Bernie Sanders has an ambitious, though imperfect, plan to help slash Earth's skyrocketing carbon emissions.

It argues that Sanders' climate plan is "fantasy extremism," largely because it doesn't rely on less-aggressive carbon taxes to curb human-caused warming.

Sanders' plan wants to ramp this up to 100 percent in a decade's time?

Sanders' climate plan may be easy to attack in an Op-Ed because it's bold, far-reaching — and imperfect. .

Natural gas, which leaks in prodigious amounts from fracking sites and is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over 20 years, is clearly not a climate savior nor a dependable "transition fuel" that can be relied on in the decades ahead.

Hiatt also faults Sanders' aim to eliminate nuclear energy, which currently powers around 20 percent of the country without emitting any heat-trapping carbon dioxide (Sanders has long-despised nuclear waste — whose deadly byproducts are amassing around the nation).

But it's true that abandoning nuclear energy will almost certainly make slashing carbon emissions more challenging.

decarbonization study that credibly shows net-zero [carbon emissions] by 2030 without keeping existing nuclear power online," Narayan Subramanian, a decarbonization expert studying climate policy at Columbia University, told Mashable last year. .

The nuclear component of Sanders' plan might be misguided (some will argue it's not), but this is a framework for slashing carbon emissions — it's not a congressional bill that's set in stone.

In many ways, Sanders' plan does take a hard look at reality.

is the transportation sector, and Sanders' plan acknowledges the public must ditch fuel-guzzling cars to cut emissions from vehicles.

Rapidly slashing carbon emissions in the U.S

But with a climate plan that champions slashing emissions, even if it's imperfect or unsettles columnists, future civilization may be spared the catastrophic impacts of a warming globe.