No flight out??? Yeah that's going to work.. Seems with nothing but a huge fractured field of potential candidates from the Democratic party, leaping on these idiotic proposals we can surely plan on another 4 years and plenty of Supreme Court Justices from Trump.
9
Just Outlawing Fossil-Fuel Motorized Leisure Activities Including Air Travel Will Achieve Better Results That Ripple Across the World.
The NY Times choice of photo of the new congresswoman is so obviously prejudicial, it boarders on sexist, and racist. She is bold and outspoken. That is not what the photo suggest. Does the Times have an editorial position on the substance of the proposed legislation?
5
Is it just my imagination or does the media seem to always pick unflattering photos of AOC for their articles?
As opposed to the ones they pick for articles about the beloved untouchable Ivanka Trump.
Just a thought.
8
Interesting choice of photo for Rep. Ocasio-Cortez. It could make a person suspect the Times is as threatened by her as the Republicans seem to be.
7
I've noticed that when the Times seeks to undermine ideas they use unflattering pictures. Perhaps a frivolous thing for tonight. But stop undermining this young woman! She is smart, brave and committed. A small group of smart, young and committed people made this country. Maybe she and her friends and associates can save it.
8
• ...as a blueprint for liberal ambition, it was breathtaking.
A.O.C. is 'BREATHTAKING', sorely needed and timely.
Kudos to her and Market both.
"If you give up the struggle, you give up what it's all about."
~ ROBERT MOSKOWITTZ
Contemporary U.S. painter from Brooklyn, NY.
6
Nuclear energy is not carbon free. The construction of a nuclear plant uses 400,000 cubic yards of concrete which equals over 880,000 tons of concrete which means it creates around 1,320,000 tons of CO2 just for the concrete portion of the nuclear plant (yes, concrete creates about 1.5 times its weight in CO2).
Then there's the mining and transportation needed to keep the plant going.
And we still don't have a way to store the nuclear waste.
5
The only forward-thinking people in the whole world are Progressives. Anything other than that is the status-quo which does nothing for anyone who is not a member of the 1%.
4
what a complete and utter Joke. This is pure socialism disguised as green revolution and mother earth worship.
these "goals" are not attainable in the time frame named
the people proposing this are not the best and brightest to think this will create more jobs than it will destroy is pure ignorance.
4
From my understanding, green power would eventually eliminate the high cost of 'inputs', that is, oil and gas.
Green power is not cheap to build, however, and so there are costs to bear in the near term.
But there is probably a "break-even" point in which the green power infrastructure is paid for, at which time, with the free
'inputs' of solar, wind, wave, geothermal, etc., our economy would prosper enormously.
What is not to like? How many new jobs would a serious green initiative generate? How much money would that inject into the community through 'knock-on' effects? And that is just the creation phase, in which we build out the infrastructure.
Please consider this idea seriously. It does not need endless financial inputs, as it can, and will, and currently does generate serious revenue.
9
@JRW - in much of the US, it is already less expensive to build new wind generation than to keep existing coal plants running, fueled, and haul their piles of ash away.
In Indiana one of the utilities figures customers will save $4 billion over the next two decades by replacing the coal plants with a mix of renewables, storage and efficiency.
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/environment/2018/11/02/indiana-utility-says-renewables-save-customers-4-billion-over-coal/1837469002/
7
@b fagan Thanks for that link!
And so the question remains: what are we waiting for?
2
The only way to combat climate change, and it's the ONLY way, is to stop over-populating the planet. Those most guilty are those that are polluting at the greatest rates. Now, I'm not talking just about CO2 - it's not the root cause. Cutting down forests, especially huge ancient rain forests, eliminates the Earth's natural balance with CO2. We do need CO2, by the way, as without it we are a cold wasteland. Over population dictates the destruction of forests and wet lands and habitats for millions of species.
If we all stopped driving cars today and closed all industries down that emit anything, we'd not see a change in global weather patterns. We need people to stop producing 4-8 kids in areas that cannot support the couple, much less the kids. That's not too popular with those couples, mostly because the women are not educated or permitted to work, or work at professional, life-supporting wages.
Perhaps Ms Cortez might consider education as having the ultimate impact on climate change as when women are educated, they do have fewer kids. But then, she'd still have to leave the US as extreme population growth isn't happening here - Africa, India, South America? Please, go.
2
I have always thought there was, at least, some members of the Democratic party that were reasonably smart/intelligent, however, with everyone jumping on the bandwagon driven by AOC I have been sadly misinformed.
4
On the carbon removal clause:
Wouldn't it be wiser to study the options (not only soil carbon storage), select one or more based on feasibility and effectiveness, then design, and then implement? I see no reason to jump the gun by making soil carbon the only acceptable mode unless there is a scientific consensus published somewhere suggesting that soil carbon storage is the optimal mode of Carbon Removal.
This is a key moment in the policy of Carbon Removal so please use whatever means you have to try to modify this clause to keep the door open to options that might work better.
For the Republicans and the right-leaning independents who are horrified that the Democrats come up with a plan like this, I have a question.
Where has the responsible plan to get away from carbon-emitting fuels been from your party?
I've been waiting. I'm an independent and really do prefer that national programs involve input and reasoning from both sides.
That pollution from fossil fuel extraction and use is harmful is undisputable. The GOP tries to outlaw using medical information in rule making.
That greenhouse emissions are already causing the start of what will be a long, slow, expensive raising of taxes for adapting and disaster response is also indisputable. The GOP tries to outlaw using science when assessing risk.
Stop acting like children if you don't want the Democrats to seem like the adults in the room. OK?
4
This is extraordinary journalism. I hope Times readers also avail themselves of other news sources because a lot of the reaction (and words like "zany") have been inspired by the fact sheet posted by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, and later withdrawn.
The fact sheet gets no mention in this article, so readers miss such gems as:
"build out high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary..."
No air travel? It's a long way to Tipperary! Also from LA to the greatest city in the world. That no air travel aspiration was also alluded to earlier when the scope of the plan was discussed:
"We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast..."
Senator Hirono, Democrat from Hawaii, expressed skepticism about the rail link to Hawaii. That reaction will mystify folks who think the Times is actually covering this story.
Banning nuclear is discussed; carbon capture technology is poo-poohed as "not proven"; we are told the Fed can finance this by buying green loans the way they buy Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities; we are assured the plan will provide economic security for those "unable or unwilling to work"; we learn a lot, actually, about how carefully this was pulled together.
And I guess we learn a bit about modern journalism.
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5729035/Green-New-Deal-FAQ.pdf
9
@Tom Maguire I fear majority of those commenting have not actually read the Fact Sheet document. Many of the point laid out are not only economically infeasible but physically and logistically infeasible. You can't produce the steel for the new high speed railroads without fossil fuels. Retrofitting every home and building by 2030 would require over 13,000 buildings being completed every day for 10 years. Also the environmental plan includes non-environmental related proposals like guaranteed wages for those "unwilling to work".
7
At the very least, I’d like to see Rep. Markey and Ocasio-Cortez supply a full project plan for the renewable energy portion of the Green New Deal. Timelines, schedules, costs, resources needed, metrics.
5
I think this idea is long overdue. Unfortunately, it won't stand much of a chance even after inauguration day in 2021 when democrats have the WH and both houses of congress. Too many established politicians are addicted to energy industry funding. Until Citizens United is overturned and elections are publicly funded, no big progressive initiatives can be pushed forward. Also, much of the country is moving in the other direction with GM and Ford cancelling sedan production next year. Too many people want gas-guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks.
1
No phone, no light, no motorcar. Not a single luxury. Like Robinson Crusoe, it's primitive as can be.
5
@Karl -
Tell that to the people who are replacing their BMWs and other luxury cars with Teslas.
Tell the people who will be buying the all-electric Rivian pickup.
https://electrek.co/2018/11/29/rivian-r1t-electric-pickup-truck-order/
Tell people they shouldn't buy homes that use extremely little to no energy for heating and cooling.
https://zeroenergyproject.org/2018/07/20/passive-house-busts-high-cost-myth-2/
Tell us all who are saving a lot on electric bills just by buying LED bulbs that last for years and years.
Tell people around the world who, because cell phones can be charged by solar, have phones now without the expensive infrastructure.
The way out of this mess we've gotten ourselves into is forward and smarter, not backwards like you doomsters present it.
3
Part 3: Moreover, the House Climate Panel Democrats received nearly $200,000 In fossil fuel industry donations.
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5c5c66cbe4b0d073e704216a/amp
Yes, she's initiating much-needed changes (albeit some of which she knows will not pass, or be considered by, the Senate)...but cool applause at SOTU is not enough.
I am a Progressive...but even more, I despise disingenuous rhetoric from those on the Left who themselves claim to be against it.
3
After two years of regressive, foolhardy policies undermining efforts to leave our children a livable planet, the Green New Deal is truly inspirational. The proposal is bold, urgent and shows the kind of leadership that I can line up behind and support all the way. To legislators I’d say, get behind this agenda or you will only demonstrate your political obsolescence and be voted out. And as a bonus, it would be nice to have people around the world hear the good news — that America can once again be counted on to be responsible and lead intelligently. Thank you Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Edward Markey.
2
ALL the predictions of ALL the models released by the IPCC in the 1990s regarding the scale of temperature rise have failed to materialise. OK, we started from an uncomfortably high level anyway, and there has been warming of a fraction of a degree Celsius [on a GLOBAL average] but this FACT has been a gift for the AGW deniers. Manna from heaven.
It means we cannot panic and legitimately 'change the world' as yet. It may well turn out that the failure of the predictions to fully materialise is just as random as the complex whole that makes up 'world weather', In which case we will shortly see a the alarming uptick in average global temperatures that will finally convince everybody to act.
The deniers are right about one thing: AGW and 'climate change' has been venally used to advance intrusive governmental control on the individual / increase a whole range of individual taxes, and often in ways that will make virtually no difference to CO2 emissions. Air Passenger Duty in the UK being a particularly egregious example.
People resent stupid taxes and laws. We first need more evidence that AGW/climate change is a civilisation threatening issue, and then we need people other than AOC to suggest a solution. The New Green Deal is so naive, its shocking. AOC is a frenzied zealot, drunk on the attention and without an ounce of the insight needed to work out a viable or practical solution. Anyone can paint a picture of Nirvana: only the immature believe it's achievable.
4
@Ex NHS Surgeon - Your evidence-free hyperventilation is noted. It's untrue, but it's noted. There. Have a nice weekend.
“The socialist Democrats are off to a great start with the roll out of their ridiculous Green New Deal today!” said Bob Salera, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the political arm of House Republicans, who called the idea “zany.”
Hmmm. Zany to me is spending over $750 billion on defense. Or turning a completely blind eye to how we are continuing to pollute our oceans and our planet.
Or how about looking the other way as Miami and New York City begin to sink beneath the sea as the ice caps melt at a record pace.
Or any of Donald Trump's Tweets.
But calling a plan to get a handle on energy efficiency and encourage more practical mass transit zany? THAT'S zany!
4
@Len I might suggest you're missing the point. The proposal is not zany for suggesting energy efficiency proposals. It's zany because it explicitly calls for Nationalization of entire sectors of the US economy, and the implementation of a 100% Socialist economy. Not to mention to costs of these proposals would make today's $20 trillion National debt look like peanuts.
5
@Phil - the link is in the first two words in the second paragraph. Please show us the page number/line numbers where 100% nationalization or 100% socialism is given.
Texas has gone from basically no wind energy 20 years ago to producing more wind power than any state. Texas now gets 16% or more of it's massive electricity consumption from wind and solar.
https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=TX#tabs-4
Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa - all over 30% of their electricity from wind. The Dakotas are nearing 20%.
https://www.awea.org/resources/fact-sheets/state-facts-sheets
Is there a wave of socialism in the Plains we've been missing? Or are they realizing wind leases help their residents and rural counties, and that wind won't spill on farmland or rivers.
Maybe they just do it because it's cheaper than coal, doesn't need water like fracking, and it attracts investments like the data centers going up near wind farms.
You know, a bunch of capitalist, profit-driven behavior.
3
I love the idea of a green no deal, but the current proposals ignore one of the biggest tools in the tool box for dealing with climate. change: regenerative agriculture.
According to Nobel prize-winning soil scientist Rattan Lal, if only 2% of the world’s arable land were returned to organic, we could offset 100% of greenhouse gas emissions entering the atmosphere. Beyond 2%, we start to REVERSE global warming.
I'm all for renewable energy, but we need to return to organic agriculture in order to sequester the excess carbon currently overheating the planet.
2
This is a proposal that calls explicitly calls for Nationalization of the entire energy sector, as well as healthcare and banking, and people are still willing to support this in the name of "saving the planet"? Does this base really support proposals to implement outright Socialism in this country?
6
If not now, when?
When we sent a man into space (and all the fuel used for it), it was not so simple and a lot scarier than the made for tv version. And all the technologies for the Green New Deal are here.
America led with Obama's vision and hard work, and we must do so again before it all goes slip slidin' away.
And speaking of Obama: a gentleman and scholar; not like the goons there now who have a contract on America.
38
How is this anything but... bizarre theater? We emit 15% of CO2; China 30%; the rest of the world the other 55%.
Has anyone bothered to tell Democrats that unless we can convince the rest of the world to do the same this is going to do have barely any net effect?
At this point there is so little common sense in this country I am beginning to think I should be president. The fact that most if not all of the major Democratic candidates have endorsed this is terrifying.
4
@John - the rest of the world IS acting. China passed the USA in installations of wind turbines a few years ago. They're controlling the exploding global market for solar.
By the way, China emits 27%, not 30%. A lot of that is making stuff that we and the EU outsourced, so we have to admit responsibility for some of their emissions. And they only passed us about a decade ago.
http://www.globalcarbonatlas.org/en/CO2-emissions
India has been cancelling planned coal plants in favor of solar, because it's cheaper and their energy security is improved.
Why do so many people go wah-wah-wah about the rest of the world when the weeping and crying means we're stepping back from a chance to lead in the energy and manufacturing markets that will define the rest of this century? We've got the best R&D capabilities anywhere, we've got the third biggest population, we're energy hogs but our EnergyStar and fleet mileage targets save us money. Why fight that?
2
These kinds of fantasies are not helpful and are a wasted opportunity to position Democrat ideas as a sensible alternative to current policies.
At this early part of her political career, Cortez should do more listening and learning.
5
@Gofry Nationalizing the entire energy and healtcare sector is a fantasy? Socialism is a fantasy? I think it's time you check your privilege.
While the GND may be sweeping and overly ambitious without a lot of specifics, it gets major ideas and consensus out there that Congress has been avoiding or lax on for years. I love AOC’s and Markey’s enthusiasm and willingness to tackle lofty ideals and I applaud them. You’ve got to start somewhere.
I am really offended by the congressional GOP’s reaction to fellow legislators rolling up their sleeves to get something done. “The socialist Democrats are off to a great start with the roll out of their ridiculous Green New Deal today!” said Bob Salera, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the political arm of House Republicans, who called the idea “zany.”
We have come to this juncture where it is acceptable and almost de rigueur to openly mock colleagues’ ideas with derisive rhetoric if it comes from the opposing party. Absolutely nothing gets done in the name of progress when hungry partisans seize on the messenger and not the message. This is where we are folks, we need to change — and fast!
1
Like many readers I also have issues with some of the specifics of the GND. However, as AOC has said in response to her critics over prior misstatements, she said she is willing to correct mistakes and to look at the overall intent of her message. Fair enough, to a point. The overall intent of the GND is right: economic and climate justice. I support that. Details can be worked out.
Climate change is increasingly evident in many places in the world. Last year the city that I live in experienced the most snow on the ground at one time ever in the city's history. We then experienced the highest temperature ever recorded here in the summer. A few months later we had 42 cm snowfall in October.
My concern is placing a time frame for achieving a "green world". We have many examples of where technology is headed but we don't yet have solutions that are practical and affordable. We see exciting possibilities but not so many possibilities that are able to change the way we live significantly - yet.
Like all innovation in human history it takes many curious people to be seeking better ways for us to live. Bringing ideas to fruition is more complex than we realize when we look at a product and not think what it took to get it to where it is available for use and purchase.
I would rather that we have wide acceptance that they way we live must change and then support those people and businesses to develop world changing products.
We don't have that yet although it is evolving. Timelines are a distraction and disappointing when not achieved.
California passed a law mandating solar installations on new residential buildings. That is the kind of public policy that will move the nation forward and provide a model for other states and nations. I applaud the "Green Dream". Change begins with envisioning it. This is essential. It's time to be unabashedly bold and take action!
3
I understand why Pelosi is wary, but I think this is the future of the Democratic Party. It's visionary. It's exciting. It doesn't have a chance right now, but that's not the point. Wait a few years and this will be very much in the mainstream. It'll just be a question of which details get enacted first.
2
Kind of reminds me of the Sierra Club, initially formed to be a private adjunct to support our National Parks and wilderness areas veering off into "Social Justice" initiatives.
Still gonna gas up the Jet skis in the Summer. Won't be alone.
3
The GOP is completely out of touch with reality. Local and state governments, businesses, even the US military have realized the urgency of action on climate change and have begun to act. This resolution is not radical but what almost everyone knows we need to do. If republicans in Congress really care about the future of this country, they will get on board.
3
It's a sad commentary on the Republican Party and our current political situation when a bill that will create jobs, improve infrastructure, and help improve the future of the planet is considered "zany."
3
It is good to have a vision and a sense of direction with a dose of reality. If getting rid of fossil fuels was technically easy and profitable, it would have been done already a long time ago. If we can build an electrical (or other green technology) car or truck that performs the same or better than an existing fossil fuel car or truck and costs half the price, we would be done with this discussion. Elan Musk is trying with Tesla and it has not been a slam dunk. The Obama administration gave billions of dollars to green projects, not much came out of it. China with its centralized authoritarian government (which can impose anything on its citizens) and newly acquired technology capabilities cannot get rid of fossil fuels in the near future. Moving away from fossil fuels is a must simply because the supply is not infinite. At some point in time we will run out of fossil fuels. So we need to prepare. But scientist are too busy sounding the alarm (because the political elite class gives them money for it by funding study after study) but not finding practical solutions by advancing technologies. And politicians want to sound the alarm because like any sales person, if you scare your customer, the sale would be easier (e.g., you will kill your family if you don’t fix this in your car, your house will blow up if you don’t buy this for your house, etc.). So what are these politicians trying to sell us? Read the NGD carefully and you will find out.
5
I can get behind this 100%. High speed rail, green jobs reminiscent of the Civilian Conservation Corp of old, renewable energy...
The one sentence in this article I take issue with is
""Instead the resolution calls for generating all electricity through renewable sources like wind and solar within 10 years, eliminating greenhouse emissions in manufacturing and forestry “as much as is technologically feasible,” and re-engineering cars and trucks to end climate pollution.""
As a forester, I recognize trees as an undisputable renewable resource, sequestering carbon with good forestry practices, creating jobs that do not get any "greener", allowing for biomass as a producer of heat and potential electricity through low-grade forest products harvesting, and conserving land through a working landscape to curb development. I can only hope that a green new deal embraces good forest management as a tool for progress.
Senator Markey responded to a question about its cost by pointing out that not addressing climate change would cost 10s of trillions of $$ and that is the point; the disasters, in lives, property and resources, would be unthinkable. There is a reason people pay their required taxes, get their teeth cleaned and have health screenings.
1
Why do you say "formally"? Does Steve King speak "formally" for the GOP?
I wasn't sure what to think about this Green New Deal, but then I saw Fox News trying to slam it hard all day long. So now I know it's a good idea, and I'm all for it
1
That may be a good first reaction but we should all educate ourselves about what is in it before making such a transformational decision. This would be a radical transformation of the US society and way of living worth studying first before supporting.
3
@Joe
Brilliant!
Push this hard enough and there will be four more years of Donald Trump.
11
AOC is a joke. The GND is another joke.
Please keep giving AOC the microphone and Trump’s re-election will be almost guaranteed.
15
Everyone can do something! Together we can make a difference, little by little:
1. Never sit in a car with the engine running.
2. Bring your own bags to the grocery store.
3. Walk the neighborhood with a bag, and pick up those cans,
straws, bottles, plastic wrappers, etc.
4. Car pool.
5. VOTE IN 2020! Get the Earth-killing Greedy Old Party
politicians out of office!
2
This is a hoot...
For Pelosi, it must be like having one more grandchild...
For clarity, that’s meant as high compliment to them both...
Pelosi’s shot off the charts for me in the past several months, as a sane – and yes, relatively, speaking – centrist presence in the Deep Swamp...
And - there’s nothing in AOC’s GND that isn’t already being tried out in California...
Since starting to take everything she says – like everything Trump says – metaphorically, am totally enjoying the game from up here in the cheap seats...
PS
AOC – or Saikat, actually...
There’s actually a sane path for a good deal of what you folks are trying to do...
Just look at what China’s been doing for the past five years at nation-scale – for any of several topics – and you’ll be thinking in the right general direction...
3
The Republicans won’t be in power for ever. These planet-saving measures can be pushed through at that time. The “only” problem? The earth might just be too sick to make a full recovery.
3
Dear AOC: Slow down, listen and learn. Promote your positions when you have a modicum of experience. Listen and EARN Pelosi's respect.
7
OMG the Democratic Party has a pulse!
Bold, bright ideas that offer hope and prosperity and a future for our children and the planet
Question: What else do you have Ms. AOC?
5
Yes!! It about time we have a 29 year old tell us all what we should do.
8
Kennedy said we could get to the moon. Now Democrats are saying we can save the earth. Vision. Leadership. Purpose.
6
There is certainly room in Congress for broad, forward-thinking proposals which embody our values and affirm our intention to bring them into the future. Meeting such measures with derision is a purely political and singularly unhelpful response. Beyond repealing, dismantling, destroying and undoing the hard work of others, the Republicans have offered no coherent picture of the future they'd like to create. Scoffing at others' bold and creative ideas only highlights the paucity of their own engagement with the future of our nation.
1
My goodness - most of these ideas are downright frightening.
The young and uneducated are obviously ignorant of the profound harm society has repeatedly endured in the name of these collectivist ideas.
19
Echoes of Hugo Chavez?
So reminiscent of the grand plans of the command eco knows of Maoist China and five year plans of Russia.
Those did not turn out well.
Economic history is clear. Big government leads to:
big corruption,
big power grabs,
big bureaucratic fiefdoms,
less economic incentives for entrepreneurs
Misallocation of resources
Inefficiency
Disaster
Let’s be clear. Please read your history of such grand experiment. The latest being the rapid and horrific decline to starvation in Venezuela
12
I called my representative and my two senators today in support of the Green New Deal. Have you yet?
"Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors." - Jonas Salk
3
One thing is for sure: every lazy slob that is ‘unwilling’ to work will be very supportive of this plan and the economic security that it promises them.
11
Dead on arrival. This is political kabuki theater by hopelessly naive politicians and those riding their coat tails.
13
What great campaign fodder for the 2020 cycle. President Trump will Drive these absurdities into the soul of whomever the Democrat nominee might be.
The Democrats have revealed the underbelly of their base and America will not like it.
Agrees generally, also, with their unwillingness to govern responsibly; from holding up hundreds of administration appoints with a Senate slow down to the Kavanaugh spectacle to the ridiculous position of the Speaker and Senate leader on border security.....they just cannot govern responsibly; they play to the excited base dujour; to now touting pipe-dream fundamentally absurd policies.
6
Thankyou AOC for giving it a good push.
People will mock this initiative but will not come up with another competing one. Sound familiar? Just like the response to the ACA? People in glass houses should not throw stones.
3
It is time for sponsors of such initiatives to embrace the cost and support tax increases where necessary to save the planet. Don't let global warming deniers and Republican oligarchs control the story by dismissing because it will raise taxes. Of course it will raise taxes and it is well worth spending money to ensure the future of our grandchildren. Republicans whose sole goal in life is to die rich make me sick.
2
Laudable goals. However, instead of scientists, they might want to get some engineers to comment on the real world practicalities of trying to pull this off in a mere ten years. Ain't gonna happen.
3
I'll believe in the Democrats' "green" anything when Bernie Sanders publicly renounces his massive financial support from BP. And only then.
3
Finally, someone with a vision! Have any of the naysayers here actually bothered to read the document? Most of it is “moderate” and much of it is fairly modest. It also leaves out some details (my only critique, but it’s just a resolution not a law). A green economy could create an economic renaissance and period of high growth. Yes, there may be winners and losers. But let’s be honest: the reason why some people oppose it is not because it’s impractical, unrealistic or would cost too much. The real reason is that they fear that they would be one of the losers. Of course, we can and should offer support to those who cannot easily adapt to the new economy (e.g. 50 year-old coal miners). Others, however, need to be nimble enough to adapt. I thought that’s what capitalism was all about? People, get your heads out of the sand. It’s usually more comfortable to proactively embrace change than it is to wait until it’s thrust upon you.
2
Capitalism is about free markets with a light touch of government regulation. Heavy handing government intervention in the market is socialism, communism, fascism. If wind generation technology were really cheap compared to fossil fuels, we would be done with this discussion.
3
While I endorse AOC's instincts and gut level action. I would like to read in NYT the current state of the science and methods for managing or reversing the climate change.
This should include a focus on biofuels for transportation (not etOH from corn), ocean fertility to increase photosynthesis and large scale storage of renewable electricity.
There is currently a focus on the politics and the science needs to be on center stage.
3
It's sadly obvious that environmental education is woefully lacking in our schools.
2
AOC hasn't yet understood why this is politically impossible.
We desperately need more people who think like her in Congress.
Because we've seen what happens when we limit ourselves to what's possible, and it's not pretty ...
This week, she and Stacey Abrams provided great examples of what we have been missing out on by filling our legislatures with old white men ...
2
Ideally, we should use only solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear power.
2
People who talk about "green" have no idea how much energy it takes to start up this nation every day. They also lack understanding regarding the condition of the grid, it's vulnerability to hacking or an EMP (be it from nature or man-made) and the subsequent repercussions. Without a secure grid, this nation has the potential to fall within days back into the 1800s. Money should be first invested in the grid before electric cars and PV.
6
Would be nice to see how the new union jobs are created. Especially after you wipe out the Coal mines, Natural Gas and Petroleum sectors. That would include the railroads, trucking industry, piping manufacturers, equipment manufacturers, and any other support industries.
Of course, the wind turbines are all supported by tax as they are not viable without them. The loss of revenue by these many industries via the various taxes would be quite a number to add up.
Any thoughts how that would be replaced?
4
Bold ideas from new perspective are needed. I like AOC boldness. The resolution is open enough to start good negotiations and conversation. It also impacts Dems presidential candidates, whom are very smart and already pointed to the potential negotiations this resolution can take. However, I compel ms. Ocasio to look at the bigger picture when starting negotiations for this resolution: the election of 2020.
1
I'm a moderate democrat and this plan is a sop. I've done a lot of reading on climate warming. It's probably too late to avoid some disastrous consequences of our past and on-going carbon and methane emissions. We're facing our own extinction along with most species----and we can't deal with this SPECIES emergency by keeping people comfortable and happy. Politicians of all parties need to get serious. And people opposing nuclear (as this plan does) need to read up on thorium nuclear.
