On CNN's New Day Sunday, fill-in host Martin Savidge devoted a segment to fearmongering over an alleged "climate crisis" and expressed his hopes that a Joe Biden administration will to action to prevent disaster.
The New Yorker contributor and environmental alarmist Bill McKibben hyperbolically likened global warming to the threat of fascism during World War II.
Before a commercial break, Savidge assumed the existence of a "climate crisis" as he teased: "President-elect Joe Biden has promised a renewed focus on the climate crisis. We'll talk to a climate activist about what they'd like to see from the Biden administration, and how they'll fight to make it happen -- next."
A few minutes later, with the words "Climate Crisis" on screen, he recalled discredited myths about weather events getting more extreme as he set up the segment:
Intense hurricanes, record wildfires, and, of course, more frequent drought, heat waves, floods. As the climate change worsens, these events are becoming more and more severe. They continue to have a devastating impact in our communities. President-elect Joe Biden has vowed to take bold action to fight this global crisis.
McKibben began by declaring that President Biden will reverse President Donald Trump's "shameful" decision to withdraw from the Paris accord:
Well, I think the first thing he'll do on the first day symbolically is rejoin the Paris climate accords. That was the shameful decision that President Trump made to excuse the nation that put more carbon in the atmosphere than any other from the only global effort to do something about it. And it would be good at least in symbolic terms to be back engaged in that process.
Savidge then followed up by hyping that global warming may be a worse disaster than the COVID-19 pandemic: "You know, just to put in perspective, I know that this nation, the world, is focused on coronavirus. But the truth is climate change over the long term could impact far more lives, right?"
McKibben continued the hyperbole as he responded: "Yes. Probably even over the short term. And, you know, there is no vaccine for climate change that's going to come along and make it go away. It's the existential crisis for our civilization in this century the way that fascism in Europe was a century ago."
The CNN host soon expressed his hope that President Biden will push a left-wing agenda on global warming in contrast with President Trump: "When it comes to the nation's weather,-- which is also not just the day-to-day forecast but looking ahead for what the impact of climate change is -- this has been totally overlooked by the current administration. I would hope that there now is going to be a renewed focus on it."
McKibben accused the Trump administration of breaking America's system that will be needed to fight global warming, and took a shot at Trump using a sharpie to alter a weather map, garnering agreement from the CNN host:
MCKIBBEN: It's not that it's been totally overlooked -- they've done their best to break the system of which Americans should be very proud. Most of our understanding about climate and weather came out of those -- out of American universities -- out of those federal government research labs -- out of NOAA and so on. And it will be really important to stand them back up again. We desperately need information. You know, we've just come through a period where our weather forecasting was the President of the United States taking a sharpie to a map and pretending to know where hurricanes were going to go.
SAVIDGE: Yeah, right, we need to get back to the science.
This episode of CNN's New Day Sunday was sponsored in part by Fidelity. Their contact information is linked.
Below is a complete transcript of the segment:
CNN
New Day Sunday
December 6, 2020
7:38 a.m. Eastern
MARTIN SAVIDGE: (before commercial break): President-elect Joe Biden has promised a renewed focus on the climate crisis. We'll talk to a climate activist about what they'd like to see from the Biden administration, and how they'll fight to make it happen -- next.
(...)
SAVIDGE: Intense hurricanes, record wildfires, and, of course, more frequent drought, heat waves, floods. As the climate change worsens, these events are becoming more and more severe. They continue to have a devastating impact in our communities. President-elect Joe Biden has vowed to take bold action to fight this global crisis. So the question is: What might that look like? Joining me now to discuss is Bill McKibben, and he is the co-founder of 350.org, an international grassroots climate campaign. And he's a contributing writer for The New Yorker -- he's written extensively on the impact of global warming. Thank you very much, Bill, for being with us this morning. ... What's the first thing you expect that Joe Biden will do when it comes to climate change?
BILL MCKIBBEN, THE NEW YORKER: Well, I think the first thing he'll do on the first day symbolically is rejoin the Paris climate accords. That was the shameful decision that President Trump made to excuse the nation that put more carbon in the atmosphere than any other from the only global effort to do something about it. And it would be good at least in symbolic terms to be back engaged in that process.
SAVIDGE: You know, just to put in perspective, I know that this nation, the world, is focused on coronavirus. But the truth is climate change over the long term could impact far more lives, right?
MCKIBBEN: Yes. Probably even over the short term. And, you know, there is no vaccine for climate change that's going to come along and make it go away. It's the existential crisis for our civilization in this century the way that fascism in Europe was a century ago. And so we're going to have to deal with it with every tool that we've got. Joe Biden comes into office better able to do that because the engineers have done such a good job of driving down the price of solar power, wind power, and the batteries that store that power, that's now the cheapest energy that there is. And so he has the ability to move far more quickly than any his predecessors have had.
SAVIDGE: Do you -- well, let me ask you this on protocol, I believe that Biden has suggested the U.S. could be carbon neutral by 2050. Do you think that's realistic?
MCKIBBEN: I think it's entirely realistic. I think it's much too slow. The science tells us that we have to do most of the job in the next 10 years. That's the penalty we pay for having delayed for the last 30, for letting the oil industry mount this campaign of denial and disinformation that kept us on the sidelines. Now we have to cram into a very short period an awful lot of action. And, you know, it's an open question. ... (audio gap)
SAVIDGE: You know, I have to ask also, too, you know, when it comes to the nation's weather,-- which is also not just the day-to-day forecast but looking ahead for what the impact of climate change is -- this has been totally overlooked by the current administration. I would hope that there now is going to be a renewed focus on it.
MCKIBBEN: It's not that it's been totally overlooked -- they've done their best to break the system of which Americans should be very proud. Most of our understanding about climate and weather came out of those -- out of American universities -- out of those federal government research labs -- out of NOAA and so on. And it will be really important to stand them back up again. We desperately need information. You know, we've just come through a period where our weather forecasting was the President of the United States taking a sharpie to a map and pretending to know where hurricanes were going to go.
SAVIDGE: Yeah, right, we need to get back to the science.
