" -- because they didn't want it used against them. It was politically a bad idea. It made some extreme left people feel good but it accomplished a net negative for the Democrats.

show tonight (or did). I think that you will realize your concern is baseless. She was very impressive and it is obvious that the only people interested in the Green New Deal are those of us who wish to have a future and are paying attention to ALL of the things we should be. You need to look deeper into the whole matter. You'll be glad you did.

AOC and Chris Hayes?

Assuming you actually believe scientists.

and I know something has to be done but not as drastically as the "Green New Deal" which was laughable. There are gradual ways of phasing in renewable energy over 2-3 decades.

If we phase in renewable energy and reforestation at 3-5% a year, we buy more time each year that passes and it is less of a shock to the economy, allowing people and businesses to adapt more gradually.

If we didn't already propose something they feared even more. Which is what the The Green New Deal is all about. A great big goal that galvanizes people.

It's been compared to the moon shot. Same idea. The technology didn't exist and people thought it impossible but the believed and they did it anyway.

Other things thought to be "impossible" have been done in history. They weren't done because sober heads sat down and calculated what could be done. They weren't done because the leaders knew for certain that they could do it. They were done because they needed to be done.

History is also littered with civilizations that did not meet the challenges before them. If we don't do what we need to do, future generations will ask why we didn't even try, and I don't want the answer to be, "Some people thought it laughable, so we set our sets lower and failed anyway."

That's the problem - not enough of us own the issue and elevate it high enough on the legislative agenda. At least AOC has helped put an action on the table, and it's been discussed. The next steps are up to the rest of us.

John is a fossil fuels guy.

If he opposes it, I get that. The “but” approach isn’t great in my opinion.

Personally, I like the “New Deal” part principally.

we shouldn't even try.

I get it, more fracking, more fossil fuels...that's the side his bread is buttered on if I recall correctly.

I have been critical of AOC but I think she is the perfect person to lead on it. It should be the position of the left side of our party. With the direction of our country, it will be the position of the center of our party in thirty years. AOC will be in her political prime at that point if she hangs on.

They call everyone from Clinton to AOC a socialist. Just keep pushing forward.

And like people tell AOC, stick with fighting Republicans, not your own party.

And as such should leave the most important issue in history to those invested in same. If we the older generation don't take the survival of humanity seriously, then our kids will have to do it by force AKA a mass movement.

The emissions part is not possible and even if we were able to achieve that if China and India do nothing it won’t make enough of a difference if any.

Climate change is even worse for them than for us.

China is the worst and what they did only held emissions the same, in 2017 they went up due to burning coal. Their economy/ energy use and population etc is not going to get to 0 emissions which may be needed to have any effect. Scientists I know believe gw is not going to stop because the top 3 will never get to 0 emissions. And even then it is in question.

It's a political and economic one. And I agree that the odds are against us. But still, it's worth it to try. Even a significant dent in global warming would make a huge difference

Not sure what you mean. Ultimately it is of course, people need to understand the facts before going off the deep end and possibly damaging this election. There is no way to make a huge dent in it at this point from what I understand.

But yes there are a lot of other factors. I am not against reducing emissions and protecting the environment, of course we should do whatever we can if only to have a healthier environment. There are many other reasons to do it even if it has little or no effect on gw.

The answer is "yes" because the basic technology exists to do it. That's the scientific question. The next question is, "how quickly can it be deployed?" That's an engineering, political and economic question.

Engineering because we are improving and scaling up existing technology. Economic because it would be hugely expensive. And political because we have to be willing to spend that money and make the necessary tradeoffs. Which is exactly where the Green New Deal comes in, as a tool to create the political will to do something rather than nothing.

As for "going off the deep end" and damaging the election, I fear the opposite. That we will play it safe and ignore the hunger for transformation I think is sweeping the country. The Green New Deal is actual popular and has a lot to offer as a jobs and infrastructure program too.

Technically we can ever reduce to zero. Economically no, I don't see it ever happening in China and India or here really. There is no way to do that and have the economy survive, even with nuclear power which most people are against. And even zero may not make a difference.

There is nothing wrong with pushing for these things but doing it in extremes the eay it is being done in this political environment which is frankly crazy with misleading facts or without facts is not a successful way to campaign. Because of the faulty science of gnd I can’t have any respect for it.

Deploy enough solar, wind and nuclear, convert all cars to electric, convert all planes to biofuel, and whatever is left, we plant trees.

Economic feasibility is a separate issue, but the price of solar is now competitive with fossil fuel on a total dollar per kilowatt basis. The problem is that solar costs a lot up front, but it requires no fuel so operating costs are much lower. If all we did was offer no interest loans to replace coal with solar, we would in fact make a huge dent in global emissions at zero net cost.

As for "facts" that's a difficult thing to assess. We've been talking about the "fact" of global warming for 40 years now and got smacked back down every time. Now that there's a major movement to do something we are told the "fact" is, it's too late, so lets just scale back, and do as little as possible so as not to upset the people who said we were crazy for 40 years. Screw that.

Here's a fact. People are crap at long term planning. That's a fact from social science and it's part of our evolution. That's the psychological reason we did notjing for 40 years. We work better in a crisis. The crisis is here. People are waking up.Time to start acting like it.

People need to be realistic and not mislead which is what they are doing. You would have to have more nuclear power- solar, wind and hydro will never be enough to meet the energy needs. Even if you build huge grids and store the energy and it would cost a fortune to out it mildly to do that. Population is another problem. It is really the cause but most people won’t even talk about it. This not worth losing this election over, nothing is. It is still my opinion that we should do whatever we can of course.

You said it was technically infeasible and I said it was technically feasible, but there were engineering, economic and political barriers. Those are really separate issues, but in the political realm at least, an attempt at a green new deal makes a lot of sense since it solves an environmental problem and an economic problem at the same time. The specific goals and mechanics matter a lot less to people than the direction you are trying to go.

It is still not clear it is techincally possible not without nuclear power- most green supporters are totally against nuclear power. My input says solar, wind, hydro etc are not going to be enough. And since over population is the main cause it is not a separate issue. Specifics and mechanics matter alot imo, when you are talking about this subject, and many others, making a proposal that can’t be achieved based on lack of or faulty facts is a bad idea and it is not something to campaign on.

The US produces more methane than any other country in the world, and its much more damaging than co2, about half of it comes from cows.


https://phys.org/news/2019-01-scientists-breathalyze-cows-methane-emissions.html

He’s already snarked about women running for President

and the need for only small, realistic (in their opinion) goals and never-ending incrementalism (which atm sure seems like never-ending RW drift for the country overall). What the hell happened to aspiring to the big dreams and potentiality of and for our nation? JFK's presidency started 35 years before I was born, but his urging to get to the Moon and other audacious, BIG goals and aspirational linguistics still inspire me to this day!

The drinking of it or the use of it, anywhere near our groundwater. He is right though. Too many low-income Americans must choose between paying for medicine and having their heat shut off. Lets get to work on finding out why a vial of insulin used to cost 30 dollars and now costs hundreds of dollars while the cost of production for a vial of human insulin is between $2.28 and $3.42 per vial. Lets discuss that huh?
Then lets discuss the subsidies given to the oil companies that provide the fuel that the utility companies are shutting off for the poor. Get rid of the damn subsidies. Why does no one ever threaten to cut those?

He was great for our state of Colorado but not for America or climate change.

We can save the nit-picking and turf wars for later. No ambitious project was ever rolled out with perfection. We are facing a deadline that won’t wait.

all the charisma and charm of wet dog.