4
So it's interesting and welcome, BUT… it sounds a bit hurriedly written (the Times mentions nuclear power was to be phased out in an earlier version), and a real hotch-potch of off-topic ideas in places, there's mention of collective bargaining, wage standardisation, affordable housing, retirement security, healthcare - how many more tricky policy areas do you want to throw in, isn't climate change complicated enough?
My impression is they've underestimated how tricky it's going to be to fight fossil fuels, or if not that, they don't see the benefit of trying to do things in smaller more manageable steps and getting people on board (what Obama always used to say about being willing to move the ball forward even if you don't score a touchdown every time).
My other problem is that Ocasio-Cortez continues (imho) to come across as rather arrogant, especially not showing the thing to Pelosi first, and by turning down the offer of joining the climate committee - is she not willing to work as a team? Does she think she knows better than everybody else?
The Climate Crisis Committee *does* sound like it could do with power, but also what I think we need, globally, are specific targets from the bottom up where people can point to the research to prove they'd be achievable, not aspirational stuff.
5
Any serious proposals on carbon reduction need to include nuclear power as a viable form of energy for the future. It’s safe, proven technology that’s been around for a long time.
7
@Truth Teller -- carbon tax and repeal all other energy subsidies, let the market decide. That includes repealing Price-Anderson.
Why are clean air, clean water, energy efficiency and climate change "liberal" issues? These things impact all of us. Perhaps all these things would have greater acceptance if we labelled them as American instead of liberal/conservative.
8
Our Air Force and Navy jet fighters can't fly on electricity. The most powerful air umbrella in the world will be grounded if this "all renewable energy" plan is adopted.
We will have lost the Third World War and our freedom to China without a shot having been fired.
7
What people fail to understand is that an economy largely reliant on Solar Technology will eventually outsource America’s energy supply to China. While we will trumpet the elimination/reduction of Carbon Emissions the environmental impact of actually producing Solar Panels will be deemed dangerous and unacceptable - rare earth minerals, the chemical process, etc. China who touts concerns about the Environment but who’s practice falls far short of that will gladly produce the panels. 10 Years into this China will control our Energy Supply Chain.
2
@Martin -- no rare-earth metals are used in any of the various solar-cell technologies -- you are confusing solar cells with permanent-magnet motors.
The rest of your claims make comparable sense.
Moving to electric cars by 2030 is another proposal I have seen. The technology is moving in that direction and with a gov't mandate this could make the venture profitable. One would have thought with end of the Bush/Cheney Administration the country would have had enough of the Oil industry calling the energy policy for the country. But with Trump they have come back with their lobbyist driven efforts to keep auto companies from raising car fuel efficiency and lowering fuel emission pollution. Their anti climate change propaganda is appalling. The New Green Deal is going to have to go against powerful entrenched forces in the Senate. The main block is Trump who has to be defeated in 2020.
3
The Green New Deal, as it is being presented, will not ever be even considered, let alone brought to a vote. Ms. Cortez and Mr. Markey are over the top with their 'demands' - once called pipe dreams. It demonstrates how green the new Liberal Democrats are. A nationwide system in the largest Capitalist country in the world cannot, and will not, eliminate its carbon emissions in 10 years or at all. So the Democrats will lose this one. And should they present a National Health Care system with the same 'green' vigor, they will lose that one also. We the people must learn to take baby steps, must hope for the 'giants' to walk along side. There's not any other way. Ms. Pelosi is correct in not bringing the measure to a vote. Freshman Representatives think they can rise to the top 'law maker' by using the old tricks - scream the impossible dreams. In this case they fall on the deaf ears of the far more powerful Capitalist American industry. Keep in mind dear freshman, the senior class sits in the Senate. You haven't a chance.
10
We have been taking baby steps for decades, and what good has it done for us? Climate change is an existential threat that needs to be addressed now, there is no time for incrementalism and baby steps. The same goes for health care. When tens of thousands of Americans die or go bankrupt every year, because they can't afford basic medical care due to lack of adequate coverage, this just as well needs to be considered a crisis. I'm glad, that this freshman class of Representatives is making it clear, that they are taking these pressing issues as seriously as they need to be taking, and are demonstrating, that they are not going to fall in line with the status quo incrementalism, which has dominated and plagued the Democratic party for as long I can remember.
7
This is real leadership. Who cares about the chances of adoption? This is a start toward some kind of sane future.
Outstanding!
9
@Plennie Wingo: real leadership DOES care about the chances of laws being passed and not just promoted as smoke & mirrors.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was elected in a total fluke (her opponent got lazy and never showed up to debate her or stay in touch with constituents), with incredibly low turnout (13% of registered voters in her district actually voted!). It happens, and she is legitimately in office, but to take this as a "mandate" is just ridiculous.
I believe she is starting to believe her press -- that she is the new Anointed One -- rather than keeping her head down, learning how Congress works and slowly becoming experienced and knowledgeable.
4
I’m very proud of the congressional members who have put forth the Green New Deal. It is about time!
7
GREEN NEW DEAL IS A JOBS PROGRAM
With sea levels rising, the world will be unable to avoid spending trillions of dollars on reversing carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
This 100% predictable spending will yield millions of new jobs, just as mass production absorbed the farm workers displaced by tractors at the turn of the last century.
Competition for these jobs is starting now, with China ahead of us.
We can and must win that competition and reduce our poverty rates by hosting all the new jobs needed.
Don't sell the Green New Deal as an environmental program, sell it as the jobs program it really is!
7
count me in. my children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews are all in jeopardy
8
Wow! Back to Congress doing what the people want, such as clean air and water and renewable energy, which is the wave of the future and already has more jobs than in fossil fuel--or should we just let China develop the renewable energy industry and we can buy from them, Mr. MAGA Trump?
But in no other so-called advanced nation is it "radical" to stand up for green energy and take action to address climate change (which is here already), except in GOP and Trumplandia in the U.S.
No, we march ever backwards to the dark ages of polluting coal and oil, which Trump says will make us a world leader in those fuels. Who does he think will buy smutty, sludgy, polluting fuels from us, while everyone else in the world will be using sustainable renewable energy?
And Democrats who are not on board for green energy, why not? Afraid of losing those campaign contributions from big oil? Or being trashed on Fox and by Rush for being unAmerican?
Question: How many high level Trump appointees to our government have ties to the fossil fuel industry? One article I read said about half those in the EPA appointed by Trump have ties to the oil industry.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/377348-ap-nearly-half-of-trump-epa-political-appointees-have-industry-ties
I read Gail Collins' column today about Wilbur Ross; looked him up and found he is tied to the coal industry and to Venezuelan oil.
And, to young people, Fox calling Ocasio-Cortez a "socialist" is a compliment
8
Finally. This is the future. Republicans can be derisive, but this is inevitable and it is the future.
7
A guaranteed wage for people "unwilling" to work. That is nice!!
Hey AOC, I am from Australia. So now you are banning airplane travel, and building trains across oceans, how long will the train trip take for me to go from Australia to New York? 2 weeks? 4 weeks? Let me know so I can start planning my trip to New York.
20
Funny, that. All this whining that "it'll never get through Congress" and "how do you expect Government to pay for it" and "you expect Big Government to do it all for you?"
If you bother to read the Resolution you will notice that it offers a far-reaching, inclusive and hopeful program for private investment in a new economy. Anyone with a grain of business sense would jump on it.
I'll be looking for more. Have a few bad stocks to get rid of first.
6
The Green New Deal might just be our last, best hope. Too bad our House Leader, Nancy Pelosi, isn't going to support it. But, then, she's not going to have to live through the worst of climate change, is she—she'll be long gone, by then.
1
I think Nancy Pelosi is looking to 2020 and if you read the whole article you’ll see that Democrats got slaughtered in the next election when we pressed at the wrong time for climate change work. I think Nancy Pelosi is brilliant at building support and being successful and an enormous asset for the Democratic Party and our prospects for 2020.
1
It is important in a Green New Deal Resolution to define bridges between now and the near future PLUS to define revolutionary ways to capture carbon and sequester it as the near future blends with the far future WHILE creating ways to produce energy from sustainable, very low emission fuels very cost-effectively in all corners of our planet.
In my opinion, this means being able to take the internal combustion engine and redesign it to produce electricity DIRECTLY from the internal combustion of the following succession of fuels: natural gas, propane, biogas, biofuels such as levulinic acid derived from high cellulose plants AND support the creation of biochar from the anaerobic "burn" of biomass that should include human feces processed safely into a burnable biomass. Then, an internal combustion engine burning sustainable biofuels could power (via direct flywheel connectivity) the carbon sequestration transition of human feces (or other animal feces) into a soil amendment, biochar, that could be used to bury loads of carbon while creating enriched soil for the sustainable growth of high cellulose plants that feed into the production of biofuels such as levulinic acid.
AND this means having a sustainable net negative carbon load to the atmosphere, turn feces into a soil amendment, increase productivity of the soil & the ability to very cheaply make more engine generators that generate electricity to power hinterland & all corners of the earth 3D printer productivity.
1
More evidence of what is wrong with our politics and so-called leaders. Instead of tacking the tough problems that need to be dealt with now, they chose to spend time on 'pie-in-the-sky' proposals they KNOW have zero chance of passing.
Regardless of their politics or intentions, at the end of the day 90 percent of them seem to be little more than egotists and narcissists.
9
How much is Trump paying AOC? This is, quite literally, incredible.
9
Lets try it. when we make mistakes along the way we can fix and improve.
To not try: to remain in denial and focus on profits or status quo is suicide.
6
We can and must afford the Green Deal. But watch how quickly the compromising leadership of the Democratic Party and the press will quash this movement saying it’s impractical, costs too much, and will displace too many people.
Well, they can all fiddle while the planet burns...and drowns and starves.
2
Continuing to rely on so called 'scientists' and their pronouncements that deceive and mislead our understanding of truth, the collective kumbaya of the new Democrats to rectify our biosphere's apparent imbalance of heat-trapping gasses is admirable if woefully void of the knowledge needed to understand what is actually happening.
Go to the NOAA website, the source for a majority of the false statistics that are repeated ad nauseum by every politician and people who call themselves scientists but fail to use the 'Scientific Method' to take their hypothesis and prove a theory, and you will learn the truth of the primitive protocol used to actually 'identify' nothing , but guess at what gasses are present at any point in our atmosphere.
My bet is on CH4, 86X more potent, not CO2, as the major constituent warming up our air. Of course we humans give off very little methane as a byproduct of our digestion, while most methane comes from decaying matter, and fissures in the Earth natural and man-made. But, there's no way to control methane emissions completely. So, we are told to focus on another three-atom molecule, Carbon Dioxide.
6
Isn't this racism against energy workers? Those climate "experts" hard hardly credible--many of them are university professors who want to keep their pensions, and their colossally complicated computer models are a joke. California, the Dem flagship state, is already $1 trillion in debt with unfunded pensions, so it's hardly in a position to sell junk bonds to finance various Bernie Madoff schemes to build water powered automobiles.
3
Lot of virtue signaling going on here. It reminds me of those Aaron Miller ski movies, where they say things like, "Bro, Global Warming is destroying winters." And then they take a helicopter to the top of a mountain.
You can already buy an electric car. You don't because you don't want to.
You can already live in a micro-home. Or forgo air conditioning. You don't because you don't want to.
You can already stop eating meat (huge source of pollution) you don't because you don't want to.
You can already stop flying. Or stop recreational travel. You don't because you don't want.
U.S. Geological Survey data just showed it would take 65% of US land to replace fossil fuels. Current population. 1 million immigrants per year (from low standards / emission countries to the US) makes renewables impossible. And thats with nuclear power, something the Left hates (Vermont closed their 1 plant and increased carbon pollution).
Put it this way, the carbon emissions that went into printing this childish bill will not be offset by anything actually in the bill. But, $8 gasoline will be fun.
9
Yikes. This "Green New Deal" couldn't get any more delusional than it is. There's an element of stupidity to it which actually removes its credibility. But Americans shouldn't get discouraged. We here in Canada have been dealing with lefty socialist governments with big taxation and green energy plans that have seriously damaged our economy - but thankfully, they are now being summarily rejected by all Canadians. In Ontario, the economic center of Canada, Liberals with their Green Energy Act were utterly trashed at the polls in favor of a majority Conservative government with a much better sense of economic reality. Alberta's bad experiment with a socialist NDP government is about to come to a crushing end, while Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has become the most hated PM in years and is also poised for defeat later this year. Carbon Taxes and Green Energy concepts are being rejected by Canadians clear across the country for their horrendous costs that lower peoples' standards of living.
10
After learning AOC actually grew up in Westchester instead of the Bronx as she falsely claimed, I have viewed her with suspicion. Instead of appearing in news photos with her mouth wide open all the time, maybe she should sit down and try to learn something from Nancy Pelosi and the other seasoned representatives. She still has a lot to learn at 29. I am over her.
12
IMPOSSIBLE!
The Democrats make Trump look like the reasonable guy in the room.
If you thought Trump's wall was a bad idea, AOC has got 10 worse ideas. If you thought having Mexico pay for the wall was pie in the sky, AOC has an even BETTER idea: she says deficits are irrelevant, we can just print more money!
The 2020 Presidential election is going to be one rollicking show.
12
A needed message from the Speaker -- wait your turn everyone here does -- you won't be my age for 49 years, time enough even if none of us has time forever.
1
The center left is populated by liberals whose feet are on the ground and who devise laws and programs that has a reasonable chance of being achieved and executed.
The left is populated by a bunch of screamers, typified by the ubuqitus ms Cortez, the new darling of the American media. Their ideas are outlandish in the sense that there is no way on earth that they will ever materialize in scope and time. Sheer nonsense. There is no political will available for such programs, not least because of the enormous disruptions to the economy and daily life of most people. Better spend your energies on more achievable goals.
6
A nobel cause, but that horse left the barn 200 years ago. We're not changing a planetary energy system in 12 years or 100 years. Evolve or perish.
5
@James -- that would indeed mean "perish" because "evolve" works over much longer timespans.
Energy revolutions have happened far faster than 100 years. Look at how long it took for oil and the automobile to eliminate the horse and buggy.
2
It is a mistake to tie the existential threat of climate change with social justice issues. Those that want to continue to stall on climate change solutions will have an easy time attacking this proposal. We need to put a price on carbon pollution with a singular focus. The failure of the markets to properly price fossil fuel use is why we are in this mess. Fixing that failure is the only way out.
2
Unfortunately it's a completely hollow rallying cry without specifically endorsing nuclear power.
Nuclear power is the only zero-carbon energy source which could possibly replace our vast dependence on fossil fuels, which account for 70-80% of primary energy consumption in the U.S.
The political reason that Democrats shy away from this technical reality is obvious: In the 1970s nuclear power was stopped dead in it's tracks by a group of well-meaning but ill-informed "environmental" activists. This group of hippies has aged into an incredibly wealthy and powerful Democratic voting block. While some such as Stewart Brand have reevaluated their beliefs, there has not yet been a widespread acknowledgement and atonement for the environmentally catastrophic energy landscape they built.
Today we have the precarious political situation where the Republicans don't want to address climate change (but they do generally support nuclear power) and the Democrats desperately want to avoid climate disaster (but have largely taken the only workable solution off the table). We have the truly bizarro world where politicians such as Jerry Brown here in California claim to be champions of climate change yet close nuclear power plants.
If there's a glimmer of hope it's that nuclear power offers an opportunity for bipartisan cooperation, if only we aren't too consumed with tribalism to find humility and entertain rational thought.
8
@Stephen, and same in Vermont, Democratic Governor Peter Shumlin and Democratic state legislature forced closure of Vermont Yankee, the nuclear power plant in Peter Shumlin's back-yard. Although aspects of it were at the end of its life cycle and needed serious reinvestment. But there was no encouragement for micro-nuclear or this reinvestment.
1
We are on a very slowly sinking ship. But sink it eventually will. Wildly ambitious is exactly what we need!
2
I don't have any problem spending lots of money on a climate mitigation plan, but there are some parts of this plan that seem very unserious to me.
*no nuclear power
* replace all airline travel with high speed rail
* replace or upgrade all buildings in America to make them as energy efficient as possible.
It comes off as insane. It's not even close to being economically viable in any fashion. It's from a dream world where money grows on trees.
How do they plan to "provide economic security for those who are unwilling to work" and where do I sign up?
8
Regardless of what Nancy and the establishment Democrats want or are willing to vote on, I hope the press keeps covering the issue. The NA public needs to start familiarizing itself--and preparing to consider and debate-- this Green New Deal as well as universal health care. Let Pelosi behind in history (soon she will only be good to comment gesturally on presidential state of the union addresses. Good performance, but we need to move on into substantial issues and we need good leadership. Meanwhile, we need the press to keep covering these substantial issues, not just Trump's tweets and his insubstantial and unpresidential performance. We know all that.
1
As a young voter enthusiastic about voting in my first presidential election in 2020, I say bring it on! We the people, young and old, we are ready, we must be. Let us see this through for our own future and our children’s future. We can act today and effect change that will be unreachable in but a few generations. The American dream is to be able to make your own path in life, I for one feel that I owe it to my future children to put their choices in their own hands. That means action. It means now.
2
The Green New Deal offers a promise of hope for progress. It is disheartening that the Speaker will likely not call the current measure for a vote. However, it is understandable. Let this be a first step in preparation for 2020 when Democrats hold the House, Senate, and White House, and have the power and influence to pass a more tangible measure that will alter our future with greener tides.
2
I can understand why this bill isn't going to be an easy sell even on the currently Democratic majority House floor. The article by Friedman and Thrush intimates that the bill has a proposition to create the health care and jobs by projects which convert the economy. It doesn't, it just assumes there will be enough revenue from them, with no figures.
Rather it pretty separately calls for a climate and sustainability agenda and a guaranteed jobs, mandated unions, directed at "frontline and vulnerable" populations agenda. The first is points A through D, the second, points E through O. The latter are at many points probably in need of repeal of longstanding laws or perhaps amendments to the Constitution, the former are a very general list of projects to produce sustainability, but probably not exhaustive or prioritized or ranked for impact.
Most of this bill is thus an agenda for changing the labor force, and the fact that all young people are put in with "frontline" communities to be given preference probably violates age discrimination laws, the mandating of labor unions by the federal government is probably extra-Constitutional, and so forth.
It would be nice to see a sense of the Congress supporting climate goals as clean legislation without requiring that it first adopt a full Democratic-Socialist credo. The fight over labor and profit is 150 years old and the climate can't really wait another 150 years to keep debating that, instead of immediate climate measures.
3
"The resolution has more breadth than detail and is so ambitious that Republicans greeted it with derision."
Another Starbucks civil engineering graduate--Cortez, the face of Cuba 1959--tells us what can't be had any time soon, an A-320 coast-to-coast on Tesla batteries and an L.A. lit at night entirely on Altamont wind turbines--which couldn't light a weekend Burning Man celebration, either.
It's one thing for Kennedy to say, "Man on the moon" by the end of the decade, and quite another to say, a cohort of men on the moon, something lost on liberal arts majors and DNC Politburo members, it seems. But artful bumper-sticker thinking for the Grand Collective march to 2020.
7
Well, it's not a plan, it's really more of an attempted party platform. It will be interesting to see how the horse trading goes, and it will be interesting to see if the Democrats will be smart enough to heavily publicize their attention to improving the opportunities for "declining rural populations", I think they say.
It will also be interesting to see what experts make of the following new paper: "Analysing the feasibility of powering the Americas with renewable energy and inter-regional grid interconnections by 2030"
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032118303307
Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but the shortest take on their conclusion is it's feasible, and the costs drop the more interconnected the grid is, including between North and South America (much like our Northeast imports lots of electricity from Canadian hydro already).
We need to do things and this used to be a country that was willing to think big. Our current energy infrastructure has a lot of very old components now, and a lot of our generation is past its prime, too. An energy infrastructure bill might get buy-in from both parties - a lot of the "declining rural populations" are starting to benefit now from payments they get from wind turbines.
2
@b fagan-
I took a look at the paper you referenced however once I realized it builds on work by Mark Jacobson I decided its not worth careful study.
Mark Jacobson is the Stanford University 100% renewables advocate who famously sued his academic colleagues for publishing a paper which pointed out some of the grotesque impracticalities in Jacobson’s work. At that point Jacobson lost all credibility in my mind.
1
I'd like to see Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Markey and all the resolution co-signers wear green MAGA hats to work until some actual legislation gets to the floor. This effort will do more to make America greater at home and in the eyes of the world than Trump trade deals, corporate tax cuts, regulation repeals and military spending. It will showcase our technological superiority and our "can do" spirit when confronted with a real threat to our national security.
7
Planet Earth is the greatest space ship ever invented. It has even evolved its own crew but none of us is sure what the mission is about. Until we figure that out, it behooves us to take care of our ship. We all need to behave more like the folks who crew the International space station and take care of our air, water and husband all our resources. The new generation in congress gets this and is moving in the right direction. Native Americans knew this all along and finally we are catching up.
8
Climate change is a huge issue. That's why this proposal is counter productive. It has exactly zero chance of ever passing any kind of vote. All it will do is galvanize climate deniers because of its extreme propositions. Is it too much to ask for legislators to actually try to solve problems rather than beat drums to attract attention to themselves or to attract praise from their political base?
12
The green new deal is a fantastic goal for America.
However, the MAGA crew no longer believes in science or objective facts and this will be the big obstacle to enacting these policy ideas.
5
Van Jones worked with Nancy Pelosi before and at the start of the Obama administration to enact a similar program. I wish people would remember his stalwart work. I think there was a manufactured "scandal" that was used to shut him up.
There is no depth to which the opponents of progress and survival will not go to save their profits and continue despoiling and looting our precious and unique earth.
10
Combating climate change will cost a lot now or it will cost even more later. Either way it’s going to cost money. I say pay now and let future generations reap the benefits. Isn’t that what responsible adults do?
15
That's Massachusett's lesser known senator, Ed Markey, in that picture. He is one of the unsung heroes of the long fight for climate awareness and action!
11
We can move forward with a Green Deal when we have the Choice or can move forward with it when we have no Choice, either way, the Choice is ours.
6
It is obvious that Democrats would be split deeply if this plan were to mature into legislation. No West Virginia Democrat would get within miles of this proposal. I do not see the purpose of a statement of intentions that lacks support by party leadership. The Plan is wishful thanking and divides the Democratic Party. It puts moderate Democrats into a particularly awkward position. Smart politics is the art of the possible. Why would liberals embarrass moderates and give conservatives powerful ammunition?
9
Because climate change is an immediate threat and not subject to debate any longer. The longer we wait on action there will be a point of no return.
16
@michjas - WV has two senators. One's a Democrat. They have only three members in the House. They're all Republicans. Eventually, voters there will stop grabbing the straws and accept that coal jobs are not coming back. They'll realize a job based on danger and extracting a non-renewable resource has an end point.
WV coal mining employment peaked in 1940 at over 130,000 jobs, then fell - with a brief resurgence between 1972 and 1985 - with a peak of ~63,000 jobs in 1978. Nine years later, after the coking coal (or its market) was gone, jobs fell below 30,000. Mid 1990's showed some of the peak output (mountaintop removal) with jobs under 20,000.
Those numbers are from here:
http://www.wvminesafety.org/historicprod.htm
Here's a view of coal mining jobs nationwide since 1985. It tells the same story.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES1021210001
3
Do you make more progress with a wish list that is sound but divisive or with a unifying proposal that all Democrats can get behind?
A lightning bolt of legislation that will hopefully jolt the urgency of Congress. We have no time for arguing what's already been scientifically proven. At some point this legislation will be inevitably passed as humanity will begin to suffer more extreme effects of climate change. But let us hope that we can be audacious enough to commit to scientific fact and sirze the moment for a sustainable future and planet.
8
If the wealthy were taxed at 70% plus the way they used to be then we could accomplish all this and more.
9
@Itsnotrocketscience
According to economists, taxing the most productive in society is just a stop gap measure and labor participation would still be shut out of the picture. The rules of the game have protected their patents from theft while ignoring the loss of power of labor unions and jobs. It is better to expand good paying jobs while encouraging innovation thru R&D tax breaks, investing in education and trade that adds to growth development and productivity. An incentive to stagnating working class in the global technology transformation is artificial intelligence where new growth is less dependent on capital investment.
2
And even if the Green New Deal is completely successful we still won’t have addressed the ongoing 6th Mass Extinction crisis nor the overuse by humans of the resources we need to sustain our current global populations. The Green New Deal is step one.
I want our species to survive and to be able to maintain the high quality of life many of us are able to access. This won’t be possible if we don’t start paying attention to scientists basing their analyses on data rather than people playing scientist but actually being well payed mouthpieces for political organizations.
6
The call for ‘Green New Deal’ is a proof of shortsightedness of the radical socialist Democrats, like Ocasio-Cortez, who do not understand that the only realistic way to counteract the climate warming is to be able to harness solar energy. Nothing short of massive investments in solar energy utilization, and immediately, will reverse the trend that has been accelerating for the last 250 years.
2
@Tuvw Xyz - did you see anything in the linked bill that specifically said "except we won't use solar"? We need solar, we need wind, we need to keep our well-run nukes running as long as we can, we need efficiency, we need lots of things.
I am so proud of my Congresswoman.
15
We see the pics of people in Asia, wearing the white face masks while outside. The doctors there say pink lungs are a rarity.
Do we get the message?
Either we clean up our act and support this Green New Deal, or
we live like them, with white masks, and with not pink lungs.
7
@New World
Do you think pollution stays in China and doesn't travel you are mistaken.
1
What disaster will have to befall us before all the folks who say we can’t afford this finally see that we can’t afford not to?
7
@unreceivedogma,
"This" is a plan that spends more time on wages and labor than on climate change, proposing that a new class of people be added for a guaranteed union job initiative that includes a bias towards younger workers. Very little of the proposal is climate initiatives, and most of it is labor initiatives.
Climate change will require money being spent, it won't cause a miracle boom that will lift all boats magically. And that requires that somebody hardnosed in each sector dig in and come up with a plan for their sector that will work, and tell us what the price tag will be. And then the national resolve to meet that price tag.
I'm so sick of this sales pitch that says that we can reverse 440ppm CO2 at a grand, bountiful profit. There is hardship moving away from a consumer economy, there is hardship moving away from a natalist population philosophy, there is already hardship in the world's 70 million forcibly displaced that brings ours and other political systems almost to their knees or invites cruelty and backdoor anti-human rights agendas.
Maturity comes with knowing that not every choice for the good of the country and the world will be mystically painless and bright. The Arctic ice is irretrievably weakened, the Tibetan plateau is nearing that point, the sea level is rising and population is going to 9 billion. Just between those four, there is hardship and famine and permanent weather pattern change.
There is no jobs program that will stop that now.
2
What a pipe dream. Maybe people should read the document as many European countries have proposed these schemes before before they crashed and burned.
But making decisions with no figures, no mention of costs or on how we would actually do it, in effect signing a blank check that could hurt the taxpayer but also many industries on which people depend, that is stupid (including from an electoral standpoint). What if we still haven’t figured out how to run a 100% renewable grid or produce competitive electric trucks (or even electric cars) by then? Do we just pay whatever it costs to reach the goal?
