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Posted on February 13, 2019 @ 09:47:00 AM by Paul Meagher
The proposal for a Green New Deal is getting alot of discussion lately in part because it may become a centerpiece of the U.S. Democratic Party's 2020 election platform. According to Wikipedia, the original New Deal was "a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1936. It responded to needs for relief, reform and recovery from the Great Depression". The radical measures that were taken as part of the New Deal are often credited with helping the U.S. recover from the Great Depression. Many of those concerned with rising CO2 levels believe we need to enact a similar set of radical measures to avoid a climate catastrophe. The Green New Deal refers to the required set of radical measures that will help avoid that scenario.
The NY congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has posted a proposal on her 2018 campaign website called the Green New Deal that proposes setting up a working group to evaluate some specific technical measures such as:
- Dramatically expand existing renewable power sources and deploy new production capacity with the goal of meeting 100% of national power demand through renewable sources;
- Building a national, energy-efficient, “smart” grid;
- Upgrading every residential and industrial building for state-of-the-art energy efficiency, comfort and safety;
- Eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacturing, agricultural and other industries, including by investing in local-scale agriculture in communities across the country;
- Eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from, repairing and improving transportation and other infrastructure, and upgrading water infrastructure to ensure universal access to clean water;
- Funding massive investment in the drawdown of greenhouse gases;
- Making “green” technology, industry, expertise, products and services a major export of the United States, with the aim of becoming the undisputed international leader in helping other countries transition to completely greenhouse gas neutral economies and bringing about a global Green New Deal.
Alexandria's proposed Green New Deal also includes a set of additional social justice measures which I'm a bit leery of because solving the CO2 problem is hard enough without trying to solve a host of socio-economic issues at the same time. Perhaps this is why Nancy Pelosi made this comment on Alexandria's latest Green New Deal resolution "The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it right?". It is difficult, however, to avoid the conclusion that climate change and social justice are linked problems so you might want to read the latest Green New Deal resolution for suggested social justice measures that might be included in a Green New Deal.
There is no widespread agreement yet on what measures the Green New Deal should include. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has offered up some suggestions but there are other suggestions and the discussion is just getting started.
Part of the reason why the original New Deal worked was because people were traumatized by the great depression and were ready to do something radical to get out of it. I doubt that people feel the same urgency for a Green New Deal. That sense of urgency, however, could change as CO2 levels continue to rise and exert their obvious and not-so-obvious consequences. I think it is important to start talking about what a Green New Deal might look like irrespective of what government is in power so that we at least have an emergency plan that might help us avoid or mitigate the potentially dire consequences of increasing CO2 levels.
Most of the suggested technical measures above are not radically new ideas. Most of us have probably heard something like them before. What is radical is the timeframe needed to agree on the New Green Deal measures and to get them done (less than 10 years). We need to make up for lost time so there is not alot of time available to debate a perfect set of measures. Radical action is needed more than radical ideas if a Green New Deal is going to happen. City councils in the coastal cities of Vancouver and Halifax have declared a climate emergency as a means of getting their own versions of the Green New Deal rolling at the city level.
The issue of how economic growth figures into a Green New Deal is the most perplexing and contested issue of them all. If the New Green Deal is sold on the basis of increasing GDP growth then it will have avoided the root cause of why a New Green Deal is needed (i.e., increases in CO2 levels are tightly linked to GDP growth so cannot be part of the solution). A growth oriented Green New Deal will not be radical enough to truly address root causes.
At the end of the day it is not the government alone that is going to solve this problem. There will be a major role for the entrepreneurs who devise new ways of solving problems that are less resource intensive. There will also be a major role for investors who help finance these new ways, who are anticipating the opportunities that a Green New Deal might offer. There will also be a major role for new ways of organizing ourselves for collective action. In some cases, such as the REKO Circles discussed in my last blog, you don't need investors or government to take the radical step of enabling a local food system. You just need to get organized.
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