In the old European folktale, Chicken Little went into a panic and started screaming “The sky is falling, the sky is falling” to all the animals she could find, warning that the world was coming to an end. In real life today, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is panicking and telling us the oceans are rising and the end of the world is near because of climate change.
Both warnings of doom and gloom are equally melodramatic and overwrought.
Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. – who pretends she’s an expert on climate, energy and the superiority of her beloved socialism – has been receiving a lot of criticism for her statement last week claiming that because of climate change, Miami may not exist in a few years.
Speaking at an NAACP forum to drum up support of her radical multitrillion-dollar Green New Deal that would bring economic disaster to the U.S., the freshman congresswoman said:
"What is not realistic is not responding to the crisis – not responding with a solution on the scale of the crisis. …Because what's not realistic is Miami not existing in a few years. That's not realistic. So, we need to be realistic about the problem."
That’s a lot of nots. Or not.
To lose Miami or not to lose Miami, that is the question.
Well, my advice to the good people of Miami and their friends and relatives in other parts of the country is to take what Ocasio-Cortez says with a grain – make that a ton – of salt. She has absolutely no idea what she is talking about.
Keep in mind that Ocasio-Cortez said not too long ago that the world would become unlivable in 12 years unless we made massive changes – including some that are scientifically impossible – to all our energy choices and the way we live our lives. When her prediction of the end of the world drew ridicule, she backpedaled and said she was only being sarcastic.
Sure she was.
Statements like those by Ocasio-Cortez make the climate change crusade looks as hyperbolic and devoid of science as many know it is. Even people without advanced degrees in climatology or geology (like AOC herself) know her absurd statements are demonstrably untrue. A few years is a relatively short period of time, and for her statement to be even remotely true, we would need to see evidence of rising waters every single day.
How will Miami, or all coastal cities, succumb to the seas? Will it be a slow encroachment – a constant rise of tides that every day inch higher and higher? Because if that’s the case the locals should be able to observe tomorrow, or next week, something measurably different in their coastal surroundings than they do today.
Or will Miami be flooded like it was in the movie “The Day After Tomorrow,” in which a giant wave washes over the city? If this happens, where would the wave originate? It must be from the melting ice caps, something we hear about constantly, right?
Don’t bet on it.
It’s been 10 years since former Vice President Al Gore said on this video: “… some of the models suggest … that there is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during summer, during some of the summer months, could be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years.”
Earlier this month a group of climate change activists en route to document the vanishing ice needed to be rescued halfway between the North Pole and Norway. Their boat, the Malmo, got stuck in ice.
There is another way to create such giant waves: King Triton can generate them. For those of you not familiar with his majesty, he is the king of the seas in the Disney cartoon “The Little Mermaid.” The cartoon came out in 1989 – the same year Ocasio-Cortez was born. Perhaps the congresswoman can subpoena King Triton to testify before Congress.
According to Ocasio-Cortez – and many other Democrats, including some presidential candidates – climate change is the most important issue facing us today and no sacrifice is too great and no program too costly to fight it. It is the equivalent of an earlier generation’s fight in World War II – or maybe even bigger.
I have to disagree.
Last year in America more than 70,000 people died of opioid overdoses. Every night more than 500,000 homeless people sleep on our nation’s streets. Each day 20 of our military veterans and active-duty military service members commit suicide on average – maybe one of them while you are reading this.
None of these issues is granted the same soaring rhetoric of moral consequence as climate change, let alone hours of televised presidential town halls like the recent seven-hour marathon on CNN.
And while there are real human, material and moral needs in America, there is also much to celebrate, especially in an industry that is repeatedly and willfully maligned by the left-wing climate warriors: the fossil fuel industry.
Last year New Mexico had a budget surplus of $1.2 billion, thanks to oil and gas revenue. When leftists clamor for funding programs to benefit children, the poor, migrants and other groups, this is where the money comes from. Employment in this field continues to grow at 1.7 percent and most of these jobs do not require expensive four-year college degrees.
All this while carbon dioxide emissions – the very “pollutants” that give climate activists nightmares – continue to decrease. I don’t see anyone applauding this.
Saying Miami will be gone in a few years is a silly comment that deserves criticism. But more so, the effort to brand climate change a moral crisis worthy of bankrupting our economy and eliminating the jobs of millions of Americans needs to stop.
The fossil fuel industry is not America’s enemy, and political leaders like AOC should either temper their words or reject the very oil, gas, coal, electricity, plastic, and inexpensive food and material goods that make help America the greatest place on Earth.
And as for Miami, I have confidence the city will be around for a very long time to come – even long after Ocasio-Cortez has retired from public life.
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