What we need from the Democrats (and the Republicans for that matter) is the pragmatism and expertise to create well-elaborated plans to reach objectives people can agree on, not to sign on well-intentioned programs that anyone could have invented, and “we’ll figure out the details later”.
16
Hillary did propose elaborately researched proposals on key issues we face. She was beaten by build the wall, lock her up and drain the swamp. What we want and what we respond to are two different things
Continues N YTimes war against Dem populists; if we can't inspire inreaders fear and loathing of the progressive wave as represented by freshman Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with mere words, let's post a photo-op to show what a strident character she is.
2
They can't move this front and center fast enough for me. This IS our moon shot.
7
If you look around whatever room you're in while reading this (not forgetting to glance at the device on which you're reading it), a vast majority of the items within your view are completely made of, largely made of, partially made of, or varnished with -- plastic.
Where do you think plastic comes from? Magic-ville? If we go back to the pre-plastic era, we'll once again deforest the earth; AOC's high-speed rail will have to be constructed of wood and metal, and operate without computers (which have a lot of petrol-based products within them); recycling bins supplied by cities would have to be replaced by tin or steel or wood-- the materials for which don't just appear without some fossil-fuel consuming machine fabricating them-- household items? Tools? Tires? Shoes? Electrical insulation? Clothes? Braces? Prosthetics? Heart stents? Eyeglasses? Centrifuges?
These things aren't made of bark or stone.
The astonishing naivete embraced within her manifesto and supported on these digital pages -- which are largely made of plastic -- is alarming.
Walk to work in a hand-grown hemp sack, don't use a computer or anything with plastic in it, and see how it goes.
Loons, the lot of you.
21
@Jake Cashill - Plastics are carbon chains. You need energy, catalysts, source of carbon. CO and CO2 are sources of carbon. Thinking this can't happen (because it has to) when talking about depending on a non-renewable resource is like saying "well, say goodbye to indoor lighting if we stop extracting oil from whales".
"From monomers to polymers from renewable resources: Recent advances"
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.progpolymsci.2014.11.002
"Recent progress in carbon dioxide (CO2) as feedstock for sustainable materials development: Co-polymers and polymer blends"
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032386118303872
"Turning carbon dioxide into fuel and useful chemicals"
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171127173225.htm
3
You bring up a good point: plastic is not a sustainable material. It lasts much longer than it's useful life, and doesn't recycle well. Do you really think, with all the chemistry wizardry in this country, we can't invent alternatives for 90% of it? Materials that biodegrade, or when needed, can be fully recycled? Can we at least make an attempt? It's crazy, people have been so cowed by corporate interests into thinking there are no alternatives, that we should give up before we've even tried. Look at everything we've invented so far! Can we at least look at the problem head-on and brainstorm?
2
@Jake Cashill "civilization" was sold a bill of goods that was a recipe for disaster. We can do better. We will do better. We need to do better.
This is needed. But we need Democrats in control of the Senate and the White House, as well as the House of Representatives, for this to actually happen.
We also need something like an Enlightenment New Deal. What is that, and why? Consistently around 40% of the electorate supports Republicanism and Trump. There is no good reason for any support for this anti-democratic, authoritarian, nascent fascist faction. We need an Enlightenment New Deal to combat the (at best) passionate ignorance behind Republican support, to save ourselves from the destructive gravitational pull of this American darkness.
4
"Nays" on this will be a list of shame.
2
It's inspiring to see the enthusiasm of the first term Senators and Representatives in Congress! They've brought their ideals & ideas to DC and I'm hopeful once again for the future of our country.
3
NYT asleep at this wheel.
Very young AMERICAN adults are devoting tons of time to the Green Deal drive, and that needs far more recognition than this backroom tabloid version of these developments. Where is a quote from some of the youth and young adults? huh? Spotlight young Americans on this issue, it is their planet now.
4
I love the new green deal. And I love Ocasio-Cortez. Nancy Pelosi needs to bring this up for a vote ASAP, because it will be one more nail that the socialists are putting in the coffin of the democrat party.
7
Do we have a choice...! Great plan; it about time bullet trains replace the air shuttles on most corridors.
2
High time that people have sensible solutions to the global warming Crisis and the US having been a top polluter should take an active role in redeeming itself .
3
I don’t see how this does anything about China or India. Pain should be shared.
6
Green Peace has in attempting to take over the Democratic Party. Green Peace wants to do right by the planet. Not necessarily it's people. I await AOC's announcement to reduce the world's population to 10 million. That's doable in ten years too.
6
Millennial Democrats will be the death of the party. Pie in the sky party. All flash with no substance. How will they pay for Medicare for all, green jobs for everyone, healthcare for everyone - the list goes on.
It's a shame that Markey, one of the most intelligent and and disciplined Democrat would help design this proposal, that is unrealistic and doesn't even follow the recommendations of the IPCC.
13
Taxes on billionaires who have devastated this country with keeping their money and disabling progress
@David:
The shame is that Trump and the GOP gave away ~ $2 trillion in tax money to those who don't need it and are extremely unwilling to share.
This isn't leadership. It is mere noise - a 29 year old idealist pandering to her constituency. This is what happens when your thought leader is a 29 year old who is long on emotion and idealism, but woefully short on experience and, for that matter, a practical and working knowledge of the subject.
You can call it climate change, pollution, a wonton disregard for scarce and wasting natural resources, whatever you would like; it is a very real and serious problem which needs to be addressed, but unrealistic, fantastical, demagogic and hair brained stuff like this serves no better purpose than Trump's denial strategy.
The very idea that you are going to come up with some utopian "green deal" that serves as a panacea for everything that ails us - unemployment, pollution, guaranteed health care, family & medical leaves, paid vacations,retirement security, yada, yada, yada...is NUTS! Pelosi isn't going to touch it because she is a seasoned veteran who knows that it is nuts.
I loved the expansion of high speed rail idea as a way to render air travel obsolete. All you need to look at Amtrak or that $9 billion (and growing) high speed rail boondoggle that the democrats pushed through in California to realize that isn't going to work. Never mind that more than a million people work for the domestic airline industry and they haul over 700 million passengers a year, more than 20x what Amtrak does. A 48 yr old quasi-government operation that they have never been able to get right
16
With it or without, the human species will adapt and survive.
1
@KBronson:
How's it going down there in New Orleans?
YES!
I have been fighting for the Clean Energy Revolution ever since Al Gore won the popular vote.
We’re long overdue, the science is simple & the upsides are tremendous.
7
I am all for clean energy. Climate change is real and it’s happening. This plan, though is nuts! To seriously address the climate issue, we must include nuclear in a big way. The emphasis on jobs in the renewable energy sector is misplaced. The purpose of energy sector is not to employ people within it, but to provide a commodity at a price other industries can profitably use and thereby provide employment for many.
3
They foolishly really believe that “We will save all of creation by engaging in massive job creation.”
But the truth is that all the expense and reduction in standard of living will not accomplish a thing to halt global warming because China will soon be causing global warming all by itself, even if every American were killed off.
Defenders of the China socialist dictatorship tell us of the wonderful green projects in China. But even with them, China continues to substantially increase its emissions, and plans to keep increasing its emissions for 11 more years until 2030 with world approval stupidly given in the Paris Climate Accord. The Paris Accord thus assures that China will cause global warming all by itself, regardless what the rest of the world does.
The West leading by example does not work with China. We have been leading by example to China in a myriad of ways since Clinton, especially under Obama. During that time, China surpassed the US in emissions in 2005 and has increased that lead ever since to where they now emit more than 2-1/4 times as much as the US despite still having a smaller economy than the US. Chinese leaders just see our leading by example as weakness and take advantage.
The US should take action to reduce our emissions.....but only if China is forced to immediately cease increasing its emissions in order that our reductions will do some good. We need to apply extreme economic pressure and diplomatic pressure. Otherwise, we are all dead.
3
@Errol:
The good ol' US of A is the staunchest defender of China; we outsource our cheap labor and pollution to them.
Before you decry China and the Paris Accord, look in the mirror re what you purchase from them.
Why is the photo of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez one of her with her mouth wide open? Really, is that the best you could get? Or is the point that we'd better be careful about her because she is strident, and who knows, we'll be getting ration cards if she gets her way?
@Eric S
Why? Because it captures her essence so perfectly.
1
The economy is dependent on the environment, but in most analysis of anything environmental, no attention is paid to the costs of the pollution itself.
The effects of the climate crisis are hugely expensive and are so severe they are displacing people. I'm starting to think the Australians might be next. Where will they go? What about the people of India, the second most populous country on earth?
Where will you go when the climate crisis gets to you? Will it be fire, flood, sea level, drought or having your resources overwhelmed by refugees?
Those items deserve more than the neglect they get in judging these policies. Any economic theory that follows after the primitives Smith and Marx in taking the biosphere for granted, like a toddler does their mother, is obviously and tragically wrong.
2
The fEconomist has a lot of fun with AOC (Green New Deal) and Pelosi (no plans to bring the Deal for a vote)
"Yet keeping Ms Ocasio-Cortez sweet will be an important task for Mrs Pelosi, who has three decades more congressional experience but half a million fewer Twitter followers."
2
This amorphous 'proposal' is beyond caricature. For even the tiniest real-world grounding, check out Ronald Bailey's article at Reason:
" ...for the time being focus on the goal of "meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources" by 2030. The resolution is light on fiscal details, so let's consider the question of how achieving this goal would cost.
As it happens, a team of Stanford engineers led by Mark Jacobson outlined just such a plan back in 2015. Jacobson's repowering plan would involve installing 335,000 onshore wind turbines; 154,000 offshore wind turbines; 75 million residential photovoltaic systems; 2.75 million commercial photovoltaic systems; 46,000 utility-scale photovoltaic facilities; 3,600 concentrated solar power facilities with onsite heat storage; and an extensive array of underground thermal storage facilities.
Assuming steep declines in the costs of each form of renewable electric power generation, just running the electrical grid using only renewable power would still cost roughly $7 trillion by 2030."
Read the rest: https://reason.com/blog/2019/02/07/green-new-deal-democratic-socialism-by-o
5
We can do this. See what we accomplished when we saw what DDT was doing to endangered species. See what we did when our air was brown and our water was on fire. We are Americans and we have the resources, the will power, and the patriotism to do this!
2
There are 24,000 jet liner flights across the USA every day. 3 million people fly for business, pleasure or to see families. The US Air Force and Navy defend us with jet fighters. 65,000 merchant ships carry our imports and exports all around the world.
How long will the extension cords have to be to fly these planes and drive these ships with the electricity that renewable energy produces?
Children's fairy tales are all well and good, but these liberals are supposed to be able to run our country. I don't think so.
8
Has anyone even bothered to read the resolution? It is a hodge-podge of literally every progressive “issue” - jobs, quality of life, climate, infrastructure etc.- cobbled together in an aspirational document without a single detail about how any of this will be accomplished. No wonder Pelosi isn’t bringing it forward - it is an adolescent pipe dream, embarrassing, and not legislation. Shame on the Times for not even taking the time to report this accurately, and Kudos to Pelosi.
8
We cannot do anything yet, we must rely on the climate change "process".
Vote on it already Nancy or I will forget why it is so important to elect Democrats.
Hope that any "Green New Deal" proposal looks carefully at what happened in Vermont. Under Democratic Governor Peter Shumlin and Democratic majority that controlled both houses in Montpelier, state Democrats sought to support renewable energy. Sounded like worthy goal. Renewable campaign donors, like wind developer David Blittersdorf & solar developer Duane Peterson, had heavy influence. What was the result?
Dismantling a 40 year bipartisan commitment to protect the ridge-lines of the Green Mountains; fast-track status for all renewable energy projects, regardless of size; total exemptions from the state land use development law, Act 250; and total exemptions from all zoning, including zoning for natural resources protection, open space, wildlife corridors, and ecosystem protections, including headwaters and wetlands.
Predictable result ensued. Enormous industrial-level "renewable" energy projects close to people's homes. Out-of-state, multi-national corporations dynamiting mountain-tops and filling in streams for access roads to erect bird and bat slaying wind towers on mts that had been protected since early 1970s. Enormous industrial-level "renewable" energy projects in land zoned for natural resources protection, open space, wetlands, and wildlife corridors. Fragmentation of once intact ecosystems.
Today's Democrats act like climate change is the sole environmental issue, often to detriment of many other issues, the ones that built the environmental movement.
5
Can't imagine how furious those living in the future will be at all of us for thinking this was somehow debatable.
2
AOC is exactly the type of leader this nation has needed for a very long time. She will have to have a thick skin to endure the hate speech she will hear from the 19th Century fossils of the Republican Party. She will also have to put up with moderate Democrats who are afraid of their own shadow...the moderates who are in terror because of Trump and right-wing conspiracy groups. If Democrats do not rally around their new representatives, they might as well accept the role as a minority party for years to come.
1
I attended an after event during the Democratic National Convention in 2000 when Al Gore was nominated. It was also attended by many Hollywood celebrities.
At one point, a very prominent celebrity got up an railed against oil drilling off the California coast. I assumed consistent with her opposition to oil, that she had ridden her bike down from Malibu. Yet, much to my shock and disappointment, after the event she got into her gas guzzling limo and was chauffeured back to her home. I was so disillusioned !
But I have faith in human integrity. I will cling to the fervent belief that these Hollywood celebrities will lead the way, set the example, and abandon their fossil fuel generated cars and private airplanes, open their windows for fresh air, and disconnect their air conditioners. They can maintain their luxuries by sleeping under thick, comfy blankets and designer sheets during freezing nights in their unheated homes.
5
This may be ambitious, but it's exactly what is needed and outlines what many other countries are beginning to do. Green mass transit, commitments to transitioning to green energy economies and actual steps to make it happen are occurring around the world. We are pathetic if we allow politics to be the barrier towards a better economic future and a healthier planet. There is plenty of economic evidence that these are good goals. Set them and let the debate begin. Find the common ground. The last time I checked republicans are all about job creation and economic growth. You have to ask yourself, why such a negative response to the very things they say are important? Fear and Denial. What ever happened to these colors don't run.....
1
Pelosi would be wise to get in front of any green jobs/infrastructure plan that is ambitious.
1
Oh good a new extreme voice to the same old song. This should go well for everyone!
3
AOC wants to ban planes. Those who are planning to travel better to do it quickly. I am planning on going to England in March. I hope my flight will be able to take off.
6
@WPLMMT
I guess she plans on bicycling to DC.
Will she ban phones and computers and lose her twitter feed? How about Uber lifts? Is one form of pollution preferable to another?
5
I missed where AOC said she wanted to”ban planes”-could you post the actual accurate source for this?
Someone should tell the GOP when people hear socialist those under 40 think Denmark not Venezuela. Most people think of the highly successful social democracy of Europe that merge social equality with market capitalism. Notice FOX NOISE ignores them and concentrated of the non democratic failed model of socialism practiced in Cuba of Venezuela. Really rehashed communism.
1
Imagine jobs, careers for young people which would permit them to stay in their community.
Imagine paying less for winter heat, for transportation ... AND you're helping save the planet for our kids?
OK!
1
Yes it's a "Green Dream", but you have to initiate the public dialog in such a way. The easiest and cheapest way to stop global warming gases is through CONSERVATION. Cutting energy use immediately through conservation techniques will immediately curtail emissions.
Weatherize businesses and homes. Stop air leaks and add cheap insulation. Reduce electrical needs by simply turning off electrical devices when you don't need them.
Is It ON?.....Turn It OFF!
2
"The resolution has more breadth than detail and is so ambitious that Republicans greeted it with derision."
The resolution is met with derision by most who read it, not just Republicans, not because of its 'ambition' but because it is silly and sophomoric.
8
NYT, I take issue with your labeling of "liberal" Democrats supporting this measure. I am a moderate Dem, and I support this measure. You know why? The "cost" of doing nothing is FAR greater in financial, human, and ecological terms. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Leaders understand vision, strategy, risk management, and cost management. This is simply a leadership issue. Thank God we have Dems--liberal and moderate--who are leaders! I canvassed for moderate Lizzie Fletcher who won Tx 07, and she agrees that her business constituents expect climate action. Devil will be in details, of course. But when you have some high-profile Republicans who support a carbon tax, isn't that a great place to start?
2
Republicans and corporate Democrats playing politics with the end of the world. I can't wait for the floods to engulf Wall Street. The .001% thinks they can live in bunkers or go to another planet. Good luck with that.
1
We have it so good as a species....all over the world...compared to 50 years ago, that people have to find paper tigers to defend against. We are doing the things we need to do..through technology and research to stay on a path of enlightenment for our future. Their will always be some who benefit more, but most all will eventually benefit. The pessimism is almost unbearable in this country anymore.
I also believe AOC will make a great talking head on FOX one day.
All well and good, but AOC has not yet earned the right of temperament.
7
Thank goodness this will go nowhere. As it should. Tear down and rebuild every building in the country. Say goodbye to air travel. Slightly kookie.
12
Why am I already getting tired of seeing AOC at the center of every photo of House Democrats? Surely there are other Democrats who are equally committed to the Democrats' agenda. This is starting to come across as a bit too self-serving for AOC and may not serve a legitimate cause. Let's hear from
some others as well.
15
Ocasio-Cortez was just elected to Congress. She was elected, supposedly, to support her constituency. No doubt clean water and air are to everyone's benefit, but this person had better learn to walk before she can run. Is she such a genius that she has formulated an ultra-complex set of policy changes as proposed by this "Green New Deal" in the matter of a few weeks? She is feeding into those that claim, with growing credence, that she's an attention seeker looking to stir the pot in any way she can, regardless of whether or not there's any substance to what she shouts out to the crowd. I'm not against the ideas she proposes IN THEORY, but I am FAR from ready to put my trust in her, a non-tested or proven politician who has not one legislative achievement to her record. Put plainly, she is NOT my type of politician, she's almost a kind of "Trump on the ultra-Left", making claims and shouting her ideas at an audience who will buy whatever she says simply because they like her. Those are precisely the types that follow Trump - mindless minions who swoon merely to the sound of his voice. I don't swoon to him and I sure don't swoon to her. Now a politician with a tremendous record of legislative achievement and a non-bullying style like Pelosi, on the other hand....
12
Brava! Bravo! This may be pie in the sky, but it's a start to creative thinking in the 21st Century. In place of the antiquated Republican ideas espoused by Trump of making America great again by going backward to failed 19th and 20th Century dogmas that will only fail again in the 21st Century, these 21st Century goals (although far from adequately fleshed out as yet) are at least looking to the future instead of the failures of the past. Maybe these youngsters will succeed where Trump's generation has failed.
2
Just because this legislation won’t get passed or even voted on, does not make this a waste of time. It’s time to corner the Republicans, force them to continue to deny this pending disaster we are all facing and get them out of office.
2
Democrats, accepting the science isn’t enough. It makes you better than the GOP but the results are the same.
A thoughtful person can only hope that the Democrats go all in on this "Green New Deal". One can be sure that once it sinks in that under this plan air travel and oil and gas production will be quickly phased out travelers, vacationers, all the voters of Washington and the many oil and gas producing states will be just thrilled.
If one reads the whole GND one finds such gems as the idea to retrofit EVERY building in the US, provide high paying jobs for every citizen (and presumably non citizens as well), cancel out all college debt, provide free college for anyone in the US and, of course, provide "medicare for all" and pay for all this by having the federal reserve just print all the money needed! Oh, and lest one forget, while we are at these "minor" tasks we will also take over all the banks and utilities so they can be run for "the public good".
Yes, I am sure that once the import of this sinks in everyone will be just thrilled to turn the US into a big version of Venezuela because we all know our politicians and bureaucrats are soooo much better.
What never seems to occur to the ignoramuses that think up these schemes up is that someday in the future another Trump may be the beneficiary of the unrestricted government power they propose. Think how much you all would love life if he had that much unaccountable power now.
Yes, go all in Dems. I'm sure it will work out well for you!
1
AOC is 29. That means she is on the sell out threshold. Under 30 is no brains, over 30 is no soul. You need both to give the world beauty and decency. Let's help all generations out to save our world.
3
I support this 100%
Get out of the way, old guard.
It’s time to make positive change!!!
3
Speedy ambitions really irritate people when your the new person at the office. As a New Yorker I hope she knows she is surrounded by those Goodfellas in DC dems and republicans alike. Politics is definately a "House of Cards."
2
I am looking forward to their goal of reducing all air travel to reduce emissions. I will personally commit to flying no more than my Democrat Senators or Representative, whoever flies the least.
3
Wow! Finally a political leader who has the interests of future generations in mind! Planet Earth needs AOC if it is to survive!
3
I used to live in the district that AOC now represents. It is a vibrant, multicultural, multilingual district, home to some of the best ethnic restaurants, in NYC. It is also hi,e to neighborhoods of poverty and some of the greatest disparities in wealth in the city. Why does this proposal have to do with serving her constituents? This proposal is made for grand standing. Something that AOC has been doing since the November election. I would urge her to remember what another long-term MA congressman said — “all politics is local”. Joe Crowley was booted because he treated the voters and their need as disposable. He was more focused in his power base in DC than in Queens and the Bronx. AOC is running the same risk.
7
This is the most important and inspiring thing that has come out of Washington DC in a very long time. It is urgently essential legislation to tackle the existential threat to our society that climate changes will become. Plus many jobs will be created that can't be exported! Please reconsider, Nancy Pelosi. Please take up the banner, 2020 Presidential hopefuls.
3
Maybe it’s just me but maybe energy issues could be analyzed by people who actually understand energy like chemical engineers. Not myopic fifteen minute famers.
7
Let the Republicans laugh all they want. They will be gone soon enough, along with all of their fossil fuel lobbyist friends. What we want is a real energy revolution, not drilling for oil and gas in the pristine areas offshore and in the Southwest and the Arctic.
Now is the time to begin.
2
The Democrats infatuation with a hard left socialist agenda is making it harder and harder to support them. Besides the unrealistic costs of their proposal, the "Green New Deal" includes the following, " economic security for those UNWILLING to work". How in the world has the party moved so radically far left. As a centrist, I watched the demise of the Republicans as they went hard right. I now see the Democrats committing hari kari. The only potential saviors are Mike Bloomberg or a coffee Billionaire.
9
It's been so many years since Congress had a good idea ... Finally, leaders emerge to promote a concept that I want to support, that anyone who has been living on this earth for the past few decades knows we desperately need to adopt and trumpet around the world. Get behind it Nancy Pelosi, this is your chance to shine a light!
1
I think every thinking human agrees we have a problem Huston.
And we need to do several somethings about it, but the goal is simple; reduce the amount of CO2 emitted per unit of GDP.
While the need is great, rushing out into the battlefield with no plan is a plan to fail.
Let's start by harnessing something we know creates results: the market. Let's levy a fee based on the carbon content of every product right where it's created, mined, or pumped out the the ground. Tax any imports from countries that don't have a like fee for carbon content. Rebate that fee to every adult in the US monthly. Increase that fee every year, with a realistic end goal for CO2/GDP. Leave the details to the market unless there are market failures, then intervene as necessary.
No mention of this in the green new deal. Intervene first, and also attach social goals, while important, that could doom this last gasp attempt to save ourselves.
The energy is right, the goal is right, the means...well, that's up to discussion.
2
Fixing all the problems of climate change in such a short time frame is certainly ambitious. But wait--this apparently isn't enough of a challenge. While we have the troops in the field we are ALSO going to "“promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities and youth.”
So take a look at the total of these groups that we are going to save. The inclusion of my group of the elderly is the one I like the best. Whites are now about 61% of the U.S. population. And when you subtract off the half of that group who are women, and then those who are elderly, youth, and the rest of the list, you're left with what, maybe at best 15% of all Americans? So we're going to both fix climate change and while we're at it ALSO address all the other assorted grievances of 85% of our population!
In a career doing technology projects, I learned that maybe the most important task to start with is to define the scope of the project, to identify what needs to be included in the project but also what DOESN'T need to be included. If the Green New Deal is to be successful, maybe we need to take another look and focus on just what is essential this time out. After all, the future of our planet is at stake.
5
Headline in the Washington Post a couple of hours ago:
"Hurricanes are strengthening faster in the Atlantic"
The article describes the increasing frequency of hurricanes like Michael, which went from a category 1 to a category 4 in 24 hours before it hit the Gulf Coast. It attributes the increase to climate change.
Rapid intensification means less time to flee or to prepare. A report a few days ago stated that the cost to the American economy of hurricane Michael could be as much as $53 billion. It seems they are going to be a lot more Michaels to come.
As each new study is reported, the estimates of risks and costs of climate change increase. The news rarely gets better.
The reflexive response from Republicans is to deny that the problem exists and claim that it's impossibly costly to fix it if it does. It's terrific that one political party is starting to take climate change as seriously as the scientists who study it.
How do you do a cost-benefit analysis on preserving human civilization? At what point you decide it's not worth the trouble?
3
Let the force be with them, as the tipping point of global climate change is bearing down upon all living things. A serious head start on the progression of legislative actions needed now in Congress for the incoming POTUS to sign into law Jan 2020.
3
The issue with the bill as it only attempts to solve climate change on US soil. Much of our wealth stems from (product) demand that China fulfills. As a Republican I would support this bill if it meant moving production from China back to US soil. On US soil, we could build and support clean, safe and humane working conditions vs the smog, slave labor ridden China market. Mr Musk has already done that with this giga battery factory so we know it is possible. Ironically, the plan could start with bringing solar panel production back to the US.
As far as funding, I read the proposal, but it's unclear to me how it will be funded. AOC's rhetoric about taxing the heck out of the rich doesn't seem to be a viable option and I'm not sure where the funding would stem from? I see fellow NYT readers recommending to redirect military spending and resources, but we know that is not a viable alternative either and goes against the fundamental principles of Republicans who firmly believe maintaining a strong military presence is essential to our everlasting freedom. Perhaps we take that for granted these days, but trust me, if we didn't have such a well trained and overwhelming military machine, there are plenty of other countries that would be eyeing our sovereignty.
3
Pelosi needs to listen up - if she does't get the desperate situation of climate disruption then she needs to get out of the way and let the new, young Dems bring on the solutions. Go " Green Deal" ....I will vote and campaign for whoever leads their run for president with
climate challenges as the most important issue.
3
1961. JFK called for a landing a man on the moon. Ambitious? Absolutely. We cannot achieve anything without ambition. While it may be true that achieving net-zero in 10 years is a stretch, we certainly should not wait to set goals to move towards this penultimate goal. If every home in the US had solar panels, we would achieve it easily. But, do we have the desire to? That unfortunately, is probably a bigger question. We are letting fear hold us back.
Finally a long term vision worthy of Democrats, heralding back to another time when a Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt instilled optimism for a nation battered by the great depression. It even draws comparison to our race to the Moon, another Democratic venture. And if it takes "socialist democrats' - whatever that means, to set our eyes on salvaging the planet for human habitation, then bravo. In all this time, what have the Republicans offered us: immoral walls, tax breaks for the rich, deregulation on a scale that threatens the livelihoods of future generations. In my book this constitute crimes against humanity.
2
It may be derided as a dream but what inspires us but dreams? From the description, it sounds like an inspiring document. Are we going to argue that 10 years is absurd -- it we aim for ten and make it in twenty we'll have done something great.
