Do We Need the Green New Deal?
Left-wing wish list? Or our only hope of avoiding environmental catastrophe?
I’m in my final semester of undergrad studying environmental engineering. And this means that I’m in upper-level courses that leave me feeling slightly depressed with the state of the global environment.
“Climate Change Assessment,” “Atmospheric Chemistry,” and “Tools for Sustainability.” What do these classes have in common? They’ve all warned a classroom full of future sustainability professionals, clean energy entrepreneurs, and environmental consultants of the catastrophic consequences of crossing the IPCC’s 2-degree Celsius threshold.
Every day, students are reminded that mass extinctions, severe weather, our food supply, and the wellbeing of millions of refugees are riding on the actions we take today. While the Paris Climate Accord was ratified to address these issues, follow-through relied mostly on good faith. We are still on track to rise 3 degrees Celsius by 2100. Today’s youth are collectively realizing that this is going to affect us and our children the most — not those who signed the Accord.
We need a stricter commitment and a more detailed plan of how we are going to tackle these issues. And we need it to be created by young, diverse people.
Enter the Green New Deal.
“For young people, climate change is bigger than election or re-election. It’s life or death.” — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
What You Need To Know
In February 2019, Bronx bartender turned New York 14th Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), introduced a nonbinding resolution to completely eliminate the US’s carbon emissions in one decade (yes, one decade), uniting “every aspect of American society at a scale not seen since World War II,” while creating “economic prosperity for all.”
Sounds bold, doesn’t it? But it’s not a completely new idea. Policies with similar goals have been proposed within the last two decades.
The earliest use of vernacular and ideologies close to those proposed within the Green New Deal (GND) may derive from New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who called for such a policy in 2007 and in his book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded. In the same year, British economist Richard Murphy founded the Green New Deal Group. Barack Obama’s stimulus bill could be considered a prototype of the GND. More recently, 2016 Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein centered her platform around the GND.
Though the GND was voted down by the Senate in March 2019, Ocasio-Cortez has continued to lead efforts to write and pass bills that aim to achieve components of the GND.
What People Are Saying
A common criticism of the GND: it was just a wish list (perhaps idealistic, but still a darn good one).
You’ll be hard pressed to find a review, Op-Ed, or Facebook comment discussing the GND that doesn’t expose it as a left-wing wish list. But the truth is it wasn’t meant to be a complete detailed plan with ready-to-go policies for each line item. What Ocasio-Cortez proposed was a resolution. And from the start, she repeatedly said that it was meant to kickstart a conversation and set out aggressive targets so that we could then figure out how to hit them. If you don’t know where you’re going, you likely won’t get there.
Implementable and achievable policies would have been created to satisfy each “wish” if it had passed through the Senate last year. Writing these policies is exactly what AOC is doing now and what young advocates across the nation must collaborate to achieve.
A common question that arises in discussion, “How are you going to pay for it?” What often stops the American people from pursuing opportunities for social reform include the idea that 1) the federal budget must be balanced (every dollar spent must have a dollar of revenue), 2) taxes are already high, raising them would be bad, and 3) America is in crippling debt and cannot afford to pursue costly reforms.
It’s important to keep in mind that while these ideas are widely accepted, they aren’t completely true. Climate change impacts in the future will cost more than climate change mitigation today. Taxes can be shifted from one product to another. Having a national debt isn’t a bad thing. We can, arguably, afford it (but that’s an entirely separate article, you can read more about it here).
It’s difficult to change people’s minds on what is widely accepted as fact, but it’s a task we must take on if we are to prepare for a future where a GND is feasible. Ocasio-Cortez’s former chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, said, “You have to sell the American people that this is possible to make it possible.” And he’s right.
What You Should Remember
Times are changing. In 2000, climate issues were discussed for a total of 14 minutes among all the General Election debates. In 2016, it dropped to a lowly 6 minutes. But in the very first 2020 Primary Election debate, it was discussed for 15 minutes.
The Green New Deal may not have passed the Senate in 2019, but the issues it addresses are becoming increasingly relevant in today’s political atmosphere, and young people are taking notice and demanding that climate issues are addressed by our political leaders.
“It’s a long shot. But as the IPCC has made clear, long shots are the only shots left.” — Vox Writer David Roberts
It’s not the elderly members of Congress who will live with the havoc predicted by climate scientists, it is the young activists amassing on their doorsteps. We are looking beyond the next election cycle because it is our families who will suffer the consequences. We need a Green New Deal, one written by young and diverse people.
Charlee Thompson
Charlee has a B.S. in environmental engineering from the University of Illinois and a M.P.A. in environmental policy from the University of Washington. She currently works as a policy associate for the Northwest Energy Coalition in Washington State. She writes on sustainability, diversity, and fitness.
