Videos Show Contrasting Views of the World

From a GOP lawmaker, Sen. Mike Lee, and from a Democrat, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, we have recent viral videos that display sharply different views on the key challenge of our time—the looming ecological disaster that is climate change:

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Is it real? Are you real? Details matter a lot, but yes, the answer has been clear for a long time.

I don’t know if the Green New Deal is the complete, correct answer to this problem, but the contrasting views seen here help clarify that at least Ocasio-Cortez is dealing with real problems in the real world. Whether her answers are politically feasible is a fair question, but whether there is a problem that requires New Deal-like focus is clearly a question that: “yes.”

As she says, we’ve known about climate change as a fact for her entire life. I recall as an undergraduate student (I earned my BA in 1982) that it was an issue already being kicked around in academia. Many on the right have spent years quibbling and raising objections, while the science has become clearer with each passing year.

I’m not a scientist, and thus I’m not the best person to judge this—but in a democracy, where a self-governing people are required to make reasoned judgments, it’s important to know who we should trust on which questions.

And looking at these two videos, the stark contrast is clear. One person  makes simplistic, mocking, often obviously untrue points. I don’t find babies to be a problem—I’m a fan of human reproduction—but to suggest “American babies” are the solution to climate change in the way Sen. Lee does is embarrassing. It’s an odd, nationalist argument.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, on the other hand, is entirely rational and on target in her rant. The looming environmental and climate change crisis that all humans face is not a partisan issue, it’s a global issue, and those babies Sen. Lee wants us to have? We need us to urgently act to ensure a decent future for them—as well as for all of the non-American babies that he so awfully traduces.

I don’t mean this an unqualified, ringing endorsement of the Green New Deal in all its particulars. But the idea of a Green New Deal is one that we—young and old, Democrat and Republican and Independent and Socialist and Capitalists and Catholics and Muslims and Buddhists, etc.—need to rally around and make central to the 2020 campaign.

And again, looking at the videos: Voters, who can you trust?

She may be young, but Alexandria is 29, not 15. And she’s right. We should examine her plan and adjust it as needed to make it practical—but simply rejecting the Green New Deal for trivial reasons  is not the way forward.

It’s not a partisan issue. Shame on the Mike Lees of the world for trivializing it.

And thank you, Rep. Asacio-Corez, for being such a breath of fresh air, even if that air is expelled in anger and frustration. Keep at it, young lady. This old white guy is cheering you on and ready to support the ideal of a Green New Deal.