2
One should bear in mind that the original New Deal was designed to restore economic prosperity.
And it failed spectacularly.
Those who know nothing about history are doomed to repeat it.
6
I’m not sure where you’ve learned history.
The new deal created many many needed jobs, revived infrastructure, promoted the arts. All during the worst economic depression this country has been through.
4
Anyone who has heard in an interview setting knows that she is articulate, well prepared, and deeply knowledgeable. That any Republican could say otherwise is risible considering that their number harbors intellectual giants like Louis Gohmert, Todd Akin, Steve King, and Kevin McCarthy.
1
Why not transition to Nuclear Power? Increasingly safe, highly efficient and a relatively clean means of energy production.
10
Is this a real proposal or just a way to fuel AOC's outsized ego in proclaiming herself the next FDR? Climate change is a real big issue which must be addressed by bold initiatives, but what does that have to do with the federal government paying everyone a wage even for not working, a government attempt at correcting all historical grievances, government-run healthcare, and government-financed university tuition?
16
@av35
If we don't have a way of helping workers who are without work due to the end of the fossil fuel industries, there will be great opposition to "green" policies from those workers. The economic impact of dealing with climate change (as well as increasing automation) will have to be dealt with -- or the alliance between big business and the white working class will be strengthened .
@Lynne Hollander
We don't know that. Start taxing CO2 content of products and fuels at the sources, rebate that to every adult, and increase the fee every year. Monitor and see if there is significant collateral damage that is creating political opposition. Then, at that point, lay on the programs to ease the pain.
But, considering the stakes, do you want to lard down this effort with what might be completely unnecessary baggage and doom it to failure? This late in the game, with all the chips in the center?
We converted to war industry to fight WW II in a matter of months. And after the war the vast investments needed did not sink the US economy. Far from it. We entered into the most prosperous period in our history. We can convert to green energy and can do it FASTER than 2030. And benefit greatly by doing do. I'm glad that someone is FINALLY stepping forward on this.
11
@David Rosen
While I'm glad we are pushing this effort front and center, a plan would be good.
Just saying we are going to intervene in the economy on the scale of the New Deal, with no real consideration as to the most overarching goal: reduce CO2 emissions, is taking quite a gamble considering the stakes.
I'm a liberal guy, and it escapes me how this effort somehow has become something that we support and conservatives don't makes me crazy, but we need to keep our eye on the ball, because if we don't I think humanity is finished. Larding in a bunch of social goals, while admirable, is probably a formula for more push back and may just lead to failure; a failure we cannot afford this late in the game.
At the New School for Social Research the panel on inequality and climate change tonight have shown that more income inequality produces less growth. Two economists ask how would we pay for the green new deal. Europe has VATs. Taxing the technological innovators who are most productive part of the economy and spend on capital investment without also including labor growth would only grow the GDP by 1% since consumption would shrink, and it is post production. Carbon fuel taxes failed in France and Zimbabwe since the workers did not benefit and paid the taxes. Education investment is critical Rents should be taxed since workers are being gouged. The World Bank consultant showed that the South east US would be most impacted by climate change and needs the most help in mitigation. Across nations climate change progress is challenging in a global economy where consensus is necessary and cannot be controlled by individual nations within their borders as opposed in inequality which nations can control . For ex, multinationals should be taxed not at where profits are kept off shore but at where business is transacted.
Wonder if anyone has done a quick calculation on the thermodynamics of the proposal? How many windmills and solar panel are required? Is there enough wind energy and solar (plus hydro and geo) energy available and at what efficiency for conversion to usable form is required?
9
Yes. I presented them in my book, A Cubic Mile of Oil (Oxford University Press) and my blog of the same name. Without embracing nuclear power, it is hopeless. Renewables have a large environmental footprint, both in terms if area, and materials requirements. Climate change is global phenomenon. The solutions have to scale to meet global demands, projected 110,000 TWh per year for a population of 9 billion people. Current global power production is about 20,000 TWh. Scaling renewables would severely strain global supply chains if commodities like concrete, steel, glass, and aluminum, not to mention the rare earths for the magnets. The low availability of these intermittent sources will require vast amounts of storage, none of which is reflected in the cost.
Nuclear power is a safe, carbon-free source of power, which produces power 24x7, and thus has the lowest materials requirements. Even the current fleet of Gen II reactors has the best safety record of all energy sources. Our fears of nuclear power are largely unfounded and totally unwarranted. It seems that on Senator Corey Booker among our representatives understands this need. All others are infatuated with the seductive draw of 100% Renewables.
4
@RIPUDAMAN
Tax CO2 and rebate the results to everyone.
Let's see what combination of energy sources emerge. According to Lazard, https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-and-levelized-cost-of-storage-2018/ Nuclear isn't as cheap as solar and wind according to them.
Rather than banging on about this pet source or another, let the market sort it out by taxing what we don't want; CO2, and putting the money right back in our own pockets. Those that reduce the most CO2 win. Simple and doesn't try to pick winners and losers with some sort of top down approach.
Market is highly skewed. On per unit of energy delivered basis, renewables get many times more subsidy than oil, gas, or nuclear. The cost of managing the intermittency of renewables is not included in the price. Electricity price is high in countries with high installed capacity of renewables. Nuclear costs are high in the US now; they are quite competitive in Korea, China, India. But fundamentally, it is not the cost that concerns me as much as the physics!
The way this is presented it is less a ralying cry to save the planet and more of a redistribution of power and wealth. That's fine but I suspect it is more of a "hail to the new boss same as the old boss"
Recent articles in the times on the dysfunction, cost over runs, and rent seeking in the New York Subway project provides a pale glimpse of what's in store.
Death to the military industrial complex long live the green intersectional complex. I suspect there will be a lot of money to be made. It will be fun to track the growing wealth of the progressive officials, relatives and cronies.
12
@TC
So we shouldn't . Tax CO2 and rebate the results to everyone.
Top down solutions might be required, but they shouldn't be the first stop, especially since we haven't tried market forces with a tax and dividend approach.
@Norm a tax with a rebate could be done transparently, I believe a carbon tax makes sense. I don't think the plan supports that approach. This is not a carbon tax for solar and wind program. This is using the environmental crisis as a bludgeon for a progressive smorgasbord. But a crisis is a terrible thing to waste
1
Hurray for Alexandra and Edward!
This is the first time I've felt this country can muster the kind of visionary public servants who can bring about the urgent changes needed to ensure the survival of the human race.
We can only hope that more of their fellows in Congress will come to understand that prioritizing environmental protection is their most dire mission!
5
Any Green New Deal that doesn't include zero-carbon nuclear energy is doomed to failure. Vermont implemented its own Green New Deal in 2005 when the state dedicated itself to cutting its carbon emissions by 50% from 1990 levels using exclusively renewable energy and energy conservation. In 2014, the only nuclear power plant in the state, Vermont Yankee, was closed down. The result was that carbon emissions rose by over 16%, compared to a 5% increase nationally, and per capita emissions increased by 5%, compared to a 17% decrease in per capita emissions nationally. Furthermore, Vermont went from producing most of its electricity needs in-state (76% of which came from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant) to producing only about 25% of its electricity needs in-state and importing the deficit from Canada and surrounding states.
If the goal is to generate all of the nation's electricity from renewable sources, then all existing nuclear power plants would need to be shut down. The US currently generates 20% of its electricity in nuclear power plants. Closing them down likely would result in an increase in carbon emissions as utilities are forced to convert from nuclear to natural gas and/or coal to meet their base load demand. This has already happened in Germany since they started closing nuclear power plants in response to the accident at Fukushima. A clean energy plan that does not include nuclear would be counterproductive to the goal of combating climate change.
6
Zero carbon nuclear power.
Carbon gases are part of the structure of life. It can be stored in plants quite well. The excess proportion if the these in the air can be reduced with no ham to living beings. Not so for nuclear materials.
Nuclear materials are highly destructive of living structures. They distort DNA sequences and they ionize organisms. Let them loose in the biosphere and they will create abundant mutations, kill a lot of life, and make cancers in animals far more common. They will do this for thousands of years.
It takes ten years to build a nuclear plant and to make money several must be built simultaneously. They are expensive and we have no safe way to manage the radiative material that remains after they have been used.
@Casual Observer
You are wrong on several counts. We are exposed to levels of natural background radiation and radiation from medical procedures that is orders of magnitude in excess of exposures to the public from nuclear power plants or waste facilities (600 mrem/year background radiation vs 0.01 mrem/year within 50 miles of an operating nuclear power plant). Radiation levels necessary to produce the effects you describe would have to be far in excess of background radiation to overwhelm the human body's DNA repair mechanisms. Furthermore, radionuclides are not being released into the biosphere in significant quantities during the normal operation of a nuclear power plant. More radionuclides are released during coal combustion than are released from nuclear power plants.
Your claim that we have "no safe way to manage the radiative (sic) material" produced by nuclear power plants is false. We have been managing the wastes from nuclear power plants safely for more than a half-century. We have already built a waste storage/disposal facility, Yucca Mountain in Nevada, that sits empty because of fear-mongering by anti-nuclear activists about possible, though highly improbable, public exposures to radioactivity.
One should learn the facts about nuclear power before condemning it out-of-hand. No member of the public has died from exposure to radiation from a nuclear power plant. Thousands die every year in the US from exposure to the products of coal combustion.
1
Spent fuel and irradiated structures have half lives that vary from a few months to hundreds of centuries. The safe use of well managed nuclear material is possible because of great efforts and vigilance. Containment structures were built to withstand extreme accidents like earthquakes and huge jets crashing into them. The construction and maintenance of these facilities is very well managed. The amount of heat energy produced is far beyond any other fuel. It makes steam very cheaply until the costs of managing the waste until it’s safe to release it is considered. It’s an unsolved problem.
The local storage facilities are all bad accidents waiting to happen. The Yucca Mountain facility is part of the area of the North American plate raised up by the Pacific plate moving down under it. That geological reality is a fact all the way from the Pacific Coast to the Rocky Mountain. To secure the nuclear material dumped there will require continuous care until the materials have become safe. No human civilization has lasted more than ten centuries let alone a hundred.
AOC will never launch successful legislation due to her unwillingness to compromise. She’s an ideologue who only aims to please her base instead of working on realistic legislation that will make her country better off.
I’m a huge fan of the Green New Deal, but it’s not going to happen.
9
I don't think the Green New Deal will get anywhere until at least 2020. Republicans can and will easily block it. We need Democrats back in control like they were in 2008-2010 in order to pass such progressive legislation again.
2
I have asked my Congressman, Derek Kilmer, and Washington's two senators, to support this bill. It won't become law soon enough, but its aspirations deserve examination. Republicans can call such a program Socialism, and Democrats can respond with an explanation of "socialism for the rich." Two or three generations out, Americans will have to live with consequences of inaction today. And millions of Americans are already facing up to their responsibilities, despite the fact that the way of the world runs counter to their values and interests.
5
@Jon Quitslund Thank you. I called my two senators and my representative today as well in support of the Green New Deal. We all need to.
"Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors." - Jonas Salk
AOC is wise beyond her years; Markey is wise also. They have created a template for what we must do if we want to survive as a species. This will become obvious to those of us that continue to deny within the next 10 years, if not sooner.
Pelosi is also wise. She knows that a Republican Senate and President, beholder as they are to industry, would never pass such a bill. It is better to enunciate a vision and let it gain public support first, so that we can have some assurance that it will be ultimately enacted. That vision increases the likelihood that we will elect the people that can get it done.
I am happy with House Democrats so far. I think that, with our continued support, they can make real progress and put us into a much better position to right this sinking ship in 2021.
7
This is the issue of the century for the entire planet, not just the United States.
Yet, when our political and corporate leaders finally act on climate change, it will be too late. It's probably already too late. And realistically, too many people don't want to change how they live to be more eco-friendly.
Whatever the fate of humanity - scientists have predicted the course accurately so far - it will be fully earned.
10
@Publius
Don't assume that things aren't already happening on a large scale.
The Obama years put lots of money into subsidizing solar and wind (especially offshore...2x the current use of US power just there alone). This is now paying off in rapidly declining costs of production for those technologies. Combine that with fracking (oops, I said a dirty word) producing lots of inexpensive relatively low carbon fuel (natural gas), and the market tectonics are starting to move.
The result is that many utilities are reporting that they are going to zero emissions by 2050. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/southern-co-to-be-low-to-no-carbon-by-2050-ceo-says/520907/
We blew 2 - 2.5 Trillion on a useless war in Iraq, not including the additional costs we've incurred from blowback in the region. We also just wasted 1.5 Trillion over the next 10 years on a tax cut that largely benefits the 1%. Seems to me 7 Trillion is within the range of doable.
15
When the U.S., under Richard Nixon, established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) it unleashed the private sector to develop innovative technologies and solutions that helped clean up our water and air. More importantly, the federal regulations helped establish the U.S. environmental technology industry as a world leader. Today, this industry outpace all other countries in terms of number of small and med-size firms competing in the industry and annual revenues generated. I see the Green New Deal doing the same in the 21st century for this country. I am with AOC 100%.
8
The latest Republican buzzword is "socialism." They think the American people fear and hate the idea. Just keep pointing out that social security and medicare are forms of socialism, and that many countries with a high degree or personal freedom and strong safety nets are "socialist."
The American people want more of this — don't let the Republican noise machine drown out our voices.
11
The real shot launched by the New Green Deal is a shot at the old guard Democratic centrist neocons telling them that it’s time for them to get out of the way. A lot of industrial state Dems have fought against climate change legislation as hard if not harder than many Republicans, a fact.
The Dems from PA, OH, MI and WI have always stood in the way of any significant climate change legislation due to their industrial states. It’s nice to know that Dems are now willing to take these states on even if it means losing them in the next election.
5
@Sparky
I think your last sentence explains Speaker Pelosi's reticence. She would rather her party continue to have a decent shot at power during each election cycle, as without it there won't be an NGD until it's too late.
Reporters - when you ask a politician for their opinion on the green deal, and they dismiss it, ask them for their plan to fight climate change.
22
This is important. Not perfect, but important. This is a serious conversation we all need to have. The most serious. Whether you believe it or not. It's about the future of our species.
18
In 2017, Oklahoma legislature gave over $200 Million dollars in tax breaks to gas and oil companies and cut their public education funding to pay for it..
Will the green new deal be give Oklahoma public schools their money back?
7
So tell me. How is that we can pass a tax cut with no worry about 1 trillion dollars, but for sake of our nation's future we can't invest 1 trillion dollars?
We have the resources to do this. Our priorities are badly misplaced and we need leadership to put the country back on the right track.
11
Umm. The price tag of the GND is 7 trillion. Not 1. Seven. Trillion.
1
@Martin
One word: Lobbyists!
This is fantastic and exactly what's needed to inspire people. Get it out there! Thanks to AOC and all the new folks in office.
10
Cortez and Markey got what they wanted: a headline. They can't deliver the goods. Even if they were able, voters would reject the costs.
Going 100% green would be extremely expensive when you factor in the need for storage (aka batteries) due to intermittency of wind and solar. In addition, batteries and geothermal are not clean (heavy metals, etc). You would also need to convert all vehicles to electricity (which requires additional generation, batteries, and distribution).
Abandoning nuclear will haunt us, I'm afraid.
17
But a trillion dollar tax cut for the rich is affordable.
Costly? Don’t be silly. It will cost nothing compared to petroleum industries subsidies, health costs of pollution, costs of recovery from already increasing extreme weather, and costs of disposal of the worlds most toxic substance—nuclear waste. By the way, many environmentalists will embrace nuclear energy just as soon as Congress agrees on a plan (60 years overdue) to dispose of nuclear waste. Maybe you have that plan in your pocket? Get real and fight for the only economic development plan that is truly affordable: a green one.
@Steve
Voters supported a 6 trillion dollar recreational war in Iraq. For nothing. Over fake intelligence.
Why won’t they support saving themselves?
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
JFK said this in a time when we were trying to prove to ourselves and to the world that we were the super power that would lead. Climate change is our "moon". WE should lead by example. The Green New Deal should be a collective focus that WE as a nation should embrace.
29
@Jared S. I find it sad and a little terrifying that so many of you equate the narrow goal of landing on the moon with replacing nearly all our energy sources, retrofitting every building, and elimination all oppression and discrimination, in ten years. Really?
2
Give it time. The idea will ripen in Nancy's mind and will eventually bear fruit.
One problem lies with the term, "Green New Deal." Not everyone grasps right away what it means.
One step the Green New Dealers might think about is specifically addressing real, forward-looking green industries in coal country and other economically depressed rural areas.
You know, the stuff Hillary Clinton assiduously avoided in her successful efforts to chase rural white blue-collar Democrats to the Republican Party.
6
It is OK to set forth goals. It is a start. Now comes the hard part. I read recently about the massive amounts of land that wind farms and solar farms consume. In addition, a typical grid can run without massive changes at up to about 35% renewables. Then, the big re-engineering begins. Having said this, let’s see where this goes. There are some areas of the country whose climates are much more favorable to renewables than others, the warm, sunny states and those with offshore wind potential. Other areas can learn from these earlier adopters. One thing for sure is that we need big dollars going towards research. I would also ask that we be a little more broad minded in our thinking. Too often, renewables are framed in just a global warming context. Coal is very hard on us in other health ways. I suspect a reasonable rationale can be offered against coal based on health alone.
5
Everyone should read this book "Zero to One-Notes On startups, or How to Build the Future" by Peter Thiel with Blake Masters, especially young people and Congress. There is a chapter specifically on green fuels and why so many companies went bankrupt. Before Congress starts giving away my money and yours, we need to demand that they get this book from the public library and read it and take notes and make a plan that requires companies to follow so we don't get fleeced again.
5
Finally, a 21st century proposal. Of course many are saying it's too expensive, or impossible to accomplish. Keep thinking small and living on 18th century technology. It's the easy way out, but that way will leave our country falling behind the rest of the world.
The technology is there, and so are the jobs of the next century. Who's going to take the lead? China?
5
How could someone not support policies to remedy climate change and its impact? But, having said that, if Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's goal and ego, which is large, is to continue to undermine Speaker Pelosi, which i am not sure she is doing but it seems so, then I hope she understands that once again the Democrats are working to elect Trump to a second term. She has already made too many mistakes during her first weeks in office due to her naiveté. Careless mistakes. These have given the Republicans great hope that trashing the Democrats will get conservative America to once again vote for Trump. I am lost at what to think, but i am so afraid of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's need for attention. IT's so seductive to be famous. Hopefully she and Pelosi have a silent agreement for her to advance all this and her other ideas, while Pelosi does the hard work in changing the political climate. But, i fear she is a loose cannon, and we, as Americans, will be hurt by her. Hopefully she doesn't want to go down in history as the woman who helped elect Trump to a second term.
5
Hallelujah. This plan needs to be pushed, and if it fails, we need to keep pushing something similar until it succeeds.
Like others have mentioned, a green new deal is something that would benefit everyone - Republicans and Democrats alike (just not the fossil fuel industry). We can save the planet and give millions meaningful work.
9
Thank you and congrats, US Democrats. Finally something truly visionary on climate change. Fight the good fight, and look to 2020.
12
The Dems, one and all, need to get behind this goal. For my college age (voting) students, this is THE issue.
9
Something else that Ms. Ocasio Cortez can do: Make sure that her colleagues (including Republicans who will not acknowledge the wonderful socialism that we already have--social security, defense, the healthcare that works for everyone, etc--about half our economy, a good mix) have read the IPCC report for policy makers, including recent updates on the science from the UN and U.S. For lawyers it is no more difficult to understand than the fine print in legal contracts or the maps in a TV weather report.
Understanding the science is key to getting everyone on board, including policy makers in China, India, and around the world. This will take a worldwide effort, with pressure for all countries to participate, something they should want to do. For many developing countries, they will be able to skip the pollution of the Industrial Revolution, with cheaper electricity and cleaner air and water.
On the science, I will get you going. We are 10,000 years into a warming cycle, caused by a slight tilting of the earth in its orbit, since the Last Glacial Maximum. The cycles are approximately 23,000 years; i.e. no variation in this in our man-made global warming that will give us relief, which is in decades, or brief in geologic time. Any change in carbon molecules--a tiny portion of the atmosphere measured in parts per million--has a great effect on the heat trapping potential of the atmosphere. Carbon molecules trap heat that would otherwise be reflected back into space.
4
Sweden many years ago pushed for a 50% reduction in carbon fuel emissions by 2030 and elimination of all fossil fuel use (whole country using completely renewable energy) by 2050.
They are 5 years ahead on the 2030 goal, and will reach it by 2025. I suspect they will beat the 2050 goal as well.
It’s imperative we all begin to do this. 10-20 years from now will be too late.
Of course they already have a magnificent rail system (incl high speed rail) because the government there is actually responsive to the people’s needs. The whole population has high quality universal medical care as well.
Not like our vulture-capitalist “democracy”.
I’ve been to Sweden many times. It’s not perfect but give me a social democracy - with ~90% voter turnout and an engaged and highly educated electorate - any day over this dysfunctional rule by corporations and billionaires we have here.
12
@Michael
Sweden is how much smaller that the US?
1
Nothing wrong with bold new plans. A lot is wrong when it's put forth by people who only know how to do one thing. Spend other peoples money. They're part of the Staples Easy Button crowd. They think that a thought pops in their head and, voila, it comes to fruition just because they think it should.
Maybe they should take a step back at the trillions of dollars spent over the last 50 years on the war on poverty and racism ponder what has really happened.
18
“The green generation has risen up, and they are saying we want this issue solved,” Mr. Markey said. “We now have the troops, we now have the money, and we’re ready to fight.”
I'm ready to fight, too.
But just before we engage in the "Green Dream," would it be too much to ask just ONE of our candidates to address somewhat more basic issues, like the fact that the Russians just unveiled several new hypersonic nuclear tipped capable missiles, on land, air and sea, for which the USA currently has no defense or similar offensive missiles.
It's just hard to hook up my Tesla for a charge if the Russian missiles get here before the Green New Deal solves our carbon emissions issues.
11
That AOC is fronting an otherwise essential piece of legislation is a political disaster and discredits any attempts at seriously debating much less acting on any purposeful change to the status quo.
11
She is my Congresswoman and I’m proud of her.
The young people who sat in at Pelosi’s office a couple months ago had the right idea. Wall Street Democrats are as much in the pockets of Big Carbon as the GOP. The only way to break their death-grip is to disrupt business as usual. Students and young people everywhere should occupy the offices of their members of Congress —irrespective of party — until they come out in support of AOC’s Green New Deal resolution. Pelosi’s dismissiveness is unacceptable. The stakes are too high for anymore “moderate” equivocation. The real extremists here are the oil companies threatening our survival and the members of Congress that they seem to own.
5
This "Green New Deal" proposal is a step in the right direction, but significant remediation of environmental damage requires serious measures to address the overpopulation crisis, which remains a taboo subject in American political discourse.
4
The headline photograph of AOC is completely horrendous and a true hatchet job. What are you thinking, NY Times, or perhaps you hired someone that previously worked at Fox News?
7
The Green New Deal is urgently needed but please don't firm up too soon on the development of the technologies and the funding of technology alternatives for eliminating emissions of global warming gases that currently threaten the survival of the human species. The problem is global and the eventual solution must be thought out on how the family of nations can join the efforts of the United States to create non-fossil energy sources.
For example, I urge the Congress and the supporters of this initiative to consider developing, testing, and competing the 300 mph superconducting Maglev transport system envisioned by the late Senator Pat Moynihan to complement our Interstate Highway System with a SC Maglev for both carrying trucks, freight, and autos with Maglev vehicles with recharging capability, as well as passengers. This system will provide every American with at least $1,000, annually, in savings from reduced costs of travel and goods, for their lifetimes. It is a public carrier so it should be developed and tested by the government. This system is described in "The Fight for Maglev" and in "Maglev America",
Carrying freight at 10 cents per ton mile fundamentally will pay for the guideways, equipment and maintenance. This system was invented by Drs. James Powell and Gordon Danby of Brookhaven National Lab, not far from Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's district. See www.magneticglide.com for the Moynihan concept.
A Maglev industry may save the World with space solar energy.
2
A grand first step in the right direction. Why not? It’s not as if the technology doesn’t exist. If the government doesn’t lead, private companies will. It seems to be a well kept secret that here in FL. rail service is planned to connect Orlando and Miami and to Tampa Trump wants to build a coal fired power plant on the southern border. Go Dems. Time is on your side.
7
I hope the Dems, led by AOC, adopt all these far-left policies!! Real America will crush them in 2020!!!!
6
Oh, conservatives. All they can do is say how stupid other ideas are while not proposing anything of their own besides tax cuts.
6
NYT - please explain why the editor chose the photo of AOC that you are currently running on the homepage with this article -
really!? is that the best photo you got of her?
why run that photo? are you signaling something?
it sure seems that way to me
it reminds of the photo you ran of bernie on the homepage a few weeks ago - a really awful photo - just like this one
i don't believe either is not a deliberate move on your part
just curious how many photos of her did you get while she gave that speech?
8
Ten years ago a right wing Republican billionaire introduced a plan that would have helped America achieve neutral greenhouse emissions by using natural gas as a bridge to wind and solar energy. It required that coal power be phased out and power generation convert to natural gas as economics dictated, the trucking fleet be converted to natural gas fuel, and smaller cars to electric. This would happen over 20 years with very little economic turmoil but would require government investment and regulation. Over 50 to 100 years oil and natural gas and liquid petroleum would be phased out and replaced by wind and solar. This can still be done and the technologies are even better than what they were then.
2
"The success of our whole great national program depends, of course, upon the cooperation of the public—on its intelligent support and use of a reliable system. . . . After all, there is an element in the readjustment of our financial system more important than currency, more important than gold, and that is the confidence of the people. Confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan. You people must have faith; you must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses.
"Let us unite in banishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system; it is up to you to support and make it work. It is your problem no less than it is mine. Together we cannot fail...."
—Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 12, 1933
4
Set aside whether or not global warming exists, for a moment. Renewable energy industries are going to be the largest industries in the world in the not too distant future. Even now they are becoming the cheapest most efficient sources of energy. Throughout history, one of the only certainties in human progress has been the introduction of new more powerful, efficient energies. Energy is leverage in its purest form. From the human back, to coordinated effort, to domesticated animals, like horses, from which we get the phrase, horse power, to water wheels, to fossil fuels, and now the age of renewables. Nothing will stand in the way. And, the nations at the center of its development and deployment will reap the greatest rewards and wealth, for their people going into the future. Plus, as a bonus, you get to take a shot at ending global warming.
4
All you tired old Boomers scoffing at this idea are despicable. A generation that refused to listen to their parents, and now refuses to listen to their children.
I am sick and tired of your selfishness!
4
Tired of the optimism.
1
The dinosaurs, read Republican Party, need to get on board with this “Green New Deal”.
We all know what happened to the dinosaurs.
We’ll all extinct unless we address the problems, and soon. That includes the republicans, too.
3
@Doremus Jessup
If we don’t burn petroleum, the dinosaurs would have died for nothing.
1
Yes! To a green future for our children and the generations to come. Now is the time to act and goals such as these are essential. No hesitation or it will be too late. Pelosi should help the movement gain traction not worry about the past repeating itself. No change can come within a battle or struggle but we need our leaders to fully embrace these goals.
