The Battle Lines Have Been Drawn on the Green New Deal
As reported by Naomi Klein at The Intercept.
Klein provides compelling comparisons and contrasts between the New Deal of Fraklin Delano Roosevelt, and the Green New Deal of Democrats U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of NY, and U.S. Senator Ed Markey of MA:
It’s also a reminder that the New Deal was a process as much as a project, one that was constantly changing and expanding in response to social pressure from both the right and the left. For example, a program like the Civilian Conservation Corps started with 200,000 workers, but when it proved popular eventually expanded to 2 million. That’s why the fact that there are weaknesses in Ocasio-Cortez and Markey’s resolution — and there are a few — is far less compelling than the fact that it gets so much exactly right. There is plenty of time to improve and correct a Green New Deal once it starts rolling out (it needs to be more explicit about keeping carbon in the ground, for instance, and about nuclear and coal never being “clean”). But we have only one chance to get this thing charged up and moving forward.
And Klein is clear that nuclear power is a false solution to the climate crisis:
The Green New Deal will need to be subject to constant vigilance and pressure from experts who understand exactly what it will take to lower our emissions as rapidly as science demands, and from social movements that have decades of experience bearing the brunt of false climate solutions, whether nuclear power, the chimera of carbon capture and storage, or carbon offsets. (emphases added)
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