Sanders: Climate Change Deniers ‘Should Not Be in Congress’

Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks at a rally in support of a candidate for Senate Jack
AP Photo/John Locher
Hannah Knudsen

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) does not believe that skeptics of the progressive wing’s stance on climate change should serve in Congress, he tweeted Sunday.

“If you don’t believe in climate change you should not be in Congress,” Sanders declared in a tweet Sunday evening:

“Donald Trump says climate change is not a serious issue. Allow me to respectfully disagree with our ‘stable genius’ president—I happen to believe the scientists,” he wrote in a separate tweet:

However, the “97 percent” consensus, which Sanders often refers to, is simply untrue. John Cook – the Australian global warming activist behind the so-called “consensus” – deliberately drove the study to provide the outcome he desired using crooked methodology.

As Breitbart News explained in part:

Next we find Cook digging himself still deeper by referring to a chosen methodology – its name coined by one of his associates, Ari – as the “porno approach.” What he means, presumably, is that rather than allowing for rigour and nuance, his paper will be researched in such a way as to deliver the most dramatic, headline results possible. Not just tasteful nudie pix, then, but hardcore with donkeys…

Okay, so we’ve ruled out a definition of AGW being ‘any amount of human influence’ or ‘more than 50 percent human influence.’ We’re basically going with Ari’s porno approach (I probably should stop calling it that) which is AGW = ‘humans are causing global warming’. e.g. – no specific quantification which is the only way we can do it considering the breadth of papers we’re surveying.

Under these criteria even an otherwise arch-skeptical paper conceding that, say, the methane from the farts of beef and dairy cattle might have a marginal influence on climate, could be claimed by Cook et al as being in support of the “consensus.”

While Sanders has made climate change a central issue to his campaign, Hurricane Dorian – the Category 5 hurricane battering the Bahamas and threatening the east coasts of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas – may have inspired his latest bout.

The Vermont senator rolled out his $16.3 trillion Green New Deal last month, in which he identified climate change as the “single greatest challenge facing our country.” He pointed to “extreme” weather like floods, droughts, wildfires, and hurricanes but failed to note that those occurrences are not confined to the modern era, as Breitbart News noted.

Nonetheless, Sanders’ plan aims for “100 percent renewable energy for electricity and transportation by no later than 2030 and complete decarbonization by at least 2050.”

As Breitbart News reported:

Sanders’ exhaustive plan covers virtually every angle of the climate change “crisis,” from promising to “fully electrify and decarbonize” the transportation sector, to investing $1.12 billion in “tribal land access and extension programs,” to providing “oral translation assistance to USDA, FDA, and DOJ offices for non-English speaking farmers,” to pouring $200 billion in the Green Climate Fund.

Sanders’ plan also calls to “prosecute and sue the fossil fuel industry for the damage it has caused”:

When it was revealed in 2015 that the fossil fuel industry knew their actions were contributing to climate change decades ago, Bernie sent a letter to then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking her to open a federal investigation to find out whether the industry violated the law. President Bernie Sanders will ensure that his Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission investigate these companies and bring suits – both criminal and civil – for any wrongdoing, just as the federal government did with the tobacco industry in the 1980s. These corporations and their executives should not get away with hiding the truth from the American people. They should also pay damages for the destruction they have knowingly caused.

“Fossil fuel executives should be criminally prosecuted for the destruction they have knowingly caused,” Sanders tweeted following his plan’s release:

Last month, Sanders called President Trump an “idiot” for remaining skeptical.

“Donald Trump believes climate change is a hoax,” he wrote. “Donald Trump is an idiot”:

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