CNN’s climate crisis town hall

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren just took the stage at CNN’s climate crisis town hall.

She’s one of 10 Democratic candidates participating in the 7-hour event event.

Bernie Sanders has put forth a series of plans – on health care, student debt cancellation and the Green New Deal – that, taken separately, would each represent a generational change to American domestic policy.

So what is his top priority?

Asked on Wednesday night which policy he would push first if elected, Sanders did not put one before any of the others.

“I have the radical idea that a sane Congress can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time,” Sanders said.

The way to make it all happen, he argued, is to elect lawmakers that support his platform.

“To my mind, it’s not prioritizing this over that. It is finally having a government which represents working families and the middle class, rather than wealthy campaign contributors,” Sanders said. “When you do that, things fall into place.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders was asked if he’d make curbing population growth through birth control a key part of his climate plan.

“The planet cannot sustain this growth,” the voter said while asking the question.

Sanders said he would, and turned the conversation to women’s rights.

“Women in the United States of Americas, by the way, have a right to control their own bodies and make reproductive decisions,” he said.

Sanders continued:

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was asked on Wednesday whether he would roll back Trump administration plans to overturn requirements on energy saving lightbulbs. He delivered an emphatic answer.

“Duh,” the senator explained with a slight smile.

Donald Trump’s administration lifted energy efficiency regulations for several common types of light bulbs on Wednesday, which critics believe is the administration’s latest assault on efforts to combat climate change and energy use.

Sanders pivoted from the lighthearted answer and made the case for making climate change an international issue.

“Maybe, just maybe, instead of spending a trillion and a half dollars every single year on weapons of destruction designed to kill each other, maybe we pool those resources and we work together against our common enemy, which is climate change,” Sanders said.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is now taking questions from voters about the climate crisis.

He’s the sixth Democratic candidiate tonight to participate in the 7-hour event.

Former Vice President Joe Biden said he’s been a “champion” for rail and mass transit.

Biden added that in order for new rail lines to be successful, they have to be as fast and as cost efficient as driving.

“It would literally take millions of vehicles off the road. But you have to have a rail system that makes people say, ‘If I get on that rail, I will get there as fast as I would have gotten had I driven and I can afford to do it relative to the coast of my driving.’”

Former Vice President Joe Biden said he would not support a nationwide fracking ban on Wednesday – in part because he doesn’t believe any measure banning fracking could pass – but the Delaware Democrat said he does support stopping all “oil drilling or gas drilling on federal lands.”

Biden’s position is the most common Democratic position, but other candidates in the race – like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker – have pushed for a nationwide fracking ban.

Biden, in response to a question about fracking in Pennsylvania, said on Wednesday that the federal government has “less latitude in what we say we can and cannot do” on state lands.

“I think we should in fact be looking at what exists now and making a judgment whether or not the those in fact that are there, those wells that are there, whether or not they are dangerous, whether or not they have already done the damage,” Biden said.

Biden said the federal government “could pass national legislation” but that he doesn’t believe there are enough votes “to get it done.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden suggested he might reconsider a fundraiser scheduled for Thursday after being confronted and told about its host’s connections to the energy industry.

Andrew Goldman is a co-founder of Western LNG, a company whose biggest project is a floating liquefaction facility for natural gas off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. He does not have day-to-day responsibilities with the company, but an audience member asked Biden if his willingness to accept Goldman’s help would compromise his pledge to fight climate change.

Goldman also worked a Biden adviser before the former vice president took that office in 2009.

“I didn’t realize he does that,” Biden said after being asked initially about Goldman’s role and said, citing SEC filings, that he did not believe attending the fundraiser would be in violation of a pledge to refuse fossil fuel energy executive donations. “I’m going to look at what you just told me and find out if that’s accurate.”

Immediately after the exchange, Biden spokeswoman Symone Sanders disputed the description of Goldman, claiming he “isn’t a fossil fuel executive. He’s not involved in the day to day operation. He’s not on the board of the company, nor the board of the portfolio company.”

She also echoed Biden, in a subsequent tweet, denying that the former vice president has not violated his pledge to reject donations from fossil fuel executives.

“What I was told by my staff is that he did not have any responsibility related to the company,” Biden said later. “He was not on the board, he was not involved at all in the operation of the company at all.

But he said his campaign would review its information to be sure.

“If that turns out to be true, then I will not in any way accept his help,” Biden said. “We go through every contribution make sure that we are not accepting money from people we said we wouldn’t, or we shouldn’t.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden said “there would be no empty chair” in leading climate talks among the world’s most powerful nations if he is elected president.

