Newman calls for legislators to ‘do their damn jobs’ to address climate change

U.S. Rep. Marie Newman called for action following the release of a report on climate change that the United Nations describes as a “code red for humanity.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC report said the planet’s climate is getting so hot that temperatures in about a decade will likely exceed a level world leaders have sought to prevent.

Newman, D-La Grange, who has been a staunch advocate for developing green technology to combat climate change, called on supporters to push Congress to take action.

“We’ve known climate change has threatened our planet for 30 years,” Newman said in a Facebook post. “The Senate is blocking progress on climate change and a sustainable future. Call your senators to do their damn jobs.”

Then on Wednesday, Newman posted a video to her public Facebook page recapping the several severe weather events occurring in the Chicago area over the past few days, including multiple tornados and a heat advisory.

“I think we all know that climate change is not just real, it’s scary,” she said in the video. “So let’s keep working on it together and make sure it’s in every policy and that it doesn’t live as a silo but it is part of everything we do everyday.”

Progressives like Newman have pushed for significant legislative action to reduce carbon emissions, including making major investments in wind and solar energy and winding down greenhouse gas producing energy sources.

But Republicans and even some moderate Democrats have resisted such pushes for significant change. Critics have painted proposals, like the massive Green New Deal plan, as too extreme.

Still, Newman and other liberal lawmakers have argued such a massive overhaul of the nation’s economy is necessary to stave off the most extreme consequences of climate change.