Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Compares Impact Of Climate Change To 9/11

PA

Democrat congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has hit out at the White House for its inaction towards climate change comparing the country’s swift response to terror threats with its slow reaction to natural disasters.

Orcasio-Cortez compared the fast response of the ‘War on Terror’ following the September 11 attacks of 2001 with the unorganised response to Puerto Rico after the island was hit by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

She made the comments at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in the Bronx, New York, on Friday, the MailOnline reports.

Ocasio-Cortez said at the All In town hall event:

In the events of September 11, 2001, thousands of Americans died in the largest terrorist attack on US soil and our national response, whether we agree with it or not, was to go to war in one then eventually two countries.

3,000 Americans died in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Where is our response?

The Trump administration has faced criticism for its slow response to the disaster that hit the island, which is an unincorporated territory of the United States.

PA

Trump himself questioned the death toll announced by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) over Twitter.

In the months following the hurricane, FEMA admitted widespread failures in its response to the huminatiran aid.

Trump however insisted his adminstration ‘did a fantastic job’ and criticised the island when it asked for billions of dollars to rebuild.

Ocasio-Cortez, who has been an outspoken critic of the Republican president, said she’s seen the government mobilise its resources in response to conflict and war. Yet not when it comes to climate change.

She said:

Historically speaking, we have mobilized our entire economy around war. But I thought to myself it doesn’t have to be that way, especially when our greatest existential threat is climate change.

Tying climate change to the Green New Deal propsal, she added:

And so to get us out of this situation, to revamp our economy to create dignified jobs for working Americans, to guarantee health care and elevate our educational opportunities and attainment, we will have to mobilize our entire economy around saving ourselves and taking care of this planet.

AOC defended her plan, criticised by Republicans, that calls for a full transition to renewable energy by 2030, saying ‘We don’t have time for five years of a half-baked, watered-down position. This is urgent, and to think that we have time is such a privileged and removed-from-reality attitude that we cannot tolerate.’

Reaction to Ocasio-Cortez’ comments online has been mixed. The video posted from the All In with Chris Hayes Twitter account has been viewed 1.35 million times in the last 18 hours.

One person replied to the tweet saying:

One was a natural event (sometimes called and act of God) which was unavoidable. The other was an act of war, whose intention is complete and total world domination by an extremist ideology. That’s called apples and oranges.

Another replied:

Ummmm, not really. The common denominator is dead Americans. It should be unacceptable but somehow the latter has been pretty much “thoughts and prayers”’d rather than actually addressed.

President Trump has yet to respond to the issue on Twitter.

If you have a story you want to tell send it to UNILAD via [email protected]

Tim Horner

Tim Horner is a sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated with a BA Journalism from University College Falmouth before most his colleagues were born. A previous editor of adult mags, he now enjoys bringing the tone down in the viral news sector.