When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met Greta Thunberg: 'Hope is contagious’

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez enters a boardroom at her constituency office in Queens, New York, after a short delay which, a political aide hopes, hasn’t been caused by a constituent waylaying her in the corridor. (“They can get really excited to meet her.”) Greta Thunberg is in her home in Sweden, her father testing the technology for the video link while the teenager waits in the background. The activists have never met nor spoken but, as two of the most visible climate campaigners in the world, they are keenly aware of each other.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (left) and Greta Thunberg.

Thunberg, now 16, catapulted to fame last year for skipping school every Friday to stand outside the Swedish parliament, protesting against political inaction over the climate crisis and sparking an international movement, the school strike for climate, in which millions of other children followed suit. Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic Representative for New York’s 14th congressional district is, at 29, the youngest woman ever to serve in Congress, whose election over a well-funded incumbent in 2018 was a huge upset to politics-as-usual. She has been in office for less than a year, which seems extraordinary given the amount of coverage she has generated. In February, Ocasio-Cortez submitted the Green New Deal to the US House of Representatives, calling for, among other things, the achievement of “net-zero” greenhouse gases within a decade and “a full transition off fossil fuels”, as well as retrofitting all buildings in the US to meet new energy efficient standards.

Read the story from The Guardian by Emma Brockes - “When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met Greta Thunberg: 'Hope is contagious’.”

If You’re Worried About Climate Change, Don’t Misrepresent Climate Science.

Earlier this week, Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned that “the world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.” AOC may be the most famous person to issue this dire 12-year warning, but she’s hardly the only one. Problem is, it’s not what climate science says.

Contra Ocasio-Cortez, the world is not  ending in 12 years.

The 12-year time limit likely stems from an October 2018 report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicting average temperatures will rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius as early as 2030 if worldwide carbon emissions continue on trend. At that point, various negative consequences — more melting ice, stronger storms, larger wildfires — become more likely.

That’s concerning. But it’s not our last chance to stop the end of the world.

Read the story by Nicholas Grossman from Medium - “If You’re Worried About Climate Change, Don’t Misrepresent Climate Science.”

The Climate Kids Are Coming

If you don’t know who Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg is, you can think of her as an international climate-change counterpart to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Like the rock-star congresswoman from New York, Thunberg is a charismatic young woman whose social-media savvy, moral clarity, and fearless speaking truth to power have inspired throngs of admirers to take to the streets for a better world and call out the politicians and CEOs who are standing in the way.

Greta Thunberg speaks at World Economic Forum in Davos.

Ocasio-Cortez, 29, is known for championing the #GreenNewDeal and schooling right-wing haters on Twitter. Thunberg, 16, is known for launching the #SchoolStrike4Climate movement—tens of thousands of high-school students worldwide are skipping school on Fridays until their governments treat the climate crisis as an emergency—and for torching billionaires and heads of state at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week.

Read the story from The Nation by Mark Hertsgaard  - “The Climate Kids Are Coming.”