Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has made it abundantly clear that she sees herself as the millennial generation’s champion of climate change. “The world is gonna end,” she reminds us, “in 12 years” if we fail to pass her Green New Deal. But the Senate had its chance, and not a single senator voted for it — not even its sponsors. (Looks like we’re all doomed.)
Clearly, a $93 trillion non-binding resolution that would nationalize a quarter or so of the American economy isn’t exactly feasible. Yet the future of the Democratic Party apparently has a bit of a problem with the grown-ups in the room attempting to design a plan that is not only legislatively feasible, but will also, you know, do something to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
This is a dealbreaker.
There is no “middle ground” w/ climate denial & delay.
Blaming “blue collar” Americans as the main opponents to bold climate policy is gas lobbyist 101.
We’re not going to solve the climate crisis w/ this lack of leadership. Our kids’ lives are at stake. https://t.co/KvrBmaJd75
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 10, 2019
Ocasio-Cortez’s whining aside, the Reuters report she shared buries one crucial detail, one that could make Biden an actual bipartisan hero for our climate crisis: his support of natural gas and carbon capture, but most radically, of nuclear power.
It’s worth taking this report, relying on two unnamed sources, with a grain of salt. But if Biden does in fact embrace nuclear as a key component of his climate agenda, it will prove revolutionary on a global scale.
Nuclear power is the modern world’s greatest weapon against climate change. It is also the perennial villain of the Western left. The left-wing war on nuclear power began with former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who both acknowledged the imminent threat of pollution and climate change on civil society as well as economically and ecologically antiquated model of the coal industry. Thatcher found an easy solution while sparring with the coal miners’ union in embracing nuclear power. With just a few decades of development, nuclear would prove cheap in the long run, safe, and most importantly, clean.
But the socialist left, from the British coal miners to the Soviets and their useful idiots to AOC and her ilk today, have maintained a steadfast opposition to nuclear power. It is no coincidence that the Green New Deal actually seeks to eradicate the nuclear that currently exists — the only feasible and totally carbon-free source of electricity.
Biden wisely waited to enter the race, letting AOC act as the Pied Piper for his foolish competitors. She led them right over the cliff as they endorsed her Green New Deal, as well as “Medicare for all” and other pie-in-the-sky leftist pet projects like free college and court-packing. Biden stayed out, and now he can actually take the stand that almost no one on either side of the aisle, save for unexpected climate champion Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., has been brave enough to embrace.
The path to expanding nuclear naturally appeals to the reasonable left and the right. While it requires some level of government subsidy to reach its economic and output potentials — thus creating a number of government funded jobs — it also allows American manufacturing, businesses, and homes to maintain their current level of energy consumption. In the long run, nuclear power proves a worthy investment, as the start-up costs of rebuilding power plants are substantially offset by low long-term operating costs. As nuclear persists, it naturally replaces dirtier and less efficient energy sources.
Just as Biden has landed on a pivotal and bipartisan issue in the matter of occupational licensing reform, he can take the helm of America’s fight against climate change without punishing private industry by embracing nuclear power. That’s a “middle ground” we should all enthusiastically support.