3
I love the green new deal. Bring it up for a vote Nancy. Means heaps of new jobs.
269
@BIll
The green new deal is why I still vote for Democrats. It's the most important issue.
23
@BIll Do you think it would create new jobs to walk down the street and break all the windows? After all, each of those shop owners would have to hire someone to repair his windows. That's the fallacy behind the so-called "green new deal."
11
@BIllWon't climate change create lots of new jobs?
Good ideas exploit synergies between different challenges to solve many problems simultaneously. The Green New Deal is a Good Idea.
YES, it's time to create high-skilled jobs building and maintaining a distributed grid of solar and wind power.
YES, it's time to pay farmers and rural residents to grow pesticide-free food and to maintain forests, wetlands, and biodiversity.
YES, it's time to change national accounting methods. Don't just count expenditures, count the accumulation of valuable assets: physical capital, human capital, and ecological capital. Accurate accounting will show that many apparent expenditures are actually free lunches.
YES, it's time to subsidise electric and hybrid cars, and solar panels and wind farms, to be world leaders in those growing industries.
YES, it's time to subsidise high-speed rail in place of air travel. Cars can be electric but airplanes never will be, so we need to minimise air travel.
YES, it's time for a carbon tax that reflects the true costs of emissions. We need toll roads for carbon-emitting cars, and reserved lanes without tolls for electric cars.
YES, it's time to declare independence from the Middle East. Stop wasting billions dropping bombs to support dictators.
And YES, welcome the conservatives and evangelicals who understand that we must conserve Creation. But call out science deniers and fossil fuel lobbyists for what they are: ignorant and anti-American.
4
This is so unrealistic it is almost hilarious.
12
A few days ago AOC said that the world will end in 12 years if we do not end climate change. So she and other liberal Democrats are trying to end global warming with this green deal. Liberal pundits are praising AOC, the democratic socialist, to the heaven. To me she is like the Christian sect leader who declared that the world will end on a certain day and sold all their valuables and spent all they had before that day. The day came and went, but the world is still standing. So, please think again before you follow people who pretend to be our saviors and know everything.
9
Yes. We are certain that climate change is real and that climate change threatens life as we know it and that soon it will be too late to reverse the disastrous results of doing nothing.
1. Will eliminating fast-food "Drive-Thru" be a first step? After all automobiles are idling, right?
2. Idling the autos also cause needless fuel wastage and emissions.
3. Idling to start autos in colder areas for the car to warm up?This might be challenging for people living in colder climates. Remember the yellow vest movement in France. Any action cannot bring hardships to working people.
4. Move Govt. offices where people go from congested metros to suburbs.
5. Traffic clog during rush hour. Stagger office and school hours or better yet, make commerce and business 24x7. Also will add more employment.
6. Driving towards downtown or crowded metros? Provide incentives buying compact or electric cars for shorter commute, exceptions are for commercial trucks, first responders. SUVs could be for weekends. Also restore speed limit to 55. Ensure politicians follow the same rules they expect others to follow. No SUV joy rides for them.
7. Anything that can be achieved online, get it done.
8. Avoid breakfast discounts during morning rush hour. People trying to save $1.75 on breakfast during rush hour might be causing more gridlock.
9. Eliminate private planes, only commercial planes for business people and govt, politicians. Exceptions: first responders.
The list can go on. Please feel free to add your 2 cents.
The Green New Deal is an idea whose time has come, and we should fully support it.
But, new technology for carbon capture and storage is not the answer. Our goal must be to reduce carbon emissions, not indulge in huge efforts to contain the increasing volumes of carbon we emit.
Nature has already invented beautiful, highly efficient, cheap, non-polluting, self-replicating, green carbon capture and storage devices, called trees. We need to stop cutting and burning them down.
Seen from space, our beautiful green forests (especially the Amazon) are being burned down to make way for humanity. The smoke (carbon) from those fires is going right up into the atmosphere and spreading around the globe.
5
So Bob Salera calls the idea of the Green New Deal “zany”. So Bob what ideas have you got to address climate change? Oh that’s right, you are part of the Grand Ole Boy Party who prays at the church of Exon Mobile. The reality is we don’t have much time to turn things around for the coming problems of climate change. Trump never mentioned it once on Tuesday night, no surprise there. Stacy Abrams did in her response, she really should have been our governor. Ocasio-Cortez is new to her job but already she’s miles ahead of our other elected idiots. Please support Sunrise, which is an effort by many young people to save the planet. It’s not zany, it’s smart and necessary.
https://www.sunrisemovement.org/ there is a link to Green New Deal on this site.
4
ExxonMobil not e on the end. And just because climate change is real and a menace does not logically mean we must do anything.
1
Bob Salera calls the Grren New Deal "zany". That kind of language is reserved for the very scared and the very inarticulate.
4
Democrats in 2020 are going to have a tough time getting elected. Socialism?, 70% tax on the rich? (Hollywood backlash) , Post-birth abortions? Open borders? This ideology is total insanity but also mainstream Hollywood.
6
Even in Hollywood few make more than ten million a year. The majority of Americans are in favor of taxing billionaires more.
No woman should be forced to give birth when her life is endangered or when the fetus is not viable. This is a doctors decision, not yours.
Medicare for All is wanted and needed by most Americans.
@P McGrath
firstly, i suggest you try to learn a bit about how effective tax rates work. heres a brief video: https://youtu.be/O8FbjIET_2Y
in response to ur comment about "postbirth abortions," theres no such thing.
to "open borders," i say, democrats are continually putting forth border security measures which simply do not include a wall, which is an ineffective use of tax dollars that could go towards other things-- perhaps towards reducing emissions?
i hope this has been enlightening!
Republicans laugh at the idea? No, Earth will be having the last laugh when the last human takes its last breath like T-Rex.
3
Nancy Pelosi go home! Give way to the younger generation. The Democrat party is completely undemocratic.
2
Oooo La La... I wonder if we'll see an American version of the "yellow vest" movement... just saying.
2
@marrtyy
That would be nice. Americans are too passive, I'm afraid. Our politicians are well aware of that, that's why we get swindled all the time.
Republicans are furious that Democrats are wasting America's time by not discussing their pet issues; passing Constitutional amendments to ban flag burning and gay marriage.
2
Okay, people. Lesson 1 - electric generation & consumption:. Stop freaking out about how solar isn't generated at night. Look at any electric company's demand curve (Google the Cal ISO) & you'll see that VERY LITTLE electricity is used at night. Peak consumption is during daylight hours. Windmills & hydropower can easily handle the overnight demand.
Lesson 2 - macroeconomics:. Big government spending (financed by the sale of Treasury bonds in this low interest environment) (and hopefully rolling back those tax cuts for billionaires) are a great way to ENRICH, not impoverish, our nation. An economy does NOT work like your household budget. My spending becomes your salary, & vice versa. Leads to higher incomes, which leads to higher income tax revenue, which pays off the bonds.
I see a LOT of Russian trolls commenting here trashing the Green New Deal. No wonder- a strong America leading the world away from fossil fuels is the ultimate nightmare for their corrupt petrostate.
4
I've essentially been a Progressive Democrat all my life. The party is making a mistake by keeping Alexandria Ocasio - Cortez at its forefront! Additionally, it has become obvious that The New York Times is helping to push her brand!!!! Sad.
9
A step in the right direction. Trump only believes his own 'gut' and no one else, science, generals, Congress people and for sure not immigrants. He sings to his own tune and has an immigrant wife who probably has Putins ear and visa versa. Trump is a joke in the eyes of the world.
2
And then folks wonder why the Democrat Party is so against a wall on the border. Its pie in the sky destructive proposals like this, infanticide, and the stark difference in economies from Obama to Trump that has caused many of the working middle class to flee the Democrat Party. So now, in order to stay alive, they've thrown in with illegal immigrants. Establish Sanctuary cities in Democrat leaning states, which swells the populations there, which affords those Dem leaning states more House reps, and more electoral votes come census time. Building a wall would close that spigot. Foreigners have figured out our laws, in that if they bring children with them, and make it onto US soil, they are not deported, and are home free.
7
Democrats want effective and humane border control using more manpower and technology. Late term abortion is extremely rare but necessary sometimes. It’s the doctors decision, not the states.
Notice that under OAC's plan, greenhouse gases would increase for years. Notice that her plan does not require those responsible for these gases to pay for their removal, or to compensate their victims. Notice that her plan does not achieve economic equality, either now, nor in 10 years, nor in our lifetimes. Notice that her goals, limited as they are, are aspirational only.
Should this surprise us? The vast bulk of the rulers take a bigger than average share of income and wealth from society. In the near future, rocket ships with rich space tourists will be emitting greenhouse gases so that the rich could reach the edge of space and look down on the millions who will die as a result of global heating.
Sadly, but predictably, AOC and the young rising stars of politics, like the old rich politicians, do not take correct ethics as their guiding star.
5
Socialist wish list? If Socialism is about saving the planet, sign me up. Eliminating greenhouse gas emissions should be on everyone's wish list.
2
@RER
"If Socialism is about saving the planet, sign me up."
It's not, you don't have to sign anything.
3
People worried about cost are clearly not the people who will inhabit a climate ravaged world. I’m 20 years old. I’m on board with this project because, like every great challenge this country has faced, it will require enormous upfront investment that will be paid back moving forward. We need this kind of aggressive policy if my generation is ever going to get a chance at the American dream. So, for all my friends in later parts of their lives, please get with this because it’s on you that we’re here anyway. That’s not an I told you so— it’s just a plea for you to pay for the externalities your lifestyles created and that were never paid for. Thank god the Dems grew some backbone. #GND #GreenNewDeal #SunriseMovement
4
No more air travel? When is the next train to Hawaii?
6
Republicans are worried about the cost and the impact on the deficit. Tell them Mexico will pay for it.
2
At last, something to feel hopeful about.
3
The New Green Deal is the yardstick for other leaders to measure up to. I want Nancy Pelosi on board as soon as possible.
5
Pelosi has to go. What a huge mistake her speakership was...
A green deal is meaningless unless China is brought into participate.When we stop buying Apple phones made in China we can discuss a real green deal. We cannot pick and choose the products that are harmful to the environment.
New YorkCity has implemented congestion pricing , yet you cannot walk a city block without another environment-harming high rise under construction, built by gas-guzzling vehicles exempt from congestion pricing.Amazon will bring a new heliport to Long Island CIty. Are any of these green deals?
We cannot pick and choose what is harmful to the environment.
3
Not addressing climate change will cost more than going green, not to mention the cost savings of more efficient energy. And not to mention that not addressing climate will kill us.
4
Why is protecting the environment and addressing climate change LEFT WING?
Not too long ago, environmental reform was a bipartisan, no-brainer issue. Nixon, a social conservative on many issues, established the Environmental Protection Agency. Major federal environmental laws, like the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, were all passed with bipartisan support, as was later legislation which strengthened them. But things have changed. Data from the Pew Research Center shows that Republican support for the environment has sharply declined.
What happened? What changed so drastically in the 40 years federal environmental laws have been in existence? There are still crunchy-conservatives and right-wing, pro-environmental groups like Atlanta’s Green Tea Coalition and Ducks Unlimited. But why are we seeing such a sharp decline in Republicans willing to support environmental issues?
4
I'm a passionate advocate of climate change despite my adult life spent in the oil business.
Some advice to Ocadio-Cortez: you had a heart-warming telecon with Corbyn, the UK Labour opposition leader.
Be aware that his brother, Piers, is one of only a smattering of scientists who are climate change deniers. The Corbyn family, many high achievers, like to be contrarians, no matter what.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is right, and given the clearly foreseeable dangers to human life on Earth, an ambitious plan to counter global warming/climate change, which she has called for, is necessary.
Two quotes from recent articles in the nytimes I will share with you. One on the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) which is happening at an increasing rate: "The melting now occurring is from 1 deg. C increase in global temperature. If there is another degree of warming the rate of melting will increase, reaching a tipping point, where the whole GIS will melt (paraphrased)". The same is happening to the W. Antarctic Ice Sheet, a much greater expanse of land ice. Both together amount to more than 4-10' of sea rise within decades, man-made and unprecedented in geologic time. Good-bye Manhattan, Miami and Florida, and much of the Gulf Coast and LA, not to mention major river deltas throughout the world--the loss of homes and livelihoods of over a billion people worldwide creating economic havoc.
The other quote, "there is no precedent in human history required to overcome this". Not true. The war effort during WWII in the U.S. and the amazing recent economic development in China is good precedent. It can be done and the technology is available.
There will also be an economic benefit for everyone with both cheaper electricity and transportation. A Carbon Tax with all proceeds going toward buyer incentives to switch to renewables will initially help pay for everything.
2
Ambitious plan, great. But calling for a 100% turnaround in 10 years is laughable. We have one charlatan in the White House, we don’t need a bunch of them in Congress
3
"There is no mention of costs or how to pay for the proposed changes": would the Times complain about the water bill while the FDNY put out a 5-alarm fire?
An objective newspaper would not engage in such faux-pragmatic editorializing. The cost of maintaining the status quo is the literal death of our planet. Damn the expense; I want to live.
3
@Ben. Literal death - such drama. Perhaps how can tell us why the last Ice Age ended.
4
Unemployment the lowest in my lifetime, as even the NYT admits. US energy production up, dependence on the Arab world's oil lessening every day. And the dems want screw all this up. LOL! LOL!
3
Naive, foolish children.
7
People who think humans are going to work together to rescue the environment don’t understand the nature of man. Only the collapse of civilization, the onset of a new ice age or a great die-off like the one that killed off the dinosaurs will slow global warming. And even if humans became extinct, global warming would continue, abet at a slower pace, until all the ice is melted and a new glacial cycle begin. Unfortunately, ice ages can last millions of years and are far worse than warming periods the last only tens of thousands of years.
However, warming periods are brief and conducive to life, while
2
Sen. Markey's now-historically limpid inability to conjure up meaningful context by claiming this is the best idea since approximately 1994 shows how thoroughly he's been wound into the web of AOC's clumsy, socialist, immature rhetoric. We can only guess he's been in the wings waiting for anew coattail to glom onto.
2
I don’t find a AOC immature at all. She speaks to issues important to me and my family.
The naysayers ought to figure out what’s right about this proposal and offer suggestions rather than reflexively saying “nope.” Everyone agrees change is required. Well this is an opportunity to make those changes and not kill them before they get off the ground.
4
@MsB
Did you read it? It's comedy gold.
High speed rail to replace air travel? Are we building a tunnel to Japan, or a bridge?
I crossing my fingers for Teleporters, they're super cool! Won't somebody think of the Teleporters?
4
Why can’t the US have high speed rail? It will reduce the need for air travel. Have you been to Europe or Japan?
Hysterical that these uniformed ideologues want to help people "unwilling to work". Read the proposal! No, AOC. That is not an American value.
7
AOC wants everyone who wants and needs to work to have a living wage job.
Given that our form of government requires compromise between the House, Senate and White House, this proposal will go exactly nowhere.
I expect as much compromise by the Republicans as the Democrats offered during the recent shutdown: exactly none.
Which is a shame, since China is building billions of dollars worth of high-speed rail and solar power.
They also have secure borders.
3
We are now seeing the fruits of 20 years of liberal (socialist) indoctrination that has replaced what used to be an excellent public education system. This is not a plan, it is the mindless and thoughtless musing of someone who clearly should have stuck with mixing drinks. Does anyone with an ounce of common sense think we need commit to spend 50 trillion dollars to fix what isn't broken? I say commit to spend because if we ever go down this path, there will not be enough of an economy left to generate those sums of money.
6
@Jose - Really? Not broken? I have lived on the edge of, and in the Atlantic Ocean, for my entire life - I have seen the changes with my own eyes, and my eyes don't lie. I would suggest that 30+ years of right wing (fascist) indoctrination has caused just what you describe on top of the clear and present danger that you willfully ignore.
1
how about dealing with the homeless and health cost crisis first...
3
@ray
Good question. The answer is that climate change is more important, by far. If not controlled the numbers of homeless and ill will be uncountable
1
@David goldstein
that is more along the line of sacrificing the lives of others now for the increased success of all later.
doesn't help those struggling in the now.
1
If Al Gore hadn’t been denied his presidential win, this green revolution would be well underway. Amazing how a single person on the Supreme Court changed the course of world history, in a devastating direction.
4
Ed Markey is always wrong about technology. His telecom strategy veered in a completely unplanned direction. He proposed legislation to replace gasoline with switchgrass based ethanol. He’s been behind an endless series of dead end “revolutions.” Markey heats his house with oil. He drives an SUV. He refuses to walk the walk. With him in charge the plan will become the Brown New Deal.
4
What’s zany is that every other developed nation in the world is moving in this direction except the US. It’s beyond pathetic that we have one political party in this country that is actually positive, and one that now has clearly identified itself as largely evil and nefarious. It will come to pass, but it looks like the US has consigned itself to be the technologically backward power with lower living standards and lower quality of life. Sad.
4
As a description of a leftist utopia, this proposal is awesome. As an actionable policy document, not so much.
I'll leave the obvious "sooo, how will we pay for this..." argument as a stand alone to-do.
Of more interest is the fact that this doesn't address the biggest contributors to climate change, namely China and India. So, maybe Rep. AOC can put in some foreign policy words as to how to get China to stop pump pollutants into the atmosphere. China's polluting ways are a direct result of their break-neck development and plans for becoming the most powerful nation on earth (their Famous China 2050 strategic plan). Maybe spending some of those trillions of dollars (source: unknown) to start a war to stop the polluting? Dunno if that sounds so good.
This sounds like a "chicken in every pot" kind of left-wing pipe dream and maybe that's it's intent. A better short term goal maybe to mature some of the as-yet-underdeveloped green technologies necessary to make this vision a wee more achievable.
Anyway, good luck with this Rep. AOC! Let's see how far you get with this.
5
From what I gather, if humanity ceased to exist, it would take hundreds of years for the current level of planetary abuse to abate. So the first challenge of addressing climate change is not to throw ourselves into a green frenzy but to sit down and think through what needs to be done... after all, it took centuries to get in this mess and it is unlikely to be 'solved' by an orgy of consumption -- buying, of course, only the right products. If it were my choice, first would be to help those being harmed right now. Then look at our built infrastructure and see what can be saved, modified or torn out to survive the near term. Then.. determine how to remake the world in a less harmful manner -- which will likely take centuries. But after watching the 'green' program in Ontario, my expectations are low -- we emit more and pay more. And the big pinwheels are never producing power when needed. Sigh...
2
The insults to AOC’s intelligence and calls for “AOC to consult experts” is laughable. This resolution, which sets goals rather than specific programs, is the first thing from Congress that comes close to what scientists have been calling for years. The Pentagon has actually called climate change a “national security issue” because of the serious disruptions it will cause in the US and abroad, which will likely ignite wars and other conflicts in the near future.
AOC and her colleagues ARE listening to the experts. Her pseudo-intellectual critics should try taking their fingers out of their ears and do the same.
479
@citybumpkin Hmmmm. Are they really laughable? The resolution calls for:
Zero emissions in 10 years WITHOUT nuclear energy. (Impossible without nuclear in that time frame)
Practically eliminating air travel using high speed rail. (Impossible. California's high speed rail alone is taking until like 2035 and people would have to fly to certain places regardless.)
Retrofitting or replacing 180 million structures.
Economic security even for those UNWILLING to work. (Really?)
This is absurd and would literally cost dozens of trillions of dollars at least. Real experts realize that nuclear is necesarry for zero emissions also. It doesn't even call for a carbon tax.
20
@J. G. It sets aggressive goals. Some may be unreachable. But aggressive goals are necessary for two reasons. First, the problem of climate change is urgent. It is not a problem that is subject to our whims. Second, as with everything in politics, unless you set aggressive goals, political inertia will ensure nothing is done. All the more so when there are a lot of industries lobbying against actually doing anything.
In fact, California's HSR is a good example of this. A voter initiative passed. Then came the endless battles in court and in legislation by its opponents. China's first HSR corridor - Beijing-Shanghai, 800+ miles long, laid down tracks in 2008. It was open for commercial operations in 2011. A lot can be accomplished when there is actual willingness to do it. So I'll take over AOC's aggressive goals over your supposed realism.
44
@citybumpkin Agressive doesn't mean it has to be impossible. One example, the New Deal was aggressive. Also entirely doable. Only involved infrastructure projects and then massive war time spending. People comparr this to WW2, but that didn't have this scale of change, only more job openings.
The GND would require literally remaking the bedrock of the economy. Entire industrues like aviation, automotive, construction, farming, mining, etc, would need to be entirely remade or destroyed. Millions upon millions of jobs would be gone.
And that's without counting that pretty much every consumer product that we use uses plastic.
It is subject to our whims in what we choose to spend on. We don't have to throw unimaginable sums of money at every climate plan that people have heard of. Take nuclear. That would be a MASSIVELY more efficient use of money if you want it done quickly.
As for the HSR. You can't really be for what China did. They forced people off their property to accomplish that. China has no respect for property rights. It's gross government oversight. And yes they needed it, but China has the state tools to coerce citizens to give in. You try to force someone to give their property and you'll have to fight it in court here.
Meanwhile the same courts that slow down the HSR are part of the same justice system that slows down Trump. It's a great thing that the system here is so powerful.
And that's mentioning the unwilling to work getting economic security.
9
The Green New Deal is nuts. The US contributes approximately 15 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, so if we somehow eliminated them all (which we won’t), it would make no discernible difference to the environment, but would transform the US from its current position as a dynamic and innovative inspiration to humanity into a Venezuelan/Cuban/Zimbabwean wasteland. Some of us are old enough to recall the McGovern campaign of 1972 as well as Mondale in 1984. Neither ended well. If the Dems run on this turkey, Trump may well exceed both.
5
@Haenabill
If you were to remember Walter Mondale for his intelligence, soundness of reason, and actual accomplishments - all the way up to precedent-setting Supreme Court decisions involving civil rights - then you wouldn't be badmouthing him.
Yeah. Let’s just stick our heads in the sand and do nothing —as other nations including China and India are making green progress.
The one technology that really can make a dent in greenhouse gas emission and really would represent a practical "green energy" technology is new-generation nuclear power. The new-generation plants are far safer than in the past and emit basically zero emissions. The Gates Foundation is for it. But I wonder, is it in this "Green New Deal"? I doubt it because while certain prominent folks talk about supported "science based" policies, they probably only support the science they like.
1
Proposals like this are important because they move the needle of conversation around these issues; they reset the standard of what is "reasonable" to propose, and they encourage audacious goals that are going to be necessary if we can hope to reverse the neglectful policies implemented thus far. Aim for the stars, and if you land on the moon you're doing better than if you hadn't tried.
5
I must admit, it is hilarious reading the fake concerns of conservatives "worried" about the costs, while they simultaneously support blowing up the deficit to give tax breaks to billionaires. Sorry guys, but your self-styled image of fiscal responsibility disappeared long ago.
577
@Jim The progressive tax code has contributed to the deficits because it has enabled Congress to pass spending bills with limited accountability to the majority of their constituents who are not paying none or less than their fair share of taxes. People who pay no taxes or less than their fair share don't care about deficits and don't care about excessive spending. Congress has continued to shift the tax burden to fewer and fewer high earning individuals. That does not equate to fairness. Now that we are subject to a borderless global economy, Congress is held accountable not by voters but by better investments in the global economy.
13
@Jim
Hey man, I'm not a conservative (and I don't get express my concern if I was?), but it's crazy that you discount citizens "worries" about the costs of huge government programs. Can't we expect a few more specifics and a little bit more realism out of our leaders?
This is like No Child Left Behind: do you support 100% of kids learning at grade level and graduating high school on time? Great, me too! But setting unrealistic goals with few specifics as far as how those goals will be achieved... that can cause more harm than good.
There is nowhere I support government intervention more than environmental issues: we have created a system that rewards selfishness, and it's the governments job to put limits on that system. I was hugely excited for this announcement, and I am 100% dissapointed that this is what we get. We shouldn't disparage those who vocalize valid concerns because we assume they come from the "other" side.
15
@Jim How about some calls for fee and dividend, which harnesses the market to achieve the goals called forth in the green new deal? Let the market push people and corporations toward reduced carbon emissions. I'm wary about top down solutions like high speed trains being pushed, for instance. Considering all the carbon emissions to create the infrastructure, will the carbon savings be all that significant over the life of the infrastructure? Let's go simple at first, with just a goal in mind: reduce carbon emissions; use the market forces, then turn to government programs where the market fails.
4
2030? More like ASAP. This country came back against the Great Depression and fought a two-ocean World War in World War II. This is an all-hands call from the countryside to the Cities to take on Climate Change. It is everyone's responsibility.
12
One of the reports said we have twelve years to address the challenges of climate change and if we fail, the problem will become too dire to overcome. Twelve years is not that long considering the fact that a good part of the problem comes from the meat industry. Not only must we curtail the use of fossil fuels we need to shift to a plant based diet. It is critical that we devise a comprehensive green new deal and that it be put in place as soon as possible. I fail to see how anyone can not understand this.
9
The economic future belongs to countries that go green. The UK is down to 5% of its electricity from coal and is well ahead of its goal to be coal-free by 2025. The U.S., meanwhile, gets 30% of its electricity from coal (as of 2017 per U.S. Energy Information Admin.) -- and our politicians run on bring back coal. Our present policies are acts of self-harm.
7
The economy and wages are up, unemployment is low, the manufacturing and energy sectors are booming, consumer confidence is up and the biggest issue for the Democrats is this? This green thing didn’t work out so well for France just ask Macron.
2
@Mike
Really? We're only talking about the survival of all life on earth. That's not important enough?
1
Hey, it says that you live in California and I was just wanting to ask how can you say that when late last year almost 250,000 acres of California was on fire and also if sea levels rise like they are predicted to, ALL of California will be under water. And things in Australia aren't very good either in Victoria a state with very little bush fires (wild fires) is currently on fire. For almost the last decade every summer on the news we hear "hottest summer on record". I have personal experience with this back in lets say 2013 the hottest where i lived during the summer all year and the years before that was like 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit) and this year we reached a top of 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) for such a southern state is unprecedented. So yeah the faster and harder we push against Climate Change the better for me, for you and the next generations after that
1
By the time Republicans realize it’s a problem, we’re doomed. Kudos to Dems for forward thinking.
1
On the one hand, A Green New Deal would be a jobs program, infrastructure program, strategic defense initiative, sound business investment, and maybe save the earth.
On the other hand... What? What's so great about oil? I don't get it. Why do we want to be dependent on these dictatorial regimes that supply us with oil? Why roll the dice with the future of the planet at stake? Why condemn the U.S. energy industry by anchoring it to dead end technology?
11
implementing something like the green new deal would require an extensive knowledge of economics, taxation, climate science, the relevant green technologies, cost benefit analysis, project management, national energy requirements, global impact of our economic changes, techniques of unifying people to create change (not just crazies on the left). And that's just the start of the list....
Anyone think AOC or any of her fellow travellers have a clue about any of this?
5
Why wouldn’t they? And why wouldn’t they be able to marshal a ton of expertise and support.
2
@Ralphie Yep, I do!
1
I do.
