Sanders Remarks to Sunrise Movement’s Road to Green New Deal Tour
Let me begin by thanking the Sunrise organization for all the great work you are doing and thank the young people in this country for leading the effort against climate change.
Also let me thank Howard University for hosting us here on your beautiful campus. I understand that Howard celebrated its commencement this past weekend. Congratulations to all the graduates and their families. H-B-C-U students have done great work to help solve the climate crisis through the H-B-C-U Climate consortium.
Unlike the President of the United States you know that climate change is not a hoax but it is an existential threat to our country and the entire planet.
You know and I know that the scientific community has been very clear: that if we do not act to boldly and aggressively to transform our global energy system away from fossil fuels within the next few years there will be irreparable harm done to the planet. There will be more rising sea levels, more flooding, more drought, more extreme weather disturbances, more acidification of the oceans and declines in crop production.
You also know that intelligence and defense agencies in the United States and around the world see climate change as a major national security issue, because if people cannot grow the crops they need to eat or find clean drinking water, there will be massive migrations of people which will put increased pressure on limited natural resources and cause international havoc and war.
Climate change is a global issue. It impacts not only the United States but China, Russia, India, Latin America, Africa and the entire planet. And let me be very clear. It is absolutely imperative that American leadership does everything possible to bring the nations of the world together to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and into energy efficiency and sustainable energies. Instead of spending well over $1 trillion a year on weapons of destruction, we need to come together and make the necessary investments to save the planet.
And that means developing a global approach where the US leads the way through a Green New Deal. That means creating millions of good paying jobs as massive investments to make our buildings more energy efficient — massive investments into wind, solar and other sustainable technologies — massive investments to create energy efficient transportation systems — massive investments to build the solar panels, wind turbines and other technologies right here in the United States of America. And it also means a just transition which protects the working people in the fossil fuel industry.
If we are going to be honest about combating climate change it is necessary for us to understand that we have an economy that is rigged and a political system that is profoundly corrupt. In other words we have small number of incredibly powerful billionaires who exercise enormous influence over the economic and political life of the country.
That is why the President and Congress voted to provide a trillion and a half dollars in tax breaks to the top one percent and large profitable corporations while refusing to make public colleges and universities tuition free and substantially reduce student debt in this county.
And it is exactly the same thing with the fossil fuel industry. Like the tobacco industry of 50 years ago, who denied that cigarette smoking causes cancer and other diseases, the fossil fuel industry, making billions every year, denies what carbon emissions are doing to our planet. They lie, lie and lie, and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to buy politicians who echo their lies.
In the last decade alone, the oil/gas industry has pumped more than $700 million worth of campaign contributions into federal, state and local elections. In that same time, they spent more than $1.5 billion lobbying in Washington, D.C.
The fossil fuel industry has been well rewarded for their spending. An IMF report found that direct and indirect subsidies for coal, oil and gas in the U.S. reached $649 billion in 2015.
Maybe providing massive support to an industry that is destroying our planet makes sense to some people, but it damn well does not make sense to me.
And here is even more. As a result of Trump’s tax cuts nearly half of the Fortune 500 companies that paid zero in taxes last year were in the fossil fuel and utility industry.
Let’s be clear it is time to end all subsidies and tax breaks for the oil and gas companies.
These companies lied to the American people about the very existence of climate change and committed one of the greatest frauds in the history of our country.
Just as the tobacco industry was ultimately forced to pay for the fraud they committed — the fossil fuel industry must be forced to do the same.
They cannot destroy this planet with impunity.
So here is the major question that we must answer: How do we take on an industry with unlimited power and resources?
And here in my view, is the answer.
We need a political revolution. We need millions of people from one end of this country to the other to stand up and fight back to create environmental policy that works for all of us and not just the 1 percent.
And that means not only fighting climate change, but ending the incredibly toxic environment that many low income children and people of color are experiencing today. No, it is not a radical idea to suggest that clean drinking water and clean air should be the right of all Americans regardless of their income or the color of their skin.
Let me be very frank with you. The good news is that your generation is the most progressive generation in the modern history of this country. You are anti-racist. You are anti-sexist, You are anti-homophobia. You are anti-xenophobia. And you are anti-religious bigotry.
Your generation and Sunrise didn’t wait for an older generation to invite you to take a seat at the table. You took that seat at the table and changed the conversation around climate change.
That is the very good news and you should all be proud of what you stand for and what you have accomplished.
And here is the bad news. The voter turnout for young people in this country — people under thirty — is far lower than for older Americans. In my view if younger people voted at the same percentage as older people, we would be able to bring about transformative change in this country with regard to climate change and every other important area.
So we have got an enormous amount of work in front of us. We’ve got to educate. We have got to organize. And we’ve got to fight for political power.
The one percent has unlimited wealth and influence, but at the end of the day they are just one percent. And if my arithmetic is right, there are a lot more people in the 99 percent than in the one percent.
Let’s bring our people together. Let’s transform our energy system and let’s save the planet.
