Katy Tur Frets Dems Not Far Left Enough on Global Warming

bradwilmouth | February 21, 2020
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Cross posted to the MRC's NewsBusters blog

On her Friday afternoon show, MSNBC host Katy Tur was again beating the climate alarmism drum as she devoted a segment to fretting over the fact that Bernie Sanders is the only presidential candidate advocating all 10 action items called for by the left-wing environmental group, Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund.

Host Tur gave the group's chief political strategist, Brett Hartl, and environmental activist Amy Westervelt a forum to push for most of the Democratic candidates to move further to the left to fight global warming.

The segment began with several soundbites of Democratic candidates talking left on fighting climate change, with Sanders and Joe Biden calling the issue an "existential threat," which then led Tur to set up the segment by lamenting:

KATY TUR: During this week's contentious Democratic debate, all six candidates were able to agree that combating climate change is a high priority. But a new scorecard on the six Democrats paints a slightly different picture. According to the Center Action Fund, there are 10 critical actions to protect the climate. All of the candidates earn one point for wanting to end fossil fuels -- fossil fuel leasing on federal lands. But most of them scoring poorly for not supporting things like a ban on fracking or not ending fossil fuel exports. Only Bernie Sanders scored a perfect 10 out of 10.

After introducing her guests, Tur began by turning to Hartl and posing:

TUR: We're going to put that scoreboard up on the screen right now. -- 10 out of 10 for Bernie Sanders, one out of 10 for Michael Bloomberg. They all talk a big game on the climate. Are you basically saying if it's not a Bernie Sanders or an Elizabeth Warren -- who scored eight out of 10 -- we're going to be in trouble?

Hartl gave an alarmist answer calling for "executive action" by the next President:

BRETT HARTL, CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY ACTION FUND: Yes. We need the next President to take bold action on day one. As actually Senator Warren said, we need to follow the science, and the global consensus is that we have to slash emissions by 50 percent by 2030 if we have any chance of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. So what we need to see is executive action by the next President immediately because, frankly, the Senate is not likely to do anything with Mitch McConnell. And the President actually has extraordinary powers if they are fully utilized to address the crisis.

The MSNBC host followed up by asking her liberal guest which candidate voters concerned about the environment should vote for:

TUR: What is your message to a voter out there who puts the environment as one of their top priorities? Right now, there's a Pew poll that shows that, for the first time ever, voters say that their worst concern about the environment -- the same numbers for the environment as the economy. It splits down Democratic and Republicans, but that is a big number. What do you say to them? Who should they vote for if they are really concerned about turning things around immediately?

Just a couple of weeks ago, Tur notably got her Fahrentheit and Celsius degrees mixed up as she hyped reports of allegedly record high temperatures in a part of Antarctica and grossly overstated how much higher the new high was over the old high. And, as it turns out, there are questions about whether the claim of a record high temperature was accurate after all.

Transcript follows:

KATY TUR: During this week's contentious Democratic debate, all six candidates were able to agree that combating climate change is a high priority. But a new scorecard on the six Democrats paints a slightly different picture. According to the Center Action Fund, there are 10 critical actions to protect the climate. All of the candidates earn one point for wanting to end fossil fuels -- fossil fuel leasing on federal lands. But most of them scoring poorly for not supporting things like a ban on fracking or not ending fossil fuel exports. Only Bernie Sanders scored a perfect 10 out of 10.

(…)

We're going to put that scoreboard up on the screen right now. -- 10 out of 10 for Bernie Sanders, one out of 10 for Michael Bloomberg. They all talk a big game on the climate. Are you basically saying if it's not a Bernie Sanders or an Elizabeth Warren -- who scored eight out of 10 -- we're going to be in trouble?

BRETT HARTL, CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY ACTION FUND: Yes. We need the next President to take bold action on day one. As actually Senator Warren said, we need to follow the science, and the global consensus is that we have to slash emissions by 50 percent by 2030 if we have any chance of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. So what we need to see is executive action by the next President immediately because, frankly, the Senate is not likely to do anything with Mitch McConnell. And the President actually has extraordinary powers if they are fully utilized to address the crisis.

TUR: What is your message to a voter out there who puts the environment as one of their top priorities? Right now, there's a Pew poll that shows that, for the first time ever, voters say that their worst concern about the environment -- the same numbers for the environment as the economy. It splits down Democratic and Republicans, but that is a big number. What do you say to them? Who should they vote for if they are really concerned about turning things around immediately?

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