1
As a registered Independent who has never missed voting in ANY election since 1967 I applaud forward thinking folks.
When the railroad came along the stagecoach companies were mad. When television came along the movie makers were mad. When the automobile came along the horse and buggy folks were upset. When the refrigerator came along the ice companies were upset.
It's called progress and the United States could be a world leader when it comes to green energy! Yet the rate we are going China will be the leader.
America needs to learn from Scandinavian countries, Germany how green energy, is a win win. Creates well paying jobs, and makes our health better.
12
Agree. Most political resistance derives from those whose ox is most gored by change.
So, IMO we would all be served better, if our government sought to smooth these transitions. Help the buggy manufacturers transition to car manufacture, for instance.
4
FYI, Germany has the highest electricity rates in the EU, and their greenhouse emissions have actually increased as they’ve eliminated nuclear power and replaced it with coal. Win, win? Try lose, lose.
2
To the Republicans who can’t fathom such a drastic change, I offer you this sage advice:
If you don’t like change, you are going to like irrelevance even less.
-Eric Shinseki, military leader
1
Fossil fuel interests have known, or should have known, since the 1980's that carbon pollution is the main driver of human caused climate change. Despite that, they received subsidies and tax breaks and the backing of the world’s most powerful military, all while pocketing obscene amounts of money.
They now intend the costs of their greed and shortsightedness to be borne by the American taxpayer. At a minimum we should add a carbon tax that covers the ongoing costs to mitigate climate change. Given the damage being done by activities from prior decades, we should also demand reparations in the form of confiscated oil industry assets or a government stake in oil companies. This could be something akin to how the government takes over a bad bank and winds it down in an orderly fashion.
In the near term we can subsidize transportation for lower income people and selected businesses. We also need increased incentives for energy efficiency, and increased government support for basic research in all aspects of the energy sector.
There’s no reason America can’t lead a green revolution. It's just as important not to forget the tremendous climate hole oil companies have dug for us, nor should they be allowed to shirk their responsibility.
5
Don't treat Ms. Ocasio-Cortez as an "inconvenient truth" because what she is doing is long overdue.
8
Sorry not to be enthusiastic about the socialism component. Firstly, there is no such thing as anything "free". It would come from the taxes. "Free" education in many socialist countries is only for the top students, or students who can pass the rigorous entrance exams. "Free" medical care often means long wait for the doctors who are specialists, or cutting back on the expensive tests. It saddens me to see Democrats not being able to come up with a plan with truly exciting new system of ideas, but instead dig out failed socialism ideas from the past. Having said this, people who never experienced drawbacks of socialism on their own backs, or do not have more than a superficial knowledge about it other than the socialist propaganda, may vote for it because it sounds so good. People who do not know history are bound to repeat the old mistakes. Democrats should propose how to generate money for their programs, other than taxing. Spending without making money first is a non- starter. Capitalism can be indeed improved, but not by switching to the old failed socialist ideas.
4
You call it socialism. I call it investing in America’s future.
1
If everyone having free medical care makes me a socialist, then I am a socialist. I’ve seen too many suffer for lack of affordable care in the USA, the richest nation the world has ever known.
Even by liberal estimates, this Green New Deal is estimated to cost around $40 trillion over the next 10 years. It is estimated that, if the tax rate on the wealthy is greatly increased, that would only account for $2 trillion. Where is the rest of the $38 trillion going to come from? If this resolution ever becomes law, then you can expect our economy to into a Great Depression like nobody has ever seen, as all taxpayers will be taxed into oblivion.
5
Since all this spending would be paid in wages, wages get spent, the economic boon would be tremendous. Billionaires just don’t contribute to the economy much. Actually, they remove liquidity by stashing it offshore. Economics!
4
Consider the costs of runaway climate change. Consider the co-benefits to the economy of investing in innovation. Consider the tax revenue from a huge increase in employment. Consider one or two fewer houses for billionaires. Consider the costs of spending a few percentage points less on the military. Consider citing your estimates of cost.
1
@Ron K
AOC believes we could just print more money. It amazes me that anyone would take her seriously.
As much as I think we need this, I hope that it doesn't crowd out more urgent needs: affordable health care, college, and early child care. You can't have a healthy environmental movement without a healthy middle class. And right now, the middle class is under intense economic pressure from health care costs, college debt, and unaffordable child care. Never mind rising costs for housing, insurance, and other necessary goods. Wages are not keeping up, and some sectors, like health care and college, have been rising faster than inflation for decades, with no adult supervision.
1
That’s the brilliance of this plan. It’s about intersectional co-benefits.
1
Maybe those big-vision Republicans will request an amendment banning flag burning... you know, to reduce CO2 emissions.
3
"... repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color,..."
So, it calls for explicit racism. This is exactly what evil political genius Stephen Bannon of the radical-right wanted more of, so white supremacists etc. can rally more hate to their cause and elect radical-right populists like Donald Trump.
Otherwise, looks great.
4
I don’t even know where to start this is such an insanely stupid idea. When is the Long Island congresswoman going to get off the front pages. She’s had her five minutes. Yes Yes we will be able to get off all oil and gas Back to no air conditioning and heating our homes with wood. And we will have to go to all nuclear power. Or wait the Liberals don’t like that either
7
AOC = Bronx
1
The GOP hack mouthpiece who called this a "zany, ridiculous" idea by the socialist (ohhhh be very afraid) Democrats pretty much sums up what all the naysayer commentators are saying. Not only unable to see the looming dystopia on the fossil-fueled horizon, they can only respond with scoffing, lame insults calling everyone to their left stupid. They are shooting their wads, but it's all they got. Calling this a Green version of the New Deal is exactly right. Look at the web site of the Living New Deal project to see just a little of the enormous changes FDR put through during his 12 years in office. It's staggering. And it was done with manual typewriters and telephones. We can do this! We must.
7
This is admirable, but sorry, it's weak and doesn't go nearly far enough. Don't we also need to solve hunger? How about peace between all nations? Should we just turn our backs on the millions -- hundreds of millions -- who right now are suffering from the common cold or flu? I for one will never stop resisting and fighting until we also have completely wiped out toe fungus, and acne (in adults.)
6
Think of it a the liberal response to the President's promise to cure Aids and Childhood Cancer. Compare the substance of the two agendas, the possibility of success and the outcome we risk by no action.
If people find problem with plan, don't ignore it, make it better.
4
Can't wait until Mitch and the old white oligarchical guard either keel over or get ousted by the next generation. These new kids aren't buying the smoke, mirrors, tribalism, scapegoating, name-calling, and manufactured fear. They are hopeful, critical thinkers that believe science. How refreshing. To these kids I apologize for my generation that has mostly kicked the can of gnarly problems into their backyard. It appears that you are choosing to fix these problems "not because they are easy - but because they are hard." I salute you.
6
The new industry created under A Green New Deal will rebuild America's middle class and provide more than ample opportunity for rich & poor alike. The Dems need to push for this and better healthcare for all Americans. The rich folks are doing fine and really don't need more handouts.
7
In 50 years, I fear people be scratching their heads wondering what idiots thought how putting nuclear power plants and batteries everywhere would save the planet.
Before any of this happens, basic demand response needs to happen to the Nth degree. Next, basic upgrades to the efficiency of the power grid. Known tested science, like change the materials used in transmission wires to lower resistive materials.
We haven't even implemented basic 20th century technology yet to reduce energy consumption. This stuff has been around for decades. You can 't blame one party or the other for ignoring it. I blame the press, to be honest. Distracted far too easily.
4
@Joe Schmoe I blame the education system. It convinced students that dreams equate to reality without having to work for it and that rhetoric is a substitute for hard work.
The issue is not energy production, we have lots of methods to do that. The issue is energy storage without creating an environmental catastrophe. So far the only safe way to produce energy is nuclear. France and the rest of Europe have developed a reasonable way to utilize nuclear. An ion-lithium batteries or any type of batteries for that matter are too inefficient - they explode when trying to pack too much energy into them. We'll find a way to cool the batteries, that will be a huge advancement towards energy storage.
But before we get to free carbon energy production, there are miles to go (pun intended) for internal combustion engine to exploit its full potential. At its current pace, I expect 100 mpg to be standard in about a decade or two for a personal vehicle. I know car manufacturers will tell you no. But I "say yes" damn it. The thing is a hot air pump. For example, F1 cars, those things are powered by a 1.6T engine! And they are getting faster and more reliable.
In the regulatory framework, reduce vehicle parking requirements and allow market forces to act upon them. If you want a two vehicle parking in the urban areas, pay for them! Don't let bureaucrats dictate every housing and commercial development to provide "free parking". Parking is being paid with higher housing cost.
By forming yet another committee, Nancy Pelosi is just further contributing to greenhouse gases (i.e. a bunch more hot air). Ocasio-Cortez has a passion and boldness that we desperately need right now in this country by providing a vision for the future and inspiring those to advance the cause.
Ocasio-Cortez should look for ways to work directly with state and city leadership to create a working model of her vision. Showing tangle results and benefits will do far more than any new committee in Washington. Thinking that Green creative solutions will be effectively driven top-down from Washington these days is a fools' errand.
4
We need to use nuclear as a crutch until we can reliably make renewable energy. It is not a sustainable answer forever but it can drastically reduce the amount of carbon that we are pouring into the environment, all while being left with a more manageable physical form of waste instead of a gaseous one.
2
Finally a truly important topic Democrats taking on.
Until the next Democrat admits that as a toddler he did wear a Native American costume.
5
Ok, we are now at the first stage of taking back the climate change issue. We begin each journey by taking the first step. Now that we are here, let's make sure we do not eat our own, particularly with silly, unhelpful observations about the proposed bill. We need to get behind it, in whatever iteration it comes in right now; we can get into the particulars later.
4
Let's put a (zero emissions) engine behind this bold but feel good resolution: Citizens' Climate Lobby's (CCL) Carbon Fee and Dividend! https://citizensclimatelobby.org/basics-carbon-fee-dividend/
AOC is a visionary. She's seeing the extremely troubled future and refusing to stay silent or throw in with moderate Democrat like Pelosi - who are doing little - or the GOP that's is in a criminally selfish state of denial.
People will greet this with the usual "how would she pay for it?", "socialism" and pie in the sky.
Maybe the naysayers want to invest in property in Key Biscayne, Coconut Grove and Miami Beach - all of which are in a red zone because of the likelihood of heavy flooding. Some think hopefully maybe a giant dam could keep the floodwater out.
A news article several years ago reported Key Biscayne homeowners were infuriated by saltwater killing their lawns. They blamed the recurrent salt water flooding on busted pipes. It turned out rising sea levels in the area are forcing ocean water over barriers and curbs and up through storm drains onto their lawns. Killing their grass is the least of their problems.
According to climate change scientists, within 20 years thousands of U.S. homes will experience "chronic flooding" in areas filled with valuable real estate including: San Jose CA, Southampton NY, Hilton Head Island SC, Ocean City NJ, Charleston SC, San Mateo CA, Key West FL, Long Beach CA, Queens NY, Nantucket MA, Long Beach NJ, Toms River NJ, Foley AL, Kiawah Island SC, Beach Haven NJ and dozens more.
People keep complaining: "but we can't afford to fix this."
Their children are going to grow up to ask them "why didn't you do anything?"
2
I see no Free Uber in the list. This is a sham!
1
thank you, women.
3
Has anyone actually seen the Green New Deal list? It's a bunch of bullet points that look like they've been plagiarized from the Occupy Wall Street 'demands list'. Most of the demands are not even close to feasible it's comical. "Upgrade or replace all buildings in the US to green?" hahahaha.
5
@Not 99pct
Why are you asking if anyone has read it when there's a link to it in the second paragraph, which clearly shows it's not what you're claiming it is.
1
I’ ve read it and I’m all for it. Why cant we? Other nations have already started.
"Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California has no plan to bring it to the floor for a vote"
---
C'mon, Nancy... this idea that it must be a winner to even vote on it is madness... it's pure Mitch McConnell...
What you don't vote on says as much about you as what you do. It's amazing how much money we pay these guys to avoid voting on things.
Quick! We need to get the Virginia mess out of the news!
3
Greatest initiative since Humphrey-Hawkins.
Not a chance of this happening anytime soon.
3
why would you show that particular picture of AOC on the front page of the online times. Maybe the editors who make those decisions need to be replaced.
It shows your true feelings about her.
1
It's more like a rallying cry for something without much substance. But the goals are admirable. We'll see what they can accomplish in the future.
1
We must embrace this! I know many millennials, with good jobs and advanced degrees, who are tormented about bringing children into this world due to the threat of climate change. One example is my son and daughter-in-law, and it’s breaking my heart, but I have to agree with them.
The best thing we can all do while politicians bicker endlessly about legislating change is to just make some individual choices that make a difference. I've bought an EV, and no longer need to stop at the local gas station. Electricity bill has hardly changed, and no longer funding big oil with my mini contributions. Its a start and nobody ordered me to do it.
2
@Iain - Good job on the EV! I let Solar City cover the south face of my roof with photovoltaic panels at no up-front cost to me, and my electric bill went down by 10-20%, depending on the season. All I do is pay them as my utility. It was an absolute no-brainer and saved me money.
good advice
before we all turn into Kermit the frog and turn our eco inside out, there are a few things that need to be understood
- Is the globe actually warming - or are we seeing normal temp variation
- how much of the warming does human activity account for
- what options are there to reduce the negative impacts of warming
-- how much impact can policies have in the US given that man made gw (if real) is a global issue
-- what will be the net of good and bad impacts of warming and costs
-- how effective would efforts be -- if implemented globally -- in stopping warming if everyone cooperated
-- How much would it cost to move completely away from fossil fuels in the next 12 years-- or whatever time frame we want to target
-- how scalable and reliable are wind and solar
-- what about nukes -- what role would they play
-- if we got rid of fossil fuels in 12 years, how about cars, planes, trucks -- how do we replace those
-- how would you completely redo the energy infrastructure -- and who would be in charge
-- how much would all this cost
I don't think the new green dealers can answer these questions. Do you?
1
Why is this referred to as a "... blueprint for liberal ambition"? Is a livable, habitable planet something only liberals aspire to?
This type of framing only lends credence to attempts to transform what should be viewed as a challenge to be confronted and dealt with by all humankind as a "left/right" issue - which is precisely the goal of those that don't want anything about it.
2
Wow this sounds great! solving climate change and pollution, creating social justice and high paid jobs, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth.”.
BUT: "There is no mention of costs or how to pay for the proposed changes."
With this plan can it be surprising that: Nancy Pelosi has no plan to bring it to the floor for a vote? I am for one glad to know that there are still sane people in the democratic party.
5
Madam Speaker Pelosi, the currently popular meteor/dinosaur meme has several meanings in this context: One would be AOC vs YOU. The other would be all of us vs climate disaster. It would be best for us not to have our heads in the sand and pretend that political reality trumps well, ... reality. We basically have 12 years to completely change. At this point, half measures will avail us ... nothing.
1
"Its legislative prospects are bleak..."
"Bleak." Exactly like the future prospects for humanity, unless something is done about global warming -- very quickly.
Humans! The worst species on Earth.
3
And Pelosi, apparently intent on demonstrating how out-of-touch she is, referred to it as, "the green dream or whatever it is that they're calling it".
Pelosi, Schumer, Manchin and the rest of the corporate-owned Democrats need to show some integrity and fall on their swords.
1
Count me in as a supporter for at least three big reasons, i.e., because reimagining the success of the "New Deal" will drive Mitch McConnell and his lobbyist cronies absolutely nuts; because a new "New Deal" will succeed by funding infrastructure projects which will put people to work at good paying jobs from coast to coast; and because the money earned will be plowed back into the economy immediately, unlike the stock buy backs the GOP's recent tax overhaul generated.
100% of electrical power from renewables within 10 years is, in a word, impossible. I'm not being defeatist. I'm just on board with confusing bloviation with engineering reality.
1
Starbucks' presidential candidate, Howard Schultz, has already criticized the resolution as "unrealistic." Note to Schultz: The measure is a hundred times more realistic than your pipe-dream of becoming president as an independent.
When President Kennedy proposed putting a man on the moon, there was no shortage of doubters and skeptics.
Our country has added another two million people since last year. Severely limiting imigration needs to be part of the new green deal along with a huge expansion of planned parenthood.
4
Good for AOC in putting forward her agenda, but... it is unworkable. And this is from a hard line democrat who believes climate change is the biggest threat facing our nation and the world. Has anyone commenting read it? No meat within 10 years? retrofitting all buildings within 10 years? And it looks like it is pushing no air travel in favor of a high speed rail network that currently does not exist. And I am confused why the social justice piece is added to this - one issue at a time people.
I like and would vote for a lot of these ideas, but AOC needs to soften this to an aspirational starting point to get the conversation going, or the far left democrats will be labeled as socialists (aiding trump's narrative). Not that AOC or either party seems to understand the definition of socialism, which this is not.
1
Yes. Before it's too late!
I need some clarification here.... What is the Democratic Party Platform on Single-Payer health care? The Green Party INCLUDES Single-Payer health care in it's party platform. The Green New Deal includes Single-Payer Health Care and ENDS private, for-profit health insurance.
1
I've always suspected that Climate Change caused by humans was to be used as a political ploy. But, now, with this so-called "Green New Deal", my suspicions have been confirmed. This new bill introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives is nothing but the biggest redistribution of wealth ever conceived, all in the name of Climate Change. As an American citizen, this really disgusts me. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a self-proclaimed democratic socialist and socialism has no place in America. We have a capitalist society and it should stay that way. Just to get an idea of what will happen if this new socialism is introduced into America, just look at Venezuela.
2
We would need to repeal the 2nd Amendment before attempting to ram this foolish insanity down Americans' throats.
The deplorables would take to the streets by the millions. Just look at what's happening in France over a relatively small increase in petrol taxes. If Democratic leadership shows even mild approval for the Green New Deal they are doing great harm to their chances of taking back the White House.
New blood has kicked the geriatric set into real work! It is amazing to see the press gush over Pelosi, when in fact she has accomplished nothing of lasting value. At least AOC has started the ball moving on the most important problem of our time!
Let me be amongst the first to congratulate the Democrats on the best political move since Brexit, and of course President Trump on his inevitable future re-election.
4
Nashville. It's thriving. So is Memphis. Economically, these southern cites have escaped the curse of the rust belt. Manufacturing in the US is thriving there. Why? Three simple letters... TVA. The Tennessee Valley Authority project is the penultimate example of Democratic Socialism. It was FDR's project that transformed an entire region. And it paved the way for affordable regulated electrical power that fueled the economic growth of Tennessee. So any Fox New addicts, especially those who live in the TVA area, think it's socialism, you're a hypocrite. It's proven Democratic Socialism is a solid foundation from which capitalism can built on. You should thank your lucky stars you have the TVA. And West Virginia should morn the fact that they never did. Maybe you will now with the help of AOC and friends.
Btw, Venezuela is where it's at because of corruption, not Democratic Socialism. That's the similarity we should all worry about.
1
Unfortunately US politics has turned into the Fyre Festival. Selling Americans on outlandish ideals and fantasies that don't make sense and are often infeasible. Albeit started by Trump and extended by AOC. Build a wall? Uh no. Guaranteed family wages for everyone, free college for everyone? uh no. You guys might as well buy Fyre Festival tickets if you believe this.
3
Are they admitting that the war on poverty has failed? Are they considering China and India ..... the 2 countries whose efforts to curb emissions are key to any hope of achieving the 2 degree goal?
1
SIGN ME UP! It's about time that We The People began the process of taking back our government from the shameful leaders who have been in control for so long -- to our detriment!
A great first step!
1
A bold resolution that takes on climate change, that also aims create millions of new jobs, talks about social justice and racism?! Amazing! Should be front and center of every paper in the nation. We all need to back it up, the work has just begun and there’s a lot to do to ensure that it carries forward.
2
Finally. A real sense of the dire situation and reality that the planet and mankind running out of time
Americans are so gullible and easily hypnotized by demagogue politicians...it's so pathetic. Everyone's jumping on the Green bandwagon.
Global warming is happening now - pollution throughout the world is at a crisis level.
However, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez doesn't quite understand the costs America will have to incur to become carbon friendly by 2020. Is it fair we impose rigid standards on our industries while the rest of the world watches.
Beyond that, the effect the U.S. is having on world pollution is de minimis. Asia is polluting the world with no conviction to even slow the pace of their expanding carbon footprint.
90% of plastic pollution n the world's oceans comes from Asia and Africa.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, do you realize it's also been reported the plastic we recycle and send to Vietnam is being dumped into the ocean -Vietnam isn't even sending it to landfills.
It's easy to stand on a pedestal and preach how the U.S. needs to clean up it's act - why don't you look at the costs involved, the additional regulations required, and what effect they will have on U.S. jobs and the cost of good.
We all want to slow global warming - we all want to limit pollution and our carbon footprint - but prudently and properly - especially when the majority of all the pollution in the world is coming from Asia and Africa.,,,and they could care less about it.
3
I support the forward thinking people. They may not have a workable solution to going forward yet, but it sure beats the fill my tank with that ancient technology some more answer, and that bury me in their nuclear waste drums for eternity crowd response.
I sure hope you all can stay the course and find a way to sustainability. Less humans sure would help, but I'm not counting on that any time soon.
Instead of using the evil capitalist and the bourgeoisie as the excuse for the government to radically reshape society and impose controls over it's citizens, now it's global warming, environment, the oil and gas companies and evil carbon.
2
Wow, another total suspension of reality. Like Trump's wasn't bad enough already now everybody wants to get in on the act. Very reassuring.
2
Having lived through the machinations of the last energy bill, watching Pelosi make great strides only to see the Senate and Obama's inaction kill it, Pelosi is correct in making sure this is done correctly.
Once again I am concerned that the Democrats may be going down a path of big words and no results (or even negative ones by giving up smaller opportunities for real progress) with such a grand bill that may be unworkable and surely is unpassable.
2
Gullibility has no limits among the chattering classes !
3
America could be 1/3 of the way in short order by having a nationwide housing code requiring Passive House performance certification. Nahhhhhh. We weren't THAT serious.
US defense policy calls for a standing force of 12 "fleet" aircraft carriers. (Although Trump then arbitrarily declared we should have 13.) Each needs a battlegroup of smaller vessels for support. The next-place navies are China, who plans to have 4 carriers (defense analysts call this a pipe dream), and UK, who plans to have 2. Individually, our carriers are far more powerful and cost far more than anybody else's. In addition, we have another 9 "assault" carriers capable of carrying helicopters and vertical take-off and landing aircrafts like the OV-22 Osprey.
What does any of this have to do with the New Green Deal? It has to do with our warped ideas about government spending. We take it for granted we can and should pay for wars of choice that last decades and prestige defense projects that cost more than the GDP of smaller countries. But an infrastructure project that actually creates jobs and addresses a problem everyone from DoD to NASA has been warning us about? We think THAT's crazy?
I'm not saying we don't have genuine defense needs. But we need to re-evaluate our ideas about government spending. It is absolutely backwards. Dismissing the Green New Deal out of hand is like an inmate in an insane asylum thinking everyone outside is crazy.
Why do Republicans and Nancy Pelosi hate their grandchildren so much? Force your senators and representatives to back the Green New Deal, not just a resolution, but legislation!
As I read all of the "can't do because..." comments I think of JFK and the "can do" attitude America had about going to the moon. Clearly we have lost that when it come to the challenges of the future because it's too hard or cost too much, or we just no longer think big like we used to.
325
@jeff
I’m a Democrat and the specifics of this plan- not the idea of a green new deal per se- are simply unworkable given the specific dynamics of our decentralized and diffuse global economic structure.
Proponents of this plan should be welcoming as much criticism as possible in order to flesh out the details and arrive at a solution that at least 60% of Congress can agree upon.
Disagreement is a positive, not a negative.
23
@jeff Before my dad passed a few years ago in his 90s he commented that for the first time in his life, America was not doing anything big. He came up through the New Deal, WWII, the Space Program, etc. it’s disconcerting to those of us who think of America in terms of great things; not building concertina wire walls, or mining coal.
25
@jeff Yes, now in my late 70s I well remember JFK's speech on going to the moon. It didn't occur to anybody that couldn't be done -- of course it could, "can do". No more. Make America Great Again -- not with small thinking.
11
Is anyone out there smarter than Stephen Hawking?
In his forthcoming documentary for the BBC, Expedition New Earth, as part of the channel's 'Tomorrow's World' science season, Hawking claims Mother Earth is calling time on our rental of planet Earth and is ending our tenancy in, oh, around about 100 years.
Yep, 100 years.
238
@P&L
Hawking was an astrophysicist, not a climatologist. Being really good at hard math doesn't make you an expert in every field.
21
@P&L also I think Hawking didn't believe in God. In my own personal life I have seen a whole lot of proof of God. Hawking was wrong about God, so maybe he is wrong about the end of humanity.
9
@P&
I don't know about "smarter," but Elon Musk is almost as creative with abundance of ingenious ideas, some of them maybe a little cranky.
When he said about the dangers of AI, I didn't quite understand until recently. His products are simply stunning. His SpaceX rockets came back down to the same spot, a feat, never achieved in 50+ years of space research!
Instead of trashing him or attacking, he should be admired & encouraged. The government should hire him to head, a Manhattan-like project (not of course to build any weapons or in defense endeavors) to build sustainable energy, sustainable planet, with plenty of topnotch engineers & other scientists to assist him - he has good leadership skills too; he is Hawking & Steve Jobs put together, I thought.
He has some strange ideas too - like not resorting to public transit, which is anathema to sustainable planet.
He also wants to send people to Mars, which's all but never achievable. It would be so much easier instead to live on the Ocean on floating cities, harvesting energy from sea-currents and waves near the coasts. The dangers from earthquakes & tsunamis could be minimized.
It must be possible to slow hurricanes by turbines lowered from air to the eye of the hurricane, when it's first formed, and turning the rotations in the opposite direction, slowly but surely. With the same mechanism, rainfall could be controlled as well as generated.
We should expand research on our abundant oceans.
7
So will this “green new deal” involve the only thing that will, in the long run, be sustainable and have a net reduction in co2 emissions? Of coarse I’m talking about the one thing the left and the Democrats will never do, and that’s call for a reduction in us population. The easiest way to do that is severely limit immigration. As the leading importer of humans on earth and the highest co2 producers per capita, population growth has cancelled out any gains we have made in GHG emissions. Example. Since 1980 our per capita co2 emissions have been reduced 25%. Of course our population has grown by...wait for it, 25%. Until we acknowledge the elephant in the room we are wasting our time. Population growth will always overwhelm any technological gains we make.
1
I fully support this resolution in that it is as bold as the science says we must be and it recognizes that that demand for massive change provides us with a once-in-lifetime opportunity to transform our economy to a more just one. This proposal attends to the two gravest dangers we face as a nation and a world: climate change and vast income inequality.
And it’s good to see some front page coverage of the most important news story in human history.
News about climate change is often a dispiriting source of despair. But that’s the wrong the news to be dwelling on.
Here’s the good news: Wind is by far the cheapest form of power in the world and it is now cheaper to build new solar power plants in Germany than to even operate existing coal powered plants. The World Economic Forum estimates that the world will install 70,000 solar panels every hour over the next five years. Several countries run their economies entirely on renewables: Costa Rica, Portugal, Denmark. There are whole (admittedly small) cities in the US that run entirely on renewable power like Aspen CO and Burlington VT.
