CNN Presents: Seven Hours Of Hot Air
[guest post by Dana]
…and I don’t mean Hot Air, the terrific website. I mean “hot air,” as in an unbearable barrage of toxic word vomit. In other words, a seven hour climate crisis town hall because we are a bad people and we deserve this:
CNN on Tuesday announced the candidate lineup for its unprecedented prime-time event focused on the climate crisis.
Ten Democratic presidential hopefuls will appear in New York at back-to-back town halls on Wednesday, September 4, taking audience questions about their climate plans as scientists sound the alarm about global warming.
Along with the candidates, the network also announced the CNN journalists and the approximate appearance times for the presidential hopefuls during the seven-hour, live event.
The crisis is real, and CNN is determined to put an end to our misery so that the earth can finally be at peace. So instead of waiting 14 years for the world to disintegrate or whatever it’s scheduled to do, CNN’s plan will hasten our demise through the means of utter and complete boredom and misery.
Here is the roster of speakers, each of whom will be allotted 40 minutes to yammer:
Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro will be interviewed by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer at 5 p.m. ET
Businessman Andrew Yang, who will also be interviewed by Blitzer, will come on at 5:40 p.m.
California Sen. Kamala Harris will be interviewed by CNN’s Erin Burnett at 6:20 p.m.Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who will also be interviewed by Burnett, will appear at 7 p.m.
Former Vice President Joe Biden will be interviewed by CNN’s Anderson Cooper at 8 p.m.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who will also be interviewed by Cooper, will be on at 8:40 p.m.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren will be interviewed by CNN’s Chris Cuomo at 9:20 p.m.
South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who will also be interviewed by Cuomo at 10 p.m.
Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke will appear with CNN’s Don Lemon at 10:40 p.m.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker will also be interviewed by Lemon and will come on at 11:20 p.m.
Sadly, JVW’s Little Aloha Sweetie won’t be making an appearance.
Given that there is a big demand by Democratic voters for the 2020 candidates to take aggressive steps to decelerate the effects of climate change, including getting the greenhouse gas emissions be down to zero in the next 30 years, as well as rejoining the Paris climate agreement if elected and signing the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge, it makes absolutely perfect sense for CNN to provide the candidates 40 minutes of airtime to present their specific plans on how to save the planet.
And in a cruel twist of fate, just last week Jay Inslee, who had made climate change the centerpiece of his short run for the presidency, announced that he was ending his bid for the 2020 nomination:
“This is sort of the bookends of my campaign,” Inslee said on MSNBC. “We started seeing that climate change had to be the number one job of the United States. I felt very good saying that the first days of my campaign. I feel very good saying that now. And the reason is this is has just become more urgent — a billion tons of ice melted in Greenland the other day… “
(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)
–Dana