His comment, at CNN’s town hall on the climate crisis Wednesday, was a shot at President Donald Trump, who skipped last month’s G7 Summit climate meeting.

He said since Trump pulled out of the Paris climate accord, “there is no leadership” on climate matters.

“There would be no empty chair. I would be pulling the G7 together. I would be down with the president of Brazil saying, enough is enough,” Biden said, referring to the burning Amazon rain forest.

The former vice president pitched himself as an experienced deal-maker on the national and international stages.

“What we have to do is we have to understand that you need to be able to bring people and countries and interests together to get anything done. Plans are great, but executing on those plans is a very different thing,” he said.

Katie Eder and Biden

A 19-year-old activist asked former Vice President Joe Biden how young voters can trust him to to prioritize their futures.

She asked: “Older generations have continued to fail our generation by repeatedly choosing money and power over our lives and our futures, so how we can trust you to put us — the future — over the wants of large corporations and wealthy individuals?”

Biden quickly responded: “Because I’ve never done it.”

He continued: 

A little context: Earlier this year, before Biden released a climate plan, Biden faced criticism from progressives who argued the former vice president would not go far enough to combat climate change.

They were citing a Reuters report that quoted a Biden adviser who touted the need to find a “middle ground” approach as progressives push the Green New Deal.

Former Vice President Joe Biden is now taking questions at CNN’s climate crisis town hall.

At total tonight, 10 Democratic presidential candidates will take the stage.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar said said that one way to get people to use less energy is to send out electric bills with a neighborhood ranking because it comes with a sense of competitive accomplishment. 

This is right out of environmental lawyer’s Cass Sunstein school of thought: that government should harness human nature to “nudge” better social behavior. It seems quaint but a massive retooling of world consumption might never happen without some of this kind of psychology. 

Amy Klobuchar isn’t ready to ban fracking, but on Wednesday night, she called for a reversal to Trump administration’s move to rollback regulations on methane emissions.

“I see natural gas as a transitional fuel, it is better than oil, but it’s not nearly as good as wind and solar,” Klobuchar said, before adding that she was concerned by one of the most dangerous byproducts of its extraction.

She also pledged to review every fracking permit during the first 100 days of her administration and, earlier, denounced White House deregulation of methane emissions.

“One of the things, among many, that the Trump administration has done that is so bad for our environment, that I would reverse, is their changes to methane rules and methane emission,” she said. “That is very dangerous.”

Klobuchar also said she would hope to “go to carbon neutral by 2050,” though she would push for a faster transition. That means no new coal plants and a new look at nuclear plants if safe storage could be assured.

The fight to combat climate change should be treated like the space race or the civil rights movement, Klobuchar said, moments “where our country came together and said, we’re going to solve something.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar was just asked about the wildfires in the Amazon, the Brazilian rainforest that is home to at least 10% of the world’s biodiversity, produces 20% of the world’s oxygen and helps regulate the temperature of the whole planet.

Environmental organizations and researchers say the wildfires were set by cattle ranchers and loggers who want to clear and utilize the land, emboldened by the country’s pro-business president.

Klobuchar called the fires a “tragedy” and outlined some ways she’d try to combat the issue.

“Because we are at a point — between the fires and some of the decisions for deforestation — that it’s very dangerous to our climate, and I think just shows how everything is interrelated,” she added.

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar laid out on Wednesday how her first week in the White House would take on the climate crisis.

On her first day in office, Klobuchar said she would reenter the Paris climate accord. On the second day, Klobuchar said, she would bring back clean power rules that President Barack Obama pushed but were rolled back by President Donald Trump. And on day three, she would do the same with gas mileage standards for US car companies.

While Klobuchar said she would take action without Congress, she said the rest of her first week in office would focus on “sweeping legislation” to tackle the issue.

“On day 7, you’re supposed to rest,” Klobuchar said, “but I don’t think I will.”

“So that’s the first seven days,” she continued. “And from there you make this a top priority to get this passed.”

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar just took the stage at CNN’s climate crisis town hall.

In total, 10 2020 Democrats will answer questions tonight.

Asked what she would do to help at-risk people threatened by climate change, Harris said they would benefit from her commitment to lifting up all marginalized communities.

“Ultimately it’s about empowering communities that are often ignored,” Harris said in response to a question from a man with a spinal cord injury that has left him with thermodysregulation – or the inability for the body to control its own temperature, leaving him unable to sweat. The health risk rises during hot summers like this one.

“No community should be dumped on and no community should be less than,” Harris said, pointing specifically to black and brown and indigenous people.