You wouldn’t know it by the front pages and news feeds, but we’ve turned the corner!
The transition to a decarbonized world has begun in earnest. The question is: how fast can we get all the way there? This resolution is the opening bid in our effort to significantly increase our speed and momentum in the right direction.
The Green New Deal is a political vision to replace Clinton era neoliberal globalization. That political/economic ideology had hegemony in both the Republican and Democratic Party. Pelosi sees it as a tactical problem. But its significance is strategic. It's a vision that will put together a new coalition that seeks to transform politics.And it's a globalization of a new type. Four years ago during the presidential debate there was not one question about the environmental crisis. NOT ONE (shame on the press). In 2020 a Green New Deal will be a major point of debate.
1
Thank you Overton Window.
Thirty years late, but it's about time. In 50 years, if enacted, this measure and others around the world like it will be seen as too little, too late . . . or just in time.
In the future, hundreds of millions of poor and starving persons crossing national borders worldwide in search of food and water can perhaps be saved by what energy-glutton nations like the U.S. and China do right now.
Solar panels at U.S. ski resorts frequented by the rich will be seen as laughable, even quaint, if they will not have been the only answer to a worldwide climate catastrophe provoking an exodus of entire populations.
There is nothing quaint about the world's response to the greatest challenge in human history. This idea is a way forward to a new "industrial" revolution to rebuild America, demanding every professional skill and every working hour for millions of Americans.
3
If we want to have this world for our great, great, great, great grandchildren and more then we have to move in this direction.
It will also do 2 things, it will cost a lot and it will make a lot of money and hopefully it will bring about a new age of technology.
2
What about animal agriculture, one of the highest single contributors to co2 emissions? The “Green New Deal” glaringly ignores this and that’s telling to me. For all the progressives’ talk about changing the system, I’ve yet to see any congresspeople challenge big agribusiness (which taxpayers subsidize with billions of dollars each year). Does anyone in congress have the guts to stand up against the factory farms that are wrecking havoc on the environment (and torturing 10 billion animals each year)?
3
I'm rather amused at how many comments there are about "how much this may cost us" –
How about this – If you and your family are locked in a room with only one door - and that room starts to fill with water and methane gas – all of you are certain to die unless you get the key to that door and escape.
How much is the key worth to you? Keep in mind - you're situation hardly puts you in a position to negotiate much of anything.
344
@Wilson1ny...your hypothetical reminds me of the caravan of gangs at the southern border, whereas asking about costs is a completely rational question.
7
@Full Name Except there is no coming caravan of gangs, whereas climate disaster is coming if we do not engage in a mass mobilization such as the Green New Deal. The question really, is how can we afford the death, famine, and upheavals of climate change catastrophe that would result from over 1.5 degrees Celsius increase?
43
@Terence
Nonsense. Caravans are real and at our border now. The sky is falling in 12 years is something Al Gore has been saying for a couple of decades now. We were already supposed to be withering in flames from global warming now its 12 years or doom? Thanks but no thanks I will leave it to the scientists to solve not some young firebrand liberal who has her seat in Congress thanks to 15 primary voters.
7
Energy independence is a good thing. Protecting the environment is a good thing. Sparing the country’s fossil resources that might be scarce and precious some day is a good thing. A “new deal” of additional public investments could also be a good thing.
But making decisions with no figures, no mention of costs or on how we would actually do it, in effect signing a blank check that could hurt the taxpayer but also many industries on which people depend, that is stupid (including from an electoral standpoint). What if we still haven’t figured out how to run a 100% renewable grid or produce competitive electric trucks (or even electric cars) by then? Do we just pay whatever it costs to reach the goal?
What we need from the Democrats (and the Republicans for that matter) is the pragmatism and expertise to create well-elaborated plans to reach objectives people can agree on, not to sign on well-intentioned programs that anyone could have invented, and “we’ll figure out the details later”.
88
@Bob Robert The bill is linked, and I have read it. It is not a blank check. It makes no decisions. It makes no appropriations, nor does it require anyone to do anything. It is simply a list of aspirations and goals, which is a perfectly reasonable way to start.
46
@Bob Robert We seem to provide the military industrial complex with blank checks but we can't do it to protect the air we breathe and the land we stand on? I would take billions spent on green energy over a new bomber that will never fly any day.
40
@Bob Robert
Thank you. Just based on the two paragraphs you’ve put down here, you know more about economics than all the progressive Democrats combined.
6
Finally. Earnest thought about the future. About our children and their children. What world will we leave them? (If we manage to leave them a world at all).
Thank you for this glimmer of hope,
3
I should add that any such proposals probably should account for how much pollution we export to places like China under the banner of free trade. And I don't mean literally export--we let them pollute on our behalf. Wait, you've never thought or heard of this?
So this plan will also have to include holding EVERY country to the same environmental standards. But wait, that means renegotiating every trade agreement, which are flimsy and difficult to enforce anyway. What does like look like? Or do we agree that it's OK for people in other countries to die on our behalf.
But wait, there's more. What do we do about the environmental devastation and pollution of soils and groundwater due to mining of rare earth metals. Wait, you've never thought or heard of this?
Our consumption is a sociological phenomenon that results from our insecurities. We need an attitude shift.
3
I'm as old as Nancy Pelosi, so I have childhood memories of WWII, and better memories of how people felt about in the following decade. Despite all the horrors of the war, people very much liked the sense of community and purpose that the war inspired. With that in mind, consider the last Whereas clause in the resolution:
"Whereas the House of Representatives recognizes that a new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal is a historic opportunity—
(1) to create millions of good, high-wage jobs in the
United States;
(2) to provide unprecedented levels of prosperity and
economic security for all people of the United States; and (3) to counteract systemic injustices; ..."
Madam Speaker, lead or get out of the way.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is displaying her creds for self promotion not her ability to serve in Congress. This is a weak legislative effort but great for catching the media's attention. She should be focusing on learning the job, now. There will be time enough to market herself for the 2020 elections.
6
I read both the first and second proposal. I have one issue: to save the world from the effects of Climate Change, don't we need the whole world involved? China, India, the EU, Russia, et alia are all sizable contributors to this global problem. I hope AOC and Markey get a chance to present the Green New Deal Ten-Year Plan to the United Nations. The reaction of the General Assembly would be a shining moment for the Democrats; one we would never forget.
3
The intent of the Green New Deal is laudable and comes from an enthusiastic group of proponents. But the sheer scale of the proposed technical initiatives is daunting, to say the least, even ignoring the cost of the other social proposals. The very idea of making US electricity generation carbon neutral in 10 years seems to be way over optimistic. At present 63% of our electricity is generated from fossil fuels (nuclear 20 % and renewables 17%). A University of Texas study estimates that the replacement value for fossil power plants alone stands at almost $2.7 trillion, to which must be added a new grid structure as the present locations of the power plants are likely unsuitable sites for wind or solar electricity generation (forget about nuclear because of its own problems and costs). Other infrastructure improvements, such as transportation, water, schools, IT, etc. add another $2+ trillion to a 10 year spending program. We should also add perhaps a trillion or more for increasing environmental disaster costs and rising sea protection. All together this is more than our present national budget. What are willing to give up to cover the costs? One can argue that these expenditures provide unprecedented increases in jobs. But do we have the technical skills needed to accomplish this feat? Do we have the manufacturing infrastructure to built the needed equipment, or do we have to buy the stuff from foreign competitors? and most importantly, do we have the political will?
2
A Green New Deal means far more than an initiative to halt and ameliorate the effects of manmade pollution on the earth and on everything that inhabits it.
It also means creating new jobs, and providing job training, for thousands of Americans -- including many currently employed by the fossil fuel industries who are angry and fearful about the potential disappearance of their careers.
Rather than propping up coal, which is already dying, the US government should be promoting a green future and training a new workforce to fuel it.
5
Democrats seem on the right track, as climate change is the real urgency, however ignored and even trampled by Trumpian stupidity.
3
Ms. Cortez is not at all serious person. Her ideas are immature and ridiculous. She has no concept of economics. Why does the NYT take her seriously at all?
16
@Melissa M.
That a New Yorker is lecturing anyone on environmental causes is ludicrous to the highest degree. The amount of damage that city alone does to rest of NY state and its neighbors is mind boggling.
2
That's cute. The cause of climate change is you and me. How do you deal with that?
3
Don’t blame yourself. The car you drive, whether you leave the lights on or not, paper?/plastic? are all irrelevant to the scale of this challenge. This is a global systems challenge. It’s been framed as a problem of individual choice by people who want to confuse the issue.
Hold your representatives accountable. Individuals didn’t build our economy, and the systems we use to power it. Institutions did, governments did. The design of our electric grid, our vehicles, our cities, were all financed by financial institutions and shaped by tax laws and public policy that was passed, or not passed, by governments. The choices we make personally are largely constrained by the set of choices our economy and it’s institutions make available to us. We need to hold those systems to account for the transition to a carbon free and just economy.
1
@Fernando - How do we deal with that? By getting rid of that SUV in the driveway, for starters. And not cranking the AC while we’re at work all day. And turning the heat down to 65 in the winter and throwing on a sweatshirt. And eating a lot less meat. But that’s far too much of a sacrifice for most people.
1
some of us are doing this. more will. not sure if there are enough of us but I sure hope so
1
Fighting Hitler was in theory - impractical - the entire nation had to pivot. And pivot we did.
This is a bigger threat than National Socialism. Maybe Congress can summon the courage to address it. I hear there are good people on both sides...
6
@Robert Your argument is completely disingenuous, Both "climate change" and socialism are enormous threats. It is not one or the other. I can walk and chew gum at the same time.
1
Immigrant or INmigrant in the picture ? Sorry, couldn’t help notice it.
1. AOC Green New Deal
2. ?????
3. US Ecotopia
4
Pelosi doesn't like her. She's not going anywhere antime soon.
6
Speaker Pelosi welcomes "all the enthusiasm that is out there". Really? I think, back in the day, the Nazis were pretty enthusiastic too.
@Independent - We know. We’ve seen the rallies with the red baseball hats.
AOL's blunder !
This plan is EXPLOITING the Climate Change peril, instead of focusing on reducing the peril.
It's like to a race runner chaining lots of things to his ankles.
Re Climate Change, do one best thing: CARBON TAX, high and rising, with all net proceeds going out to all the people so it wins max public support.
Let all that other stuff earn its own support, instead of trying to get dragged along as burden and drag on action to reduce Climate Change.
4
I've heard that it wants to band all air travel within 10 years. Is that true? This type of legislation makes me nervous.
3
@Pecos Bill It should. I guarantee the elites like Cortez will still be zipping around on their private government planes.
1
@Pecos Bill
That would never fly.
(Sorry; couldn't resist.)
2
The art of the possible would include assisting the petrochemical industry itself to make the transition to becoming suppliers of renewable energy. Sit down and talk to them and bring them in. Pay them to do it, give them a 20 year monopoly even. Claiming any moral high ground in these mass effect situations is incorrect and sure to fail.
We in Australia had a similar situation a decade ago where progressive Labor (~ Democrat) carbon abatement policies (through a market generated price on carbon) were undermined by the Greens (a party with around 12% support) who held that the polluters (big coal basically) only must pay. The result was loss of progressive government, a decade of climate change deniers in power, disastrous policies and steadily accelerating emissions.
2
They’re already on board. Take a look at the acquisitions Shell and BP have made in the last 18 months. After years of funding denial they’re speculating about a carbon free future. This increases the pressure when they recognize the likelihood of billions in stranded carbon assets.
How do you square the Oil Major’s past participation in climate policy discussions with your call to involve them now? I agree they are party to the decisions since they stand to gain or lose so much but do you believe they have the willingness to act at the scale science says is necessary?
This is an encouraging starting point, a visionary framework that,
to the extent pieces of it are implemented overtime, the result could be the rebirth of The American Dream.
This is a framework that recognizes the virtue of combining solutions with ethics. It will serve as a standard with which to judge all the political fights that will definitely ensue.
Speaker Pelosi must not throw a wet blanket on the intellect underlying this vision. Yes, she, with her legislative experience, has much to offer in political tactics, as we have seen recently. But I was disappointed to read in The Guardian that she called this vision a "suggestion". It is much, much more.
3
Isn't there a good case for financing this with earmarked long-term bonds? Unlike other public policies, the primary beneficiaries will be people who will actually have to pay our debt 50 or 100 years ago. This would be a good talking point in responses to Republican claims that the policy would be too costly. We can just take out debt to cover the costs, and we'd still be making future generations better off. (Of course, we could not not finance it with debt if we want to do future generations an even better turn. But it would be better to deficit spend to implement this policy than to not implement it, and there's a degree of deficit spending we could do where present people really aren't burdened at all by it.)
1
Good idea. Bond financing is where this set of ideas aligns with the infrastructure bills which are possibly one of the only things our divided government will accomplish over the next 18months.
Of course, deficit spending for massive improvements in shared societal benefits is one of the key functions of govt.
I heard three things from the Democrats in the last couple of weeks that are sure to re-elect Trump. This would be very sad
1) Bernie and Schumer want to limit stock buyback and even dividends. Managemnt makes mistakes but Washington really screws up. NYT
2) House Democrats, written by freshman Democratic Reps. Ayanna Pressley , Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez propose refusing further funding for the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the border with Mexico WSJ
3)Green New Deal. Others have already commented on this a good objective but not by 2030. 100% renewable electricity without nuclear means lots of batteries and very high cost. Maybe Tesla will survive selling batteries if not cars.
Pelosi has the right response -"It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive. The green dream, or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they're for it, right?"
11
"The proposal does not set a date for eliminating fossil fuels." This is a massive mistake. Capping GHG emissions from the largest polluters - i.e. power plants, inefficient ICE vehicles, industrial manufacturing, oil & gas drilling operations) is the only way to avert climate disaster. Most of the climate change mitigating activity called for in this measure is already happening. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was thoroughly imperfect but did help accelerate a lot of thinking and activity to make today's market penetration of renewables and energy efficiency possible. That said, the market can be awfully stubborn and will support these technologies at its own pace, as various risks and costs are reduced and education improves. The government's best use of time and resources should be to focus on the supply side of the equation - e.g., set GHG caps with teeth at the polluter level and introduce a nationwide carbon tax at the pump and through customer electricity/ gas bills.
1
This article seems suspiciously crafted, using only tiny snippets of quotes. That type of "reporting" usually means hiding something. Why didn't the whole resolution get printed?
10
@Len It's "linked" in the "fourth" paragraph. https://ocasio-cortez.house.gov/sites/ocasio-cortez.house.gov/files/Resolution%20on%20a%20Green%20New%20Deal.pdf
The Republican "know nothing" science denying party will never go along with anything that their greedy fossil fuel masters deem harmful to their profits... even if it means saving the earth from disaster. These greedy fools act as if they don't have children or grandchildren who are going to pay the price if we ignore the impending destruction of our planet. Even the Pentagon calls global warming the greatest threat we face. And yet, the moron in the White House refuses to acknowledge it and since he is their glorious leader, so do his low information GOP minions.
1
There is no science that answers the question of when human life begins. No, oseudo-science, edited videos, and bellowing are not science.
@Billy - A blastula is not a baby. Sorry, but “science.”
Is Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez actually learning the business of representing her constituents or is she just enjoying the attention and trying to make a name for herself?
For a person who is the youngest and new at the job she sure makes sure she is in the spotlight with her various opinions on matters. Are they her opinions or that of her constituents? Maybe she is a genius and can learn all of those congressional rules, regulations, policies and procedures by speed reading.
6
It’s hilarious, seeing Trumpists bewail a lack of knowledge and reading.
@Robert
Who are you referring to? Did I mention Trump, at all, even indirectly, or by inference?
No. I didn't. You just assumed.
1
I think the appeal of the carbon tax is fundamentally flawed because it seeks to single out certain players as "polluters" and then doles out tax monies to special interest groups. It creates winners and losers. We have all benefited from the polluting power companies and cheap cars so it is a bit hypocritical to enjoy the benefits and then call these companies bad names.
Now that we know better I think the quickest and fairest way to get to a renewable economy is to allow power companies to charge more for renewable energy so any other form of power generation is less profitable than solar or wind. The average residential power bill is around $110. If paying an additional 15% or $16.50 per month per household would solve the carbon issue for power generation I think the American people would go for it. Everyone shares in the pain but everyone benefits from cleaner air. No carve outs, side deals special interest exemptions or who should get the tax money.
I don't know if a 15% rate increase is too much or too little but I sure would like to be presented with that kind of option before I went down the messy road of a carbon tax.
3
The root cause of global environmental problems including any effect of humans on the climate of the planet is overpopulation, but as this article illustrates, there is no leadership to address it. As the global population increases from 7.6 to some 10 billion carbon-generating human heaters this century, nothing mentioned in the impossible-to-achieve plan would have any significant impact on our ongoing environmental disaster.
3
The absence of a green new deal is based on several factors, the most important being factors having little to do with the mechanics of divided government.
First, the Democrats have strangely failed to understand that they need a rural policy to win back the Senate. Perhaps they could re-read some of Henry Wallace's old speeches to figure out where to go there, but rural purchasing cooperatives would certainly give farmers and other rural dwellers more economic leverage and power to create jobs and gain services.
Second, one should not put the cart before the horse. You want a Green New Deal? Organize teach-ins across the country and link those to networks that advocate new, local technologies. Don't just rush into the Congressional logjam. Rather, leverage media and entrepreneurial spaces not held hostage to Republicans.
Third, wake up to the mega waste created by military budgets and the under-taxed super rich. At least create a tax that taxes the super-rich and funds a shopping list of rural programs, i.e. learn how to divide and conquer the Republican Party. The fact that the Democrats don't understand this is puzzling.
Finally, create a green infrastructure bank that funds massive expansions of mass transit and electric bus service to service rural areas.
3
Very imperfect? Okay great, then jump into action and support alternatives. The planet and we are in an emergency situation. When Steven Hawking said we have 95 years left time moved forward of course and the momentum is accelerating. Now on his timetable it’s maybe 85 or 90 years. The insane weather, loss of the article ice and the threat to food and water is real. Yup coffee is in jeopardy. Fish swim north to cool but they’ll be no where to go. The formerly off season foreign crops are from countries that along with the US are becoming deserts. Music and social media aren’t going to save us.
6
Raising the standard of living of all the illegal immigrants to United states levels is terrible for the environment. The transfer of manufacturing jobs off shore sometimes specifically to avoid environmental regulations is bad too. It also raises people's standard of living and pulls people out of subsistence farming, which is carbon neutral. The most we can do right now for the environment is support our president.
6
What’s clear to me is there wasn’t a business owner, engineer, or scientist involved in the drafting of this proposal.
A business owner would balk at retrofitting every building in the US and banning gas/diesel vehicles
An engineer would immediately realize the challenge this poses with new loads/distributions on the national power grid and how long it would take to build a national transit system
A scientist would question why were we going away from much natural gas (which is resposible for most recent CO2 reductions and would also be needed to manage variable loads from wind/solar) and nuclear power which is known to be one of the cleanest & safest sources of power available
10
It is hard for me to see any valid reason for people to be angry with AOC, she is young enough to be half of the country's daughter and too young to even run for President, so she is pure in her reasons and goals. No wonder she is so inspiring to so many. She hasn't even been in office a month and she has already done more good for the country than Trump ever will. I'm in. I'm green.
7
Thank you, Democrats, for caring about our future. I don't have any children of my own, but I have nephews and a niece. I would like to know that they have a future with fresh, breathable air, and an end to climate pollution.
3
I've lost count of all the successful people I've read about who said, "since I was young and naive at the time, I didn't know that I wasn't supposed to try to do (fill in the goal) because I wasn't aware that others considered it impossible- so I just went ahead and did it."
AOC is young enough to want to live on a non-toxic planet when the old Republican guard are no longer alive. Thank heavens for new blood- apparently the only thing that will save us.
4
As co-owner of an all-electric energy-plus home – one that generates more solar electrical energy each year than it consumes – I applaud the goal that the US should generate 100% renewable electricity by 2030. But as a scientist I feel obliged to mention the potentially unsolvable problems. Hydropower energy is insufficient and its generation by damming rivers has environmental costs. Nuclear energy has a multi-generational lethal waste problem that has no viable solution after decades of research. Sun and wind are renewable and abundant, but provide energy when nature chooses. Exploiting them on this scale requires massive energy storage, not just overnight but from season to season, to handle building space-conditioning needs. Storage technologies hold much future promise, but whether they are really renewable, or only shift burdens from one environmental sphere to another, is often unclear. Our energy-plus home, for instance, succeeds partly because we worked to make it energy-efficient, but also because it is connected to that enormous but definitely non-renewable energy reservoir known as the local electrical grid.
The resolution mentions energy efficiency, to do what we need energy to do while consuming less, but in the limited context of power grids and buildings. Greater emphasis and a broader mandate – to include industrial processes, transportation, and more, are needed.
6
This is a vision statement not even a mission statement for new legislation that addresses the problems of climate change and sustainability. It is not inappropriate or misguided, it's just ineffective. It does not deal with the crises about which we already have good evidence to anticipate.
There is a slim chance of reducing coal fired generation of electricity by 45% in ten years if everyone starts right now. 100% electrical generation by non-fossil fuels is not possible in fewer than several decades. It's one thing to wish, it's another thing to achieve real results. In addition, there must be efforts made to restore forests and to begin to create the natural carbon sinks that they represent. In addition, more wild natural areas must be made free of man's activities so that we may protect the longevity of our biosphere in a state which provides the quality of life that we all need for optimum well being. It does not seem that the vision addresses these needs.
It's a lot better than a bunch of ignorant people refusing to take the issues seriously.
4
It's exciting and inspiring to see Ms. Ocasio-Cortez actually fight for the citizens of this nation.
She is the type of unapologetic, strong leader people my age have been looking for and for that, she has my perpetual support and appreciation.
3
She isn’t fighting for us. It’s for her.
2
And cue the ever "pragmatic" NYT:
"The legislative prospects for the measure were bleak in the foreseeable future"
"There is no mention of costs or how to pay for the proposed changes."
As if these are the only metrics that decide the worthiness of progressive ideas.
Well, we know the costs of not acting and we know the costs of perpetually subsidizing the fossil fuel industry and we know the externalized costs on public health and the environment from rampant pollution/fossil fuel extraction.
We're content to throw hundreds of billions of dollars annually at the defense budget. Let's try the same thing in the interest of the public for once.
5
This is a great idea. Our own Governor Inslee has made this his focus. The problem will be in the marketing and the voters. Our own very progressive state did not pass a good carbon exchange law last year. The coal, oil and gas industries spent a fortune in lobbying against it. It should now be clear to one and all that the Trump McConnell Republicans would do anything at all to undo Social Security and the other parts of the original New Deal, despite the fact that the vast majority of Americans love those programs. Many historians believe only a New York aristocrat like FDR could have pushed through the original New Deal through. The ideas and values embodied in the "Green New Deal" are shared by most Americans. The term" Green New Deal" sounds more radical than it is.
3
I pay 22K to cover health insurance for my family of 4.
So, I don't have paying 5% for HealthTax, if it covers all.. ultimately it will save me 10K+, even if I make 250K.
And best part would be;
1. No stress of loosing my health care
2. No issue of loosing my job
3. My mental health will improve.
3
"... and re-engineering cars and trucks to end climate pollution."
NA automotive companies make the majority of their profit from heavy duty trucks and SUVs. These are the facts. EV are simply not purchased by the public; the technology to travel as far as a full tank of gas is simply not there yet (not to mention the lack of charging infrastructure around the country). In a large sense, auto companies are choosing to produce EV only because of the current culture and because of government subsidies for each EV built - not because they are profitable. Sadly, the next most profitable automotive venture will not be EV ... it will be autonomous as most people know.
Will corporations set aside the race for the autonomous vehicle so that they can have fully electric vehicles with zero emissions? The simple answer is no, because the technology is not yet there to even consider the question.
4
@kz
If JFK had your attitude we'd have never reached the moon.
And saved a bunch of money. We don’t need hope we need survival.
Carbon neutral cannot provide energy for 325 million people without having safe NUCLEAR as a key puzzle piece.
10
As always, there's the question of who gets to host the waste. Perhaps your neighborhood?
@JM
I don't live in Nevada. The problem is, there is no better solution.
"The legislative prospects for the measure were bleak in the foreseeable future; a resolution is essentially a statement of intention"
Nice job, but if you're not going to do the hard work required to actually pass some legislation, it won't do any good.
Is there something disturbing about leaving AOC off the committee to plan for this initiative. Maybe it is just that she is junior and her time needs to be protected. I understand that Pelosi has a strong record on such matters.
Sorry, but this is hopeless "Green Party" grandstanding- not the fundamental reality that EVERY Congressional district's employment and wealth is based on unbridled military spending by a war state.
Only when each member of Congress confronts this reality and demands a realignment of national priority- from war state- will the state of consciousness that is at peace and "green" HAVE A CHANCE!
5
That’s right. When are Dems gonna face up the military industrial complex? Unlikely as they are owned by it as much as the GOP.
1
"There is nothing to prevent the Federal Government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody".
-Alan Greenspan.
Our economy would get a better return dollar for dollar spending this money into the economy, and helping to save the planet from humans. The fossil fuel industry essentially runs the Republican party so this deal is going nowhere as long as they're in power.
1
Why on earth does the well educated readers of the NYT still believe politicians control policy?
AOC is a fantastic and well meaning young lady but she has no chance of pulling the small but all powerful owners to the left.
The system is beyond broken and the once powerful tool of journalism has been corrupted by the ever growing need for profits.
How can a progressive make major societal changes when the majority of the country is so easily convinced that liberals are merely commies that want to overtake the government.
Why even the NYT has helped connect Socialism with evil, ignoring that simple definition. Last year quasi-liberals went after Bernie Sanders because he dared to mention socialistic policies.
Yes sure, mass murders occurred under phony Socialist regimes. But why are we in such denial about the murder rate of a powerful Capitalist regime like the USA?
If you just glance at it Capitalism has kilied millions and deprived millions more of opportunity, safe and vibrant neighborhoods and that's just our own citizenry. The numbers grow exponentially when looking at our murderous rampages in the name of World Peace (?????).
The true branches of government are -
Big Oil
Big Banks
Tech Giants
The Supreme Court.
The media needs to stop promoting Trumps re-election campaign and report on real world problems.
On MLK day the front page never mentioned him but had a picture of Trump at the top of the page.
2
@Purity of
Agreed I was trying to keep it to 4 branches
Bravo! Finally a chance for dealing with Climate Change to be upfront on the agenda!
1
@John Montalvo
Just a simple correction here Johnny.
"Finally a chance for dealing with Climate Change..."
when actually the truth is:
"Finally a chance for TALKING ABOUT Climate Change..."
Talk is cheap
2
While the intent behind AOC's Green New Deal is commendable, many of its proposals - eliminating the need for air travel, eradicating poverty, retrofitting every building in the U.S., to name a few - are so wildly unrealistic that they provide the perfect ammunition for Republicans to undermine the entire initiative altogether. The solutions to our dire environmental problems must be articulated in an intellectually sound and rational manner, however ambitious they may be. Otherwise, this proposal reads like a fourth grader's mock-congressional homework assignment.
