I scream, you scream, we all scream for Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barrasso, who is extremely concerned that the Green New Deal will rob America’s youth of their god-given right to chunk up on ice cream and hamburgers.
Speaking on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday, Barrasso warned the public of the inevitable milkshake-less hellscape that awaits us should Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ proposed environmental legislative package become law.
“There’s another victim of the Green New Deal, it’s ice cream!” Barrasso wheezed. “Livestock will be banned. Say goodbye to dairy, to beef, to family farms, to ranches. American favorites like cheeseburgers and milkshake[s] would become a thing of the past. Millions of American workers will lose their jobs.”
“Living this green dream is actually a national nightmare,” he concluded.
So what the hell is Senator Fudge Ripple talking about? He seems to be referencing a portion of the Green New Deal’s FAQ page, which discusses a proposal to eventually transition the United States off fossil fuels and greenhouse gas-emitting energy entirely. There, the page says that (emphasis mine):
We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast, but we think we can ramp up renewable manufacturing and power production, retrofit every building in America, build the smart grid, overhaul transportation and agriculture, plant lots of trees and restore our ecosystem to get to net-zero.
It’s true that the methane produced by cows is huge problem when it comes to global warming—we’re talking 30 to 50 gallons per day, from each of the approximately 1.5 billion cows on Earth. But the Green New Deal isn’t saying we need to abandon cows entirely—it’s just accurately naming bovine ass-rips as a legitimate environmental concern, and saying that it’s an issue that’ll need to be addressed.
Nevertheless, here comes Barrasso—whose state of Wyoming happens to be home to some 1.3 million heads of cattle—warning that the scary Democrats will practically snatch ice cream cones and Big Macs from the hands of America’s good boys and girls. And, really, when facing the prospect of catastrophic, species-killing environmental upheaval, shouldn’t we all face the impending apocalypse with a refreshing milkshake in hand?