Harris also touted her founding of an environment justice unit during her time as the district attorney in San Francisco – a decision, she said, that came partly in response to the pollution of a nearby area with a low household income, which diminished its ability to rally political support for its cause.

California Sen. Kamala Harris said she would seek to ban fracking and offshore drilling if she is elected president.

“There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking,” she said of the controversial form of oil and natural gas extraction at CNN’s town hall on the climate crisis.

Harris said she’d backed efforts to stop the practice in California as attorney general. As a Senate candidate in 2016, she said she was skeptical of fracking.

What is fracking, anyway? Learn more in the video below:

California Sen. Kamala Harris said the US needs to ban plastic straws — but acknowledged that paper straws can be difficult to drink from.

She said now is the time for “innovation” when it comes to plastic alternatives.

“Innovation is a process. But you know, let’s encourage innovation. I think we can do a little better than some of those flimsy plastic straws,” she said.

But ultimately, “we do need to ban the plastic,” Harris added.

California Sen. Kamala Harris said Wednesday that, as president, she would direct the Department of Justice to go after oil and gas companies who have directly impacted global warming, telling the audience at a CNN town hall that she will “take them to court and sue them.”

Harris, a former prosecutor, said “people who profit off harmful behaviors” need to have a financial reason to change their behavior.

She added: “These are bad behaviors. They are causing harm and death in communities. And there has been no accountability. Certainly not by this administration. Nor, and I hate to say it so generally, by the Republicans in Congress.”

Asked directly if she would sue a company like ExxonMobil, Harris said yes.

“Yes,” she said. “And they’re going to pay fines and they are going to pay fees.”

Harris’ written plan, which was released this week, also harkens back to her time as a prosecutor, especially when she helped California win an $85 million settlement with Volkswagen for cheating on emissions tests for its diesel vehicles.

If she becomes President, Harris’ plan states, she will increase penalties for companies that violate federal pollution laws and restoring the “polluter pays” model for funding the Superfund program.

California Sen. Kamala Harris said if elected president, she would back abolishing the filibuster if Republicans stand in the way of legislation to combat climate change.

It’s the first time she has said as a 2020 candidate that she backs the end of the filibuster.

Harris said she would first seek to work with the GOP.

Democrats need to win the presidency and gain three seats in the Senate to take control of the chamber in the 2020 elections. But the party would need 60 votes – virtually an impossibility given the map of Senate seats up for election next year – to win a filibuster-proof majority. That means even if a Democrat is elected president and the party wins full control of Congress, Republicans would still have the ability to block legislation in the Senate unless the filibuster is done away with.

California Sen. Kamala Harris’ town hall just started. She’s the third 2020 Democrat to take the stage tonight.

Seven more presidential candidates will have town halls later tonight.

Most of the debate over climate change focuses on fossil fuels, but meat consumption is a big driver of global warming too.

Andrew Yang, asked about how to shape habits around meat, acknowledged vegetarianism is better for the planet – but said the government can’t force anyone to stop eating meat.

What’s the impact of meat production? There’s a lot for environmentalists to hate about beef. It’s cattle ranchers, encouraged by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, setting fires in the Amazon to destroy rain forest in order to make room for more meat production. But there is also the matter of methane produced by cows. Livestock is responsible for more than 14% of greenhouse gas emissions — and beef in particular is responsible for 41% those. 

Democrats are proposing a shift to “sustainable” agricultural practices, but Republicans have mocked a line cut from a Democratic summary of the Green New Deal that mentioned “cow farts” and allege that Democrats want to take away Americans steaks and hamburgers.

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang explained on Wednesday why he supports combating climate change by investing heavily in unproven technological advancements like cloud seeding.

Cloud seeding is a technology that has been around for years, but its ability to combat climate change is more speculative. The practice involves spraying chemicals into the atmosphere to make it rain or snow, a practice that could help with extreme drought.

Yang said on Wednesday that “all solutions have to be on the table.”

“We’re here together because we can this is a crisis,” Yang said. “If you were attacking on one side, you should be researching various alternatives on the other. That, to me, is just responsible management and responsible leadership.”

Yang’s website says that he, as president, would “invest in any idea that has the potential to reverse the damage done to the environment.”

Businessman Andrew Yang said that is he’s elected president, he’ll eliminate gross domestic product as a measure of national success and “upgrade” it to a score card that includes environmental factors.

