Environmentalists, others to challenge Fleischmann, Duncan on global warming

Volunteers have organized two press conferences today (Thursday) to challenge Tennessee congressmen John Duncan and Chuck Fleischmann to accept and then work to stop human-caused climate change, a press release said.

The first press conference is at 11 a.m. Thursday at Duncan’s Knoxville office at the Howard H. Baker Jr. U.S. Courthouse. The second is at 2 p.m. in front of the Bull Run Fossil Plant in Claxton.

The press release said the press conferences will include prominent business people, clergy, a fossil fuel technologist, a child advocate, environmentalists, educators, and students.

“Constituents will highlight Duncan’s and Fleischmann’s inaction on carbon dioxide despite the 97 percent consensus among climate scientists that further CO2 emissions will soon have increasingly severe environmental and economic costs,” organizer Todd Waterman said.

He took aim at fossil fuel companies, saying they are among the most profitable in the world and switching to “green energy” could hurt them significantly financially. Lawmakers might feel intimidated into “going along,” but they’re voting against their constituents’ best interests, Waterman said. He said the nation must not burden its grandchildren with the economic harm of inaction if its representatives do not act decisively, and soon, to end CO2 pollution.