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| U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah says if we all get married and have babies, climate change will be solved. Or something. |
For those who have been living under a rock for the past several months, the Green New Deal is a sweeping, long-term proposal to deal with climate change in a multi-faceted way, while also taking care to deal with other social ills.
There's a lot of moving parts to the Green New Deal, and if it goes anywhere, it will change and change and change again. We'll be hearing about this for a long time. Probably as long as climate change remains a deep concern. In other words, practically forever.
A lot of Republicans don't like the Green New Deal and even mock it. That is understandable, because liberals are most likely in support of it, and the Green New Deal does contain a lot of proposals that people left of center would tend to like.
That's all and good. The debate over what to do about climate change is missing conservative voices. If there were serious proposals from conservatives, maybe we'd get some decent compromises, probably some new ideas and maybe a better game plan to deal with climate change.
However, too many conservatives dismiss climate change as a hoax, or God's will, or something nobody can do anything about.
Finally, though, we have a conservative voice in this! Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah stepped into the fray this week.
He said:
"This is the real solution to climate change: babies..the solution to so many of our problems at all times and in all places is to fall in love, get married, and have some kids."
Um, OK?
It's hard to fathom what Lee was getting at here. Maybe being married and having kids is so all-consuming and distracting that you don't notice climate change. Sort of, if you're too busy to notice the house is on fire, then the house isn't on fire.
As CNN reports, Lee went on to explain his logic here. Lee said, "Problems of human imagination are not solved by more laws, they're solved by more humans..... More people mean bigger markets for more innovation. More babies mean forward-looking adults, the sort we need to tackle long-term, large scale problems."
Well, actually I agree with at least part of that whole-heartedly. We do need more forward looking adults capable of tackling long term, big problems like climate change.
So, I'll open up a can of worms here that will drive conservatives crazy. Let's welcome more immigrants!
Sure, we can't just let everybody come across our borders. The United States does need security and sovereignty, after all. But let's face it, Trump and his supporters are fighting tooth and nail to keep pretty much everybody out. Especially if they're people of color. Can't have non-whites coming in, can we?
My point is, Lee is right, a steadily rising population is necessary for a strong, sociall, vibrant and economically sound nation brimming with new ideas. Yes, even if those ideas come from people of color.
Climate change activists note, with a lot of accuracy, that adding more people to the world doesn't solve climate change. It just boosts fossil fuel emissions, because the bigger the population, the more greenhouse gases end up in the atmosphere.
If so many people want to come into the United States and claim refugee status, let's look into it. Let's let more in, as long as they actually qualify for such status. Let's let in a fair number of immigrants, too.
You never know which ones might have some bright, smart ideas on climate change. Who knows if some kid from Guatamala comes up with a brilliant plan to stabilize the world's climate. Stranger things have happened.
Young people seem to have all the energy when it comes to climate change activism. They have the most to lose if global warming is not addressed. They're the activists here.
Of course, I'm giving Lee way too much credit here. He's just another Republican offering mocking talking points to a rabid, Trumpian base.
So we got from Lee the usual bullcrap stupidity of saying the Green New Deal aims to rid the world of airplanes and farting cows. Really. I'm not making this up. Lee also set up poster board sized pictures of things like Ronald Reagan riding a velociraptor. That's not made up, either.
Lee said that pic was meant to make us "consider the Green New Deal with the seriousness it deserves."
Again. Um, OK.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a principal backer of the Green New Deal, responded to Lee on Twitter thusly: "Like many woman + working people, I occasionally suffer from imposter syndrom: Those small moments, especially on hard days, where you wonder if the haters are right. But then they do things like this to clear it right up: If this guy can be Senator, you can do anything."
It doesn't seem like our government is going to respond to climate change in any real way, huh?
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