A major environmental leader wants to dedicate the entire U.S. defense budget to fighting global warming.
Bill McKibben, the co-founder of the environmental group 350.org, compared global warming to a so-called World War III in a speech to students at Oberlin College Thursday, and stated that the Department of Defense budget should be redirected into fighting it.
McKibben has been described by The Boston Globe as “America’s most important environmentalist.”
“[Global warming] should be a huge priority and if you think we don’t have the money then you’re not paying attention,” McKibben said in his speech. “We have things like the defense budget that need to be put to work defending us against the most dangerous adversaries we face.”
Writing in The New Republic in August, McKibben stated that a full-scale military-style mobilization against the war is necessary to prevent ecological devastation and ultimately humanity’s extinction.
“The conceit of that New Republic piece was that we are in fact already at war though we do not really recognize it,” McKibben said in the speech. “But, by all the measures that we normally count as warfare, that’s what’s going on. We’re losing territory day by day. People are being killed day by day in great numbers. We’re at war, we’re just not fighting back, and the time has come to do that, and it will take as the history of WWII shows, government leadership to make that happen.”
Even though McKibben thinks global warming is dangerous enough to require a full scale mobilization paid for by the U.S. defense budget, he apparently doesn’t think its serious enough to use nuclear power or hydraulic fracturing, fracking, which are the only technologies to proven to actually cause substantial reductions in CO2 emissions.
McKibben has has attacked Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s stance on energy issues as not enough to prevent global warming, and has repeatedly criticized her for not banning fracking and supporting nuclear power. This caused Clinton to repeatedly flip-flop on energy issues to win the Democratic nomination.
McKibben tried to change the Democratic National Committee’s platform to include for a moratorium on fracking in June, but the drafting committee spiked his proposals. When it became clear that the platform change would fail, his supporters in the audience began yelling “shame on you” and “shame” at the committee members.
Due partially to McKibben’s influence, Hillary’s energy platform now totally overturns the Democrat’s previous platform, doesn’t mention nuclear power, and calls for green energy to grow at an unrealistic rate.
Despite her moderation on fracking and nuclear power relative to McKibben, Clinton pledged to put coal miners out of business in March and sought the assistance of a group which wants to end all American oil and natural gas production.
WATCH:
Send tips to andrew@
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
