Getty Editorial 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden reportedly plans to pursue a “middle ground” climate policy that reduces greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining the oil and gas boom that began under President Barack Obama.

WASHINGTON ― The former vice president may call himself by the affectionate nickname “Middle-Class Joe,” but for proponents of the Green New Deal, “Middle-Ground Joe” could become an epithet.

Joe Biden’s name came up only once during the Monday night rally that capped off Sunrise Movement’s nationwide tour to promote the Green New Deal, but the two-word description of the ostensible Democratic presidential front-runner’s forthcoming climate plan became a bitter refrain.

“‘No middle ground’ is right,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), the Green New Deal’s leading champion in the House, repeating what one of the 1,500 attendees at Howard University’s Cramton Auditorium had shouted.

The audience hissed after activist Jeremiah Lowery mentioned “middle ground.” With Alexandra Rojas, executive director of the left-wing Justice Democrats, there was no ambiguity.

“Who here liked when Joe Biden said he was ‘middle of the road’ on climate policy?” she asked. Boos resounded in response.

The rhetorical lightning rod emerged Friday when Reuters reported that Biden planned to pursue a “middle ground” climate policy that reduced greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining the oil and gas boom that began under President Barack Obama.

The report drew heated responses from Biden’s 2020 rivals, activists and scientists. It offered a glimpse of the growing fight over how the Democratic Party should respond to the mounting evidence that, absent unprecedented economic change, humanity faces ecological collapse and climate catastrophe.

The Biden campaign downplayed the report last week. On Monday afternoon, the former vice president defended himself as a “leader on climate change” going back to 1987, when he introduced a bill requiring the White House to set up a task force to study the issue.

But Ocasio-Cortez said the length of Biden’s record is no substitute for substance just days after scientists recorded carbon dioxide concentrations of 415 parts per million for the first time in roughly 800,000 years.

“I will be damned if the politicians who failed to act then are going to come back today and say we need a middle-of-the-road approach to save our lives,” she said.