VIDEO - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez connects racism to climate change

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has declared that renewable energy can be the “vehicle” to ending racism. And Twitter is not totally on board.

The congresswoman-elect joined Sen. Bernie Sanders at his Solving Our Climate Crisis Town Hall on Monday, and she spoke passionately about the benefits of renewable energy.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says combatting climate change will help end racism, but Twitter doesn’t buy it. (Photo: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

“It’s not just possible that we will create jobs and economic activity by transitioning to renewable energy,” she said, “but it’s inevitable that we are going to create jobs, it’s inevitable that we are going to create industry, and it’s inevitable that we can use the transition to 100 percent renewable as the vehicle to truly deliver and establish economic, social and racial justice in the United States.” A video of this declaration has made its way to Twitter, and users can’t help but comment on the connection she’s made.

Dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Bigotry isn’t based on weather

— Kurt (@KMGIndy) December 7, 2018

Achieve racial and social justice……
All this from renewable energy, wow if only we knew this earlier

— John Carpenter (@1969rpmalerba) December 7, 2018

So now Carbon Dioxide is oppressing minorities? God this woman is hilarious.

— YourLocalMailmain™ (@Praise_Waluigi2) December 7, 2018

Had we only stopped the ice age from ending. Racism would've been completely erased!

— David Romero (@4everoldskoola) December 7, 2018

Many are mocking her connection between racism and climate change by coming up with their own versions.

Well? If she doesnt talk it could end noise and air pollution. Just a little thought.

— Wingless Angel (@l_lengyel) December 7, 2018

Yup.

You nailed it. We are racist against trees.

F#cking trees.

That's why we used to hang people from them, to humiliate those worthless bastard trees.

— Zach Ingram (@zacharyingram10) December 7, 2018

There are some who supported her belief, though.

It’s rhetorically genius to link renewable energy proposals to combat climate change with economic and social justice for communities.

— Ryan Ross (@rrossfl) December 5, 2018

the people of Flint, the families in Flint will not find peace within the country they live in without first getting clean drinking water! children shouldn’t have to live in fear of being poisoned from faulty pipes! Flint awaits direct action from our govt✊🏽

— cerejadere (@liberatefirst) December 5, 2018

Sanders is certainly a supporter, as he often speaks about the connections between environmental inequality and racism. “People of color disproportionately experience a daily assault on their health and environment,” he writes in the racial justice section of his website. “Communities of color are the hardest hit by air and water pollution from industrial factories, power plants, incinerators, chemical waste and lead contamination from old pipes and paint. At the same time, they lack access to parks, gardens and other recreational green space.”

Also during the Solving Our Climate Crisis Town Hall, Ocasio-Cortez compared the progressive “Green New Deal” to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s economic New Deal of the 1930s, when American was in the midst of the Great Depression and the world was on the brink of war.

“No one would have thought that a nation so poor, so scarce and in such dire straits as we were in that time could pursue such a bold economy agenda, but we chose to anyway. We had the courage to do it anyway,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “That is what this moment demands of us right now.” The fight for this will be akin to the civil rights movement, in her mind. “This is going to be the Great Society, the moon shot, the civil rights movement of our generation. That is the scale. That is the scale of the ambition that this movement is going to require.”

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