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Ruhle Stops Reporter In His Tracks For Comparing Climate Change To An Alien Invasion

(MSNBC 5/6)

Mike Brest Reporter
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MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle criticized a reporter for comparing climate change to an alien invasion on her Monday afternoon show.

NBC News technology correspondent Jacob Ward was discussing United Nations’ first comprehensive report on biodiversity, which claims that species loss is accelerating at an “unprecedented” rate.

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Ward stated, “Yeah, you know, it really is devastating, Stephanie. I mean, this is how dark the times are in the view of researchers, at least here on the West Coast, that I’ve talked t0. I know a team that’s actually working on the idea of a post-nature research project that seeks to basically capture the digital afterimage of species, basically accepting that they’re going to go extinct.”

“I know, I know. I mean, that’s the thing, right?” he continued. “You look at it and you think this should be our great unifying moment, right? This is the moment when space aliens land with ray guns and are threatening all of us and we all band together like you see in the movies. This is it. And yet, that’s not somehow happening.”

Ruhle pushed back, “But it’s not. Hold on a second. But it’s not. For your average American at home, there are not space aliens coming out and saying, ‘We’re going to take you over.’ This is an intangible. So how do we help them understand? Because it’s not fair to put it that way.” (RELATED: MSNBC Celebrates Kids Skipping School For The Climate)

“I know, I know, I guess I feel that it’s the kind of thing where we should be able to band together, we should be able to access something really basic in our programming that just says, ‘Existential threat, humanity, band together,’ and we’re not doing that for some reason,” Ward conceded.

The U.N. report, which is scheduled to be released in full later this year, shows that as many as 1 million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction, but the report also claims that it’s not too late to save these species.

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