New York Times op-ed warned Democrats have 'one year' to save the planet

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Media top headlines July 1

Reaction to Bill Cosby's sudden release from prison, Nikole Hannah-Jones getting tenure granted by the UNC board, and liberals rejoicing over Donald Rumsfeld's death round out today's top media headlines

A New York Times opinion piece warned that "Democrats have a year to save the planet" from climate change.

On Wednesday, writer Farhad Manjoo published a warning on what he believed "could be the great turning point — an opportunity for the United States to finally take grand action to curb the worst effects of a climate barreling toward catastrophe."

In the warning, he openly called on Democrats in both the White House and Congress in an overtly dramatic manner to act on this "do-or-die moment" to enact climate change legislation. More specifically, he called for more support towards Democrats pressuring President Joe Biden’s reconciliation bill on infrastructure to include attention towards climate change.

"Democrats may have only about a year before the results of the midterms to take big action on the climate," Manjoo wrote "This could be our one shot. Let’s not throw it away."

DEMOCRATIC REP. DEFAZIO: PASS HOUSE INFRASTRUCTURE BILL BECAUSE . . . CLIMATE CHANGE 

This piece followed Rep. Peter A. DeFazio, D-Ore., announcing a new "Invest in America Act" bill to focus repairing roads damaged by climate change as well as an emphasis on carbon emissions. Biden also previously stated he would refuse to sign an infrastructure bill unless it included a separate bill on "human infrastructure" that would presumably include climate policies. He has since walked back this comment. 

The warning of only "one year" to save the planet also resembled past warnings, where experts, media outlets, and politicians predicted environmental doomsday for humans. Newsbusters previously reported on a New York Times article from 1995 that falsely warned "[a]t the most likely rate of rise, some experts say, most of the beaches on the East Coast of the United States would be gone in 25 years." 

Politicians also frequently warned about climate change in equally dramatic tones. Most notably, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., warned in 2019 that "the world is gonna end in 12 years" unless politicians will act on the climate. In February, John Kerry also warned that world only had "nine years" before catastrophe.

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Despite these false predictions of doom, Manjoo’s appears to continue the trend and encourages Democrats to use it as a political opportunity to maintain control of Congress, referring to them as a "new hope."

"The global effort to curb planet-warming emissions had been foundering, but suddenly there was new hope," Manjoo wrote "The Earth may be parched and sweltering, but all is not lost, for Americans finally got in the game."