“As your president, I will go down the street to the Bureau of Economic Analysis and say, ‘Hey, GDP, 100 years old, kind of out of date.’ Let’s upgrade it with a new score card that includes our environmental sustainability and our goals — the carbon footprint that companies are putting out there. But also our kids’ health, which is tied to the climate, health and life expectancy, also tied to the climate, mental health and freedom from substance abuse, all things we can tie to our economic measurements,” he said.

At least one other country already has a similar system. Bhutan, the tiny Buddhist kingdom wedged between China and India, is driven by a policy of Gross National Happiness.

That system takes into account every citizen’s mental health and job satisfaction, bans smoking and plastic bags nationwide and refuses to develop almost half of their pristine wilderness.

But some context: Bhutan is a homogenized society with the population of Seattle. 

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer just asked Andrew Yang if he supports a carbon tax.

“I do support a carbon tax — if you went to my website, Wolf, you would know this,” Yang said as the audience laughed.

Yang said his carbon tax would start at $40 per ton, and go up to $100 per ton.

How does a carbon tax work, anyway? Many people think the most effective way to drastically cut carbon emissions would be to set a price on them — essentially, to tax them. 

In 2010, Democrats in the House of Representatives passed a so-called “cap and trade” bill. It would have capped carbon emissions for businesses and forced emitters to buy credits for emissions from other businesses — that’s the trade part — but it never went anywhere in the Senate.

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang defended his plan to move Americans living in low lying areas to higher ground on Wednesday.

Asked about the plan by a New York resident who lives at sea level, Yang said he would “100% make funds available” to move people to higher ground and pay for it by ending fossil fuel subsidies.

“Now it’s time to take some of that money and channel it to the needs of the American people,” Yang said. “There are already climate refugees in the United States of America, people that we relocated from an island that was essentially becoming uninhabitable in Louisiana and we moved those people.”

Yang has not shied away from this position and brought it up during CNN’s Democratic debate in July.

“We need to do everything we can to start moving the climate in the right direction, but we also need to start moving our people to higher ground,” Yang said at the debate. “And the best way to do that is to put economic resources into your hands so you can protect yourself and your families.”

Businessman Andrew Yang just took the stage in New York for CNN’s climate crisis town hall.

He’s the second of 10 2020 Democrats to take questions at the event.

Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro just took a question from CNN’s Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir.

“You propose setting aside half of American land and oceans for wildlife for biodiversity. Where does that come from?” Weir asked

Casto said the US needs to “undo the damage that this administration has done” — and then “expand the lands that we’re protecting in our country.”

Casto said his climate plans calls for preserving more lands. Here’s how he put it:

Weir said Castro’s policy is in line with with the “half earth” theory of renowned biologist E.O. Wilson — that theory says that to preserve life as we know it, half of the planet must be returned to the wild.

But the federal government already owns around 30% of US land, Weir said. And Casto’s vague answer did not lay out where the other 20% of hopeful wilderness would come from.

Julián Castro would not commit to a federal ban on fracking after being asked about the practice at a CNN town hall on Wednesday

Castro supported fracking, which produces natural gas and often leaks methane into the atmosphere, when he was mayor of San Antonio, saying on Wednesday he believed there were “opportunities to be had” in a transition away from fossil fuels.

According to data from the Environmental Defense Fund, methane is “84 times more potent (in warming the atmosphere) than carbon dioxide,” despite lingering for shorter periods of time.

“I support local communities and states that want to ban fracking,” the former Housing and Urban and Development secretary said. “I have not called for an immediate ban on fracking. What I am doing is moving us away from fracking and natural gas, and investing in wind energy, solar energy, other renewables, to get us to net zero by 2045.”

Recalling the initial pitch around natural gas, Castro argued that the rationale was running down.

“We had been saying that natural gas was a bridge fuel,” he said. “We’re coming to the end of the bridge.”

Castro’s campaign has already pledged to end the leasing of public lands for energy extraction and exploration.

Julián Castro said that “new civil rights legislation” to address environmental racism – minority communities facing the brunt of the climate crisis – is part of his plan to combat global warming.

The former Housing and Urban Development secretary and Democratic presidential candidate said individuals should be able to file lawsuits against polluters.

He said that under President Donald Trump’s administration, “You can’t rely on the government” to stop polluters, and said he would “invest that power back in the people.”

Castro also pointed out that he launched his presidential campaign with a visit to Puerto Rico, which was recovering from Hurricane Maria, before he visited any of the early-voting states.

“I connect the dots to places like Flint, Michigan, and I know that too often times it’s people that are poor, communities of color, who take the brunt of storms that are getting more frequent and more powerful,” he said.

Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro outlined his plans to combat the climate crisis on Wednesday, kicking off his town hall by touting a plan that would lead to $10 trillion in spending.

