The Green New Deal is a one-pager for America
It’s meant to spark a conversation, so let’s talk about it!
When I read the Green New Deal, a proposal from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey on how to address some of our countries biggest and most urgent problems, it reminded me of the hundreds of one-pagers I’ve written over the years as a product manager at Twitter, Slack, Patreon, and at my own startups. I was writing about problems that could be solved with websites and apps, and they are writing about problems that could be solved with the U.S. government. Other than that they are very similar in structure, tone, and approach!
What is a one-pager? It’s generally a short doc (hence the name) meant to capture a problem and articulate opportunities to make an impact by solving that problem.
Having seen (and written) many so-so one-pagers over the last 20 years, this one is really strong! One-pagers are designed to spark a conversation, not to deliver marching orders. Through that lens, I thought it was extremely readable, but had found that not many people had actually read it… which defeats the point. All I did here was simplify some formatting and remove some “whereas”es, in the hopes that more people pick it up and keep the conversation going. You can of course read the original if you prepare to do that instead…
