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Our esteemed leaders in Congress discussed the Green New Deal on the Senate floor Tuesday in what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell intended to be a humiliation of Democrats and their “radical” agenda.
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And Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, offered a daring solution to the climate crisis: babies.
“The courage needed to solve climate change is nothing compared to the courage needed to start a family,” said Lee, standing on the Senate floor next to a picture of babies. “The solution to so many of our problems at all times and in all places is to fall in love, get married, and have some kids.”
Mike Lee also took the chance to show pictures of Ronald Reagan riding a velociraptor as well as an image of Aquaman riding a giant seahorse as part of a diatribe against the Green New Deal.
“This is, of course, a picture of former President Ronald Reagan, naturally firing a machine gun while riding on the back of a dinosaur. You’ll notice a couple of important features here: First of all, the rocket launcher strapped to President Reagan’s back and then then the stirring, unmistakeable patriotism of the velociraptor holding up a tattered American flag, a symbol of all it means to be an American,” Lee somehow managed to say aloud during the floor proceedings about the Green New Deal.
There’s no known research or evidence to support the claim that having babies, falling in love, or getting married would affect the climate in a positive way, though some climate activists believe we should stop reproducing. As of Tuesday, there was also no Senate resolution supporting the use of babies to solve the climate crisis.
It’s likely Lee was taking a jab at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who previously pondered if it was ethically OK to have kids in the face of climate change.
The Green New Deal is the only major U.S. policy idea that focuses on divesting from fossil fuels on a massive scale to address the escalating crisis of climate change, which scientists say will become irreversible in just 11 years and lead to global disastrous consequences.
Ocasio-Cortez, one of the Green New Deal’s most prominent architects and supporters, tweeted that Lee’s posters helped alleviate her imposter syndrome.
Cover image: Sen. Mike Lee displays an image of Ronald Reagan atop a velociraptor during Senate floor proceedings on the Green New Deal Senate resolution. (Screen grab via Senate Livestream)