For an idea of how detached Ocasio-Cortez is from reality, consider that we get only 17 percent of our energy from renewables. As Paul Bledsoe, a strategic adviser at the Progressive Policy Institute, notes, setting entirely unrealistic goals undermines the credibility of any effort to address climate change.
Vox’s David Roberts, who is as green as the Hulk and usually as angry regarding the status quo on our environment, summarizes the Green New Deal as follows: “Ocasio-Cortez’s plan actually calls for decarbonizing not just electricity but the entire US economy in 10 years, which is almost certainly impossible absent radical reductions in Americans’ energy consumption, something like imposed austerity — and nobody thinks Americans are that scared of climate change. Even decarbonizing the economy by 2050 … is an extraordinarily daunting challenge, involving hundreds of discrete policy problems, each facing their own dilemmas and entrenched interests.”
Given that not even leprechauns are as green as Ocasio-Cortez, it almost seems like piling on to mention the math. But the pot at the end of AOC’s rainbow is more likely to be filled with Lucky Charms than gold.
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