“My first executive order that afternoon will be to rejoin the Paris climate accord so that we lead begin on sustainability, but it’s actually what comes next after that that is the most important,” Castro said, before outlining how he would get the United States to net zero carbon emissions by 2045.

Castro said he would “incentivize wind energy production, solar energy production, invest in renewables” and would “challenge the rest of the world at latest to get to net zero by 2050.”

Castro would also raise taxes on polluters by implementing a carbon pollution fee to “help make the investments that we need to make.”

And Castro said he, as president, would end fossil fuel exploration – including fracking – on public lands. Castro does not plan to outright ban fracking.

In his first moments on stage, Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro gave a nod to Jay Inslee’s climate-focused candidacy.

The Washington Governor dropped out out of the race last month.

CNN’s climate crisis town hall just kicked off.

Ten Democratic presidential candidates are taking the stage in New York City.

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro is up first.

The ice around Alaska is not just melting. It’s gotten so low that the situation is endangering some residents’ food and jobs.

Ocean temperatures in the Chukchi and North Bering seas are nearly 10 degrees Fahrenheit (five degrees Celsius) above normal, satellite data shows.

There are immediate local and commercial impacts along the state’s western and northern coastlines, Thoman told CNN. Birds and marine animals are showing up dead, he said, and sea temperatures are warm enough to support algal blooms, which can make the waters toxic to wildlife.

It’s a mounting crisis for many coastal Alaska towns that depend on fishing to support their economy and feed people who live here.

A National Climate Assessment released earlier this year detailed how specific regions of the US will be impacted.

Here’s a breakdown for each region:

Northeast

Southeast

Midwest

Southwest

Keep reading about the effects of climate change in the US here.

From the ice sheet in Greenland to the towering glaciers in West Antarctica, Earth’s enormous masses of ice are melting fast. And though sea levels have risen and fallen throughout history, scientists say it’s never happened at a rate this fast.

If glaciers continue to melt at the current rapid rate, it will pose a number of hazards for the planet, geologists say.

Here are some of the potential hazards:

Greenland lost 12.5 billion tons of ice to melting on Aug. 2, the largest single-day loss in recorded history and another stark reminder of the climate crisis.

The Helheim glacier has become famous in recent years as it has been retreating at a stunning rate. In 2017, the glacier lost a whopping two miles, and a year later scientists from New York University captured a miles-long ice column break off the glacier’s front. The melt doesn’t seem to be slowing this year either.

“Greenland has impacts all around the planet. A billion tons of ice lost here raises sea levels in Australia, in Southeast Asia, in the United States, in Europe,” Willis said. “We are all connected by the same ocean.”

Street hockey players compete in a pick-up game near the White House during an excessive heat wave on July 20, 2019 in Washington, DC.

A report from Climate Central, a nonprofit science and news organization, analyzed 239 locations in the United States. It found that 198 cities have experienced an increase in the annual number of days with a heat index temperature of reaching over 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32.2 degrees Celsius) or higher over the last four decades.

The past four years have been the warmest in the United States since record keeping began in 1895.

Why this matters: Your body doesn’t handle these extremely hot and humid days well, because sweat — your natural cooling mechanism — doesn’t evaporate when it’s really humid and you can’t cool down as well. It can also be hard to breathe.

For both conditions, “danger” days and “heat index” days, it can be dangerous to exercise outside and can lead to heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

A number of sporting events around the world have had to cancel due to high temperatures, including the New York Triathlon in July.

The sun sets behind the skyline of midtown Manhattan on July 21, 2019 in New York City.

A CNN poll conducted in late April showed that 96% of Democrats favor taking aggressive action to slow the effects of climate change.

The United Nations — which projects that temperatures will rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by as early as 2030 — has warned that governments must take “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.”

Global warming would have several consequences.

Here’s what it could do: It would cause coastal cities to disappear under water, leaving hundreds of millions of people displaced and forced to migrate to dry areas. Some plants and animals would face extinction, and drought would result in lower crop yields. Meteorologists just delivered the latest warning sign of global warming: July 2019 was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth.

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang speaks at the Iowa Events Center on August 10, 2019 in Des Moines, Iowa.

CNN is devoting an evening to the climate crisis.

Ten Democratic candidates will be at he town hall. They are…

Ten Democratic candidates will take the stage tonight for CNN’s Climate Crisis Town Hall, CNN.

About the town hall: The candidates will take questions directly from a live studio audience in New York and a CNN moderator. The audience will be drawn from Democratic voters interested in the issue.

The town hall will air live on CNN platforms around the world.