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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says her “dreams of motherhood now taste bittersweet” as a result of global warming.
The freshman lawmaker appeared near tears as she bemoaned her fate of raising children in a world with a changing climate.
“I speak to you not as an elected official or public figure, but I speak to you as a human being,” AOC said Friday at the C40 World Mayors Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark. “A woman whose dreams of motherhood now taste bittersweet, because of what I know about our children's future.“
AOC delivered the keynote address at the Copenhagen, Denmark event, where she was sharply critical of the United States, even blaming the U.S. for her grandfather’s recent death. She said the U.S. withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord “horrified” the whole world.
“I speak to you as daughter and descendant of colonized peoples who have already begun to suffer,” AOC said. “Just two years ago one of the deadliest disasters in the United States struck in the form of Hurricane Maria. The climate change powered storm killed over 3,000 Puerto Ricans, American citizens. My own grandfather died in the aftermath, all because they were living under colonial rule, which contributed to the dire conditions and lack of recovery.”
AOC blamed consumerism for hurricanes over the last few years.
“This year we saw Hurricane Dorian wreaked similar havage [sic] in the — wreaked similar ravage in the Bahamas,” she said. “And that is not a coincidence. As many have noticed in an — noted in an awful turn the climate crisis has passed is first impacting those who have not only contributed to our emissions the least but have already suffered greatly in the global history of inequality, colonization and imperialism stacking one injustice upon another.”