12
Big bold ideas to essentially transform American Society which will dwarf everything other than the scale of administration to oversee it and keep in compliance.
"Ms. Pelosi countered with a move of her own on Thursday, naming the Democrats who will lead a new special select committee on climate change — and leaving off the chief architect of the Green New Deal, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York."
Lisa Friedman and Glenn Thrush, you should be better than this type of pot stirring. Multiple other outlets are reporting that Pelosi offered Ocasio-Cortez a spot on the select committee and she declined. Quit trying to make drama where there is none.
4
AOC declined because even she knows this proposal is nothing but a ludicrous pipe dream. eliminate air travel...ok yeah that will work.
2
Woohoo! Finally! Representatives and public servants doing their jobs; representing and serving the people!
2
Ok, I like it. It rises to the scale of the climate crisis. But let's do healthcare separately.
1
NASA and NOAA released their analysis of the global climate in 2018 on Wednesday, revealing that 2018 was the fourth-hottest year on record. The other four in the top five all happened in the past five years, a reminder that we’ve seen a lot of rapid warming lately. And the planet will warm further, especially since greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to rise(VOX 5-7-19) ----- Pelosi needs to add AOC to Climate Change Committee----Huge Mistake Leaving AOC Out
The Justice Democrats are coming to save the Democratic party. From this Green New Deal to high marginal tax rates on high incomes they have the priorities of the majority of the voters on their agenda. How do I know this? Unlike the NYTimes and the other mainstream media and status quo bought for politicians I can read polls and the people are sick and tired of being shafted. The angry white blue collar types will be more than happy to get behind some one who will actually work for them and not the "donor class". Trump told them he would do just that. He lied, they will soon be gone.
Hey, NYT, how come I had to *search* for this story on your site in order to be able to see it? In the other two newspapers to which I am an online subscriber, it was a headline on the home page.
SIXTY members of the House and NINE senators are co-sponsoring this resolution. Why do you not consider that front page news?
And please spare us the "no mention of how to pay for the proposed changes" editorializing! The last GOP administration claimed that George and Dick's Excellent Adventure in Iraq would be paid for by oil revenues from that hapless nation, while the current administration insists that Mexico will pay for a useless wall along our border and that the Trump tax cuts for billionaires will "pay for itself"! How are those budget-conscious proposals working out?
The proponents of the Green New Deal, by contrast, are at least *honest* about the fact that saving our middle class from destitution and our planet from catastrophe is not going to be some kind of "cakewalk."
2
The GND reads like a playbook on how to bankrupt a nation. The fact that it is seemingly inseparable from intersectionality and social justice is a certain looser for those of use who are not interested playing race or gender politics.
7
Praise Jesus. When Trump is finally gone and rational heads take the helm, it will feel like VDay. Yes , it seems like the country has been in war with itself for three years.
Green New Deal = Just New Era.
There needs to be a bold push for counteracting climate change. Compromises can come as the resolution is discussed. Speaker Pelosi should bring the vote to the floor. The resolution may fail, but the issue should be given airtime. American people need to be reminded of who stands for the future of this planet and who stands against it, and more importantly what is at stake. It is that important of an issue. How much more expensive will it be down the road, when people are forced from their homes due to fires and floods? How much longer can we procrastinate? People who live in the city may not see the changes first hand, but the changes are there. Remember we've lost 60% of species with invertebrates since 1970; insect (75%), bird populations (40%) and marine life populations (49% between 1970 and 2012) are disappearing at alarming rates. You're delusional if you don't think that our species will be impacted at some point - are we not part of the food chain? If we are seriously discussing funds for a stupid wall as a security issue, how much more urgent is the need for us to take action for the planet of this world and now! Per our UN, we have 12 more years to take action on climate change. We need to start now.
2
Well, there goes ANY chance of the Democrats winning the Oval Office in 2020. I want to see AOC flying on a wind powered airplane when she jets out to Hollywood to pick up some more campaign cash.
The hypocrisy here is not going to be lost on even the most dim of GOP bulbs. Don't get in cars or planes folks. You are wide open for whatever you get in the way of being mocked.
While Speaker Pelosi must be dropping her face into her hands in her office knowing just how far off 2020 is, thus affording the MAGAs an opportunity to collect ammo and rile up the Trump base, the president must be licking the quarter pounder juice off his fingers and rushing to twitter.
Like my close pal J. Swindell Johnson said to me on the phone a few minutes ago - "God, I hope they try to come for my pickup."
12
In the extraordinarily unlikely event that this hare-brained scheme comes to fruition, I predict it will prove analagous to a Stalinist Five Year Plan, or Mao's Great Leap Forward.
6
They forgot the part about promising that everyone can have a unicorn and live under a rainbow.
10
@Kingfish52 Or the part about promising that all me are created equal, or the part about promising that life and liberty are ... ?
There needs to be a shift away from fossil fuel. However, unnecessarily couching this in leftist language, i.e. “stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities” etc., is a surefire way for the Demorats to lose the 2020 elections.
5
The way to make your point and to get people behind you is to make the silliest possible proposal. Well done AOC!
5
Yah, right . . . more "settled science" like the geocentric theory & the flat earth.
2
It seems like the solution would be for all the rich liberal elite to first give away all their wealth, and then second kill themselves to reduce their carbon footprint.
5
This all sounds great. But if the Democrats push this forward, it won't get them any votes in the states that matter in 2020. And right now, that's ALL that matters - Beat Trump !!!!!
1
With a little luck these young foks will run roughshod over the Democratic party old guard and carry the banner of the Green Deal loud and hard right through to 2020.
This, because, this proposal is the most ridiculous (e.g. worthy of ridicule) proposal that has ever been put forth as a serious suggestion for public policy - and when the rest of the nation recognizes that these people aren't going to relent, or wise up, go away, or lose inflluence within the party, the nation will do what it did in 2016.
It will consign the Democratic Party to the trash bin, where it really, really belongs.
Reading the suggested policy proposals of the Green Deal, one senses that a conversation across a table with a bag of hammers, would yield more sensible domestic policy.
4
Finally....a Good Idea to help all citizens! Go Representative Ocasio-Cortez!
Women : no more sex until the climate goes green .
2
@Dr Wu, give me the muscle car. No constant ragging at least.
2
I'll bet my carbon footprint is a tenth of the size of AOC's carbon footprint.
"Walk it like you talk it."
5
The proposals being made by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and her radical, Left-wing, capitalism-hating cohort are literally and figuratively insane:
https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=5729033-Green-New-Deal-FINAL
If even a portion of this proposal is implemented, it would bankrupt the United States in no time, lead to a full and complete government takeover of American society, and turn us into Venezuela in less time than it takes to say "climate change is a hoax."
The entire thing is nothing more than an obvious plan to eliminate everything about the US that has made it the strongest, most tolerant country in the history of the world.
This plan would lead to government control and oppression, and the exorcism of freedom in degrees that would make Mao or Kim, Jong Un proud.
Yes, this framework would be nothing less than an American Cultural Revolution and it would *necessarily* lead to purges and mass-incarceration and mass-slaughter of those who dissented.
The Left is all about control. This goes even beyond that. This is a plan for abject destruction on an apocalyptic level.
It is truly, truly scary.
Even those who support remediation of climate change must understand that this plan would literally end American society as we know it and lead to the complete subjugation of the American population in the name of "justice."
They have to see it... Don't they?
This is truly frightening. Is anybody taking these wannabe dictators seriously? Lord, I hope not!
8
AOC is the epitome of willful ignorance. That the media fawns over her highlights the lack of intellectual depth amongst today's journalists. Socialism is a great idea until you run out of OPM (other people's money). Then you flirt with a Venezuelan type of economy. The Democrats will be crushed in 2020 if they continue to peddle this brand of eager radicalism.
7
@Zugzwang
Capitalism is great until you run out of other people's undercompensated hard work. Amazon would last less than one second if Jeff Bezos attempted to fill all those orders and deliver them in 2 days all on his lonesome.
At least the Democrats are facing reality.
Unfortunately, too many Americans have been brainwashed by shills for the fossil fuel industry whom Fox has been airing relentlessly. Those anti-science dupes may not face reality until they're faced with such catastrophic results from not addressing the problem that it'll be too late by then to address it.
Meanwhile, it occurs to me that Trump may have inadvertently done the world a favor (how else would he?) by instigating a shutdown battle with Speaker Pelosi. By doing so, he enabled her to greatly boost her credibility through her masterful handling of the conflict. Now the less savvy Democrats who might've accused her of obstructing their proposals might cut her some slack and recognize that her efforts to negotiate a credible response to the crisis is informed by political wisdom they don't possess yet.
1
When unemployment skyrockets and we have hyperinflation as a result of printing money to pay for this, people will want these
politicians gone. Scientists and engineers will be the people who will develop the solutions for the environmental issues - not a bunch of loud mouthed politicians. AOC and others like her should try to present something other than fairy tales - something like real world practical solutions. We really do need them.
4
It would be helpful to provide a link to the actual document.
1
Moving from slogan to a statement of intent is hardly an improvement.
I will reserve judgment until (if) there is an actual bill. Till then, I won't, of course, hold my breath.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
Eliminate planes and build trains across the ocean?
Rebuild every building in 10 years?
This sounds like it was written by a third grader.
Did she ever hear of the constitution and property rights.
Oh that's right, socialists don't believe in constitutions.
8
‘New’ and ‘Green’. Must be right: who cares about the detail?
4
Our children aren't going to have a planet if we don't do something, and soon. The news is pretty bleak. Billionaires, want to chip in and help us out here? Or do you have other plans?
We have to fight climate change. Fight it or be brought down by it.
1
What about health care? Where are the bills for that? That is why we voted for Democrats.
Did you forget about that? Please take care of that first.
At this point, with all of the woke, SJW purity-police nonsense in VA and now introducing
bills with no chance of success instead of pressuring the GOP and Trump on health care
the Dems are blowing it.
We, the voters, don’t care about your right-wing trolled virtue signaling nor
your (currently pointless) appeals to AOC and her ilk,
seeing as a “new green deal” has a zero chance of flying with a GOP Senate.
Stop wasting time with this. Focus on why most of you got elected in 2018 and
then win big in 2020. And THEN, introduce some of these more progressive
forms of legislation.
The majority of us sent you there to come up with solutions for health care, drug prices and
pre-existing conditions. Get on it or else lose in 2020.
1
Overpopulation (by humans) is by far the biggest cause of CO2 emissions and pollution generally and threats to animal and plant habitats and species.
The USA is overpopulated, along with the rest of the world.
The population of the USA has nearly doubled in 50 years.
Immigration -- legal and illegal -- has been a huge source of USA population growth.
So Dems need to start talking about limits.
Numerical limits.
Limits on immigration.
And limits on births --
especially among third world countries,
including Latin America,
where the Catholic Church holds sway,
and which is the largest source by far of immigrants into the USA, and yet the Catholic Church also refuses to consider limits -- on either births or immigration.
There is no magic technological solution to the problems that overpopulation cause the environment.
2
@sam finn
The scheme will result in US poverty, with no one to pay for food stamps. Starvation will result in reducing the US population along with a reduction in illegal aliens seeking a better way of life.
Problem solved.
Just stop driving.
1
Go for it AOC!!!! (And Markey!)
"INMIGRANT"
Life is an episode of The Simpson's isn't it?
1
My first reaction was: It's about time somebody finally got the long talked about Infrastructure Initiative rolling!. But then I read further, and became dismayed at the hodgepodge it seems to be. Yes, all those other goals are worthy, but stitching them into an effort that would bring so much progress in these areas simply by creating the good jobs and doing the work of fixing our infrastructure, only serves to ensure confusion and resistance, and ultimately keep us from achieving anything.
This is a classic case of the Democrats trying to be all things to all people and serving no one. They should remember the well worn acronym: KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid. No one is served if a convoluted mishmash of progressive talking points never gets implemented. A target has only one bullseye for a reason: it sharpens the aim. Re-focus Dems!
3
@Kingfish52
This is a classic case of Democrats making up stuff that sounds good to the uneducated and gets them to vote Democrat.
1
"But the resolution goes far beyond that, touching on themes that are animating a rising left but that rarely reach the halls of Congress. It aims to “promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth.”
Can ya throw a white guy a bone here too?
2
@Veritas Odit Moras
Do you mean a wealthy white guy who lives in a thriving community (not a deindustrialized or depopulated rural one) who is not elderly, not young, not homeless, and without a disability? Because there are plenty of white men who fit into one of those categories. White men were not excluded.
And Americans call for an end to Socialism.
2
A thin ray of hope - thank you!
This proposed legislation will crash into a wall of stupid denials by Republicans and others who don’t bother to study the subjects involved. But it’s probably the only issue that is founded upon reliable truths. We live because the state of the biosphere allows it. If we destroy it, we die. The biosphere adapts to the climate, so if the climate changes too much, we may not die off but most of us probably will die. It’s a pretty simple proposition, learn to live smart and in harmony with our world or we lose everything. The people who dismiss this as bunk and just ignorant.
I am a 70-year-old who has been aware of the self-destructive nature of our capitalist/consumer trajectory since I was a teenager. Now that I am an elder myself, like Nancy Pelosi, what advice can I give to the hopeful young people who are at last taking their places on the political stage? Don’t even try, because we tried and failed? We must not dash their hopes, but, surely, we have some wisdom to offer.
No amount of technological innovation will help us if we do not address the deeper moral issues of greed and inequity. And yet, what politician can dare ask people to examine and alter their own lifestyles - to drive less, consume less, educate themselves more, consider their dependence and effect on others more? No, rather, they must appeal to voter selfishness and ignorance to get elected in the first place, and they do.
In my opinion, this is where we must start. The entire capitalist paradigm of endless growth, production, and consumption, must be challenged and transformed. I agree with those commenting who asking for specific action proposals rather than theoretical dreaming, but reform will only come when hearts and minds are changed on a spiritual level.
This is where we must start, teaching new values of sustainability, personal responsibility, and compassion in our homes, schools, and churches.
4
@Salmonberry SPOT. ON.
Nice to see you again, Vision and Leadership. We missed you.
685
@Tom Cunneff Have you even seen the document? It's pure lunacy and seems to be plagiarzed from the Occupy Wall Street demands list.
9
@Not 99pct which is better than doing nothing. She got us talking about the underlying issues; that's important.
22
@Zach it’s a puff piece. It doesn’t contemplate the millions of details that are required to actually make any of this possible. I don’t think she even knows the details of green energy (kilowatt hours, sun hours) to even know what details to put in. It’s worth about as much as a Trump Executice Order.
She might as well have named the deal “Let’s make the world a perfect utopia”.
Step 1. Everyone be nice and perfect and use clean energy
Step 2. Done
3
"It aims to “promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth."
What, no love for the LGBTQ community?
I simultaneously agree with the idea behind the list and cringe at the appearance that the text was written in a meeting and everyone nodded and thought it sounded good at the time and not like a parody.
I thank The New York Times for covering this, as The Green New Deal honestly needs more coverage than its currently getting, which has been little to none in the MSM. Please cover it more, I beg you.
The push for this deal has been big and not at all vague. It's just due to the low coverage that makes it seem that way. I don't want to be in my 30s (a decade from now) and see Humanity, and the world I've grown to love, rot/collapse before my eyes. No one does. They want to believe they'll have a world that will allow them to live the lives they want, and climate change threatens all of that. The Green New Deal needs to make it to the floor and it gives me hope for the future.
It won't be easy because so many companies and politicians won't like this deal, as it will make them abandon oil, natural gas and the companies that contribute to their campaigns. So those who are bought by them in Politics won't ever promote it unless we get money out of politics too.
This is bigger than any of us. This is about humanity's survival on this planet, and those who cling to a dying, dangerous industry and greed will be responsible. Around 70% of the emissions are caused by the biggest, top companies, meaning we have to get them to slow and stop if we want to make a serious impact.
3
The longest journeys begin ...with what?
The first step.
There will always be reasons the time is not right or the priorities are wrong or the ideas impractical or the messengers are flawed.
Mother Nature always wins.
398
@Richard Buthod
Mother Nature is a cruel mistress and does not suffer fools gladly. Yes, a "first step". The question is in what direction? Of course, in theory, if you walk backwards or forward long enough in a journey around the Earth you will end up...exactly in the same place you started.
5
@Richard Buthod
How many "first steps" do you need before you wake up to reality?
3
@Richard Buthod-For the naysayers who say we can't afford the New Green Deal, consider the alternative:
* Cumulative costs of 16 different weather events in 2017: $306 billion
* Cumulative cost of hurricanes due to catastrophic losses 1986-2015: $515.4 billion
* Estimated costs of 2018 California wildfires: $15+ billion
* Estimated cost for 2017 California wildfire (insurance claims only/not cost of fighting fires): $11.8 billion
* Hurricane Katrina: $161 billion
* Hurricane Harvey: $125 billion
* Hurricane Sandy: $71 billion
* Hurricane Maria: $90 billion
* Hurricane Irma: $50 billion
https://coast.noaa.gov/states/fast-facts/hurricane-costs.html
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/accuweather-predicts-2018-wildfires-will-cost-california-total-economic-losses-of-400-billion/70006691
3
Congress should commit 1/3 of the military budget to building a national renewable energy system. 1/3 of the soldiers should be retrained for installation and service, and 1/3 of the military contracts should be shifted to have the contractors as willing participants well. we could power our country at no additional cost!
456
@larry b
Upgrading the power grid while burying the infrastructure and overlaying 21st century communications network capabilities on the grid would cost around $5 trillion over 10 years and pump 80% of that funding into the middle class workforce that is slowly being eroded from our economy.
$750 billion a year for a state of the art system is a win-won-win for Americans and America.
30
@larry b
Larry b - excellent idea. We need to "walk back" the military/defense budget -money needed for renewable energy, infrastructure repair, so many needs at home. Imagine the furor if/when the Democrats propose that! We can have all the "special interests" on k Street yowling at the same time, not just the billionaires who are currently fidgeting that their taxes might go up.
10
@larry b
For numbers picked entirely out of a hat, they are 33% convincing.
2
I applaud this effort.It's absolutely essential we take these steps and for all the commenters worried about spending ,look closely at the alternatives . Fires , floods , loss of most everything that we hold dear .
Ms Pelosi should be totally on board here as California
as we speak, is being burried in mudslides.
1
@JLANEYRIE
I am afraid the rumors of California being buried in mudslides is a bit overstated. There are some area, due to the recent fires followed by heavy rains, that have had serious mudslides (although the insurance companies label them "floods" - so home owners also need flood insurance).
For a lot of Californias the biggest problem is traffic and getting out your winter wet suits due to the cold water. For many others, less fortunate. it is a problem of finding shelter to stay out of the rain and cold (relatively speaking, the lows are in the 40's this week). By the way, how is Sarasota, FL, "here" in California? And is that Cuban restaurant still in the "Circle"?
@Mark Shyres
It's is still there along with it's sub par over priced fare
Parking meters are being installed in May but
I can't see why as red tide never really left from
last year and the stench and destruction of sea life killed business as well .
Inspiring proposal. Now time to track oil and gas money lobbying against this legislation. The counterforce will be extraordinary.
553
@Otto This will be interesting to watch, but unfortunately I disagree. It's just a resolution. After reading the measure, it's clear it has no teeth and is nothing more than campaign rhetoric put on paper. If Rep. AOC put together a bill asking for a study on lowering emissions, or put together a bill requiring "global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from human sources of 40 to 60 percent from
2010 levels by 2030", then I think oil and gas will lobby hard against it. For now, this seems like a PR play to make it seem like Democrats are doing something for the environment, when they actually aren't doing anything in this resolution. If we don't see oil & gas lobby against it, we'll know that Democrat citizens were just played by the Congressional Democrats and presidential candidates.
5
@Vytas Aukstuolis You are absolutely correct that this is campaign rhetoric put on paper. Rhetoric pushing for maximizing social welfare and sustainability of human existence. Culture is fundamental. Democrats are simply thinking about the long-term objectives of our species. The Earth abides. Do you want to your life through fires and floods or recollect our thoughts on the advancements in tech and instead use our abilities to nurture the amazing beauty of life and nature this phenomenal planet gifts us?
18
The current path is untenable.
We are on a fast-track to dystopia if we can’t learn to lead and enact drastic measures to curb carbon pollution. Anyone that argues otherwise simply hasn’t been paying attention.
I hope this proposal gains traction and that “moderate” Democrats don’t stand in the way.
566
@Dudesworth
I’m all for doing the max that’s achievable, but government works in the political world where achievement become the art of the possible. It’s fine to reach for the sky but an effort that loses Democrats the House or gives Trump another term is self destructive and foolish. Very little will be accomplished in DC until at least 2020. I trust Nancy to navigate her caucus through this minefield as well as anyone. Remember, disgust with the supposed ‘lesser of two evils’ got us the worst president in history. We may never recover from that mistake.
14
@Michael Tyndall...Well we can thank Jill Stein and a variety of factors for that. And I think a lot of people have grown up a bit since then. Regardless, half-measures aren’t going to solve the problem. Electorates in big energy states (aside from Colorado) aren’t really up for grabs. So it becomes a task of shaking up the electoral map a bit...Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska could all benefit from new revenue streams and just so happen to be excellent locales for wind energy. I would think a considered approach like what was put forward with the ACA could get the ball rolling and tip a few scales.
11
@Michael Tyndall
Trump is such an effective stick for the Bloomberg wing of the Democratic Party to beat us over the head with! What got us the worst President in history was their abject refusal to toss in even a few carrots.
1
This is the type of forward-thinking governance that we need in order to move the country toward energy independence in a world whose climate is changing faster than we can fully quantify. Energy independence does not mean drilling for our own oil or natural gas (or trying to revive a dying industry in coal), as those fuels have a limited supply. Government is able work toward heady goals when it doesn't work against itself. In the 40's, we were able to mobilize the nation to fight a common enemy in World War II, and in the 60's fulfill Kennedy's proclamation that we'd send a hu(man) to the moon.
The Department of the Defense has called climate change one of the biggest national security threats that we have, yet despite the risk analysis done by various high level officials in that department, fully half of congress and the entire executive branch have decided to stick their collective heads in the sand.
There is no doubt that right wing media will latch onto A Green New Deal as socialist propaganda, created by a class of liberal elites. Hopefully the country will vote their conscious on this in the next presidential and senatorial elections.
As a science teacher, I am heartened to see the next generation as understanding that we have a serious problem. When I teach about climate science to my eighth graders, they ask me why our government refuses to do anything. Hopefully with this resolution, that is changing.
809
@Chris
Exactly. I am 56 with a physics degree myself.
For 38 years, our governments have been doing next to nothing to save our country other than giving tax breaks in an effort to stimulate the economy.
I could see this trend starting back in 1981 and decided not to have kids until there was a turn-around. Needless to say, I am childless.
158
@Chris. Big problem though, this is far from a "Resolution" because to do something you need a plan and a way to pay for it, which ain't here.
11
Yet, there are plans fully drawn and rational for shifting to a renewable energy infrastructure; and a way to pay for it might start with a tax structure similar to the one that built the interstate highway system; and maybe, just maybe, a consideration for the long term costs that will arise from the degraded ecosystem that we're currently building with our carbon friendly practices.
37
I have spent the morning reading through the text of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's resolution. My first impression is that it should not be named a New Green Deal but rather it should be called Back To The Future.
Not only do both try to rectify current matters by time travel, both are equally the product of fever dream fiction.
Does she and her cadres not realize that the last great implementation of Marxism, the Soviet Union, imploded less than 30 years ago? Further, that the Chinese version of that failure has progressively become more capitalistic while retaining its social and political totalitarian aspects?
This proposal is destined to fail spectacularly unless one defines success as the complete and total collapse of the US economy while at the same time having the effect of putting in the hands of the Federal government a near 100% command and control power over it.
But this proposal is even more insidious as it views, with great suspicion, the inalienable rights of the individual ensconced in our founding documents and allows the Federal government to redistribute them, along with confiscating individual wealth, to those social groups that currently favored by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez.
This document is nothing more or less than an American version of Das Kapital and a recipe for economic and social disasters.
God save us from the Selfie Generation.
14
@K. Johnson AOC is essentially proposing programs from the FDR era to help address the modern issues. Your understanding of socialism is unclear if your think these policies are socialism.
2
@K. Johnson Red baiting is so passe. If you have to resort to red baiting, you got nothing.
@K. Johnson
Did you ever read the three thick volumes of Marx's Theory of Economics as you call it Das Capital? He described the natural history of Capitalism. It had nothing to do with communism or socialism. The first volume published 1867 is prescient to the 21st economics.
At present time, wind energy production is increasing by about 30TWh each year, and solar production is increasing by about 15TWh each year. At this rate - which does not require any special intervention, just letting things go as they are now - solar and wind will completely replace fossil fuel for electricity generation in a little over 50 years - a very conservative estimate because solar/wind production costs are dropping. Fully-renewable electricity production will absolutely be a reality in 2070, the question is whether we make it happen sooner. I'd sure like to be alive when we reach this goal, and I'm willing to pay more in my taxes and electricity bills to speed up the transition.
5
@Sebastian
The unstated question is what happens if the sun implodes sooner than predicted? Well, if that happens we won't have to worry about renewable energy.
1
Beautiful. And to all the nay-sayers I say that without great ideals we’ll never achieve great things. Let’s go for it!
3
@Andy
"Let's go for it" seems to be all there is to AOC's plan for how to implement, manage and pay for her idea. Maybe that's all she is capable of coming up with. Sad.
4
@Mark Shyres - one thing is for sure: without radical, even revolutionary ideas such as this one, there will be no future for anyone, period. Global warming and the destruction of the environment are pretty much guaranteed if we keep on the same path.
The Green New Deal is a terrific idea to push back against the destructive environmental policies of Donald Trump. However, it seems it would from some small legislative steps that would move toward the goal of a fossil-fuel free future. There are many proposals that might garner bipartisan support such as encouraging GM to keep open its Lordstown, Ohio and other plants scheduled to close if they would shift production to electric vehicles (EVs) by eliminating the federal tax of all cars made there for three years as long as Ohio also cuts its sales tax as well and sets a date for all cars and trucks registered in the state to be EVs. This combines a Trump agenda with the Green New Deal. Another possibility is to establish an Appalachian Energy Authority (A.E.A) in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia modeled on the T.V.A. where solar and wind products would not only be manufactured again with a multi-year tax abatement that would guarantee jobs paying at least $20/hour to displaced coal mine workers, but also be used to generate energy in the region. It would be hard for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to oppose the A.E.A. that would benefit his state. A third possibility is a much-needed nationals high-speed rail system that would operate on renewable energy and fit with Trump's call for an infrastructure project.
4
These proposals will drive independents and many Democrats, myself included, to their armchairs on election day. Or worse yet, into the arms of a third-party candidate.
14
@Jose Jordan you can't possibly be a Democrat if you don't already support democratic measures that seek to ensure that everyone has a clean planet to live on, safe jobs with living wages, and access to clean water and non-toxic food.
2
@JDS78
Nothing in the manifesto makes the planet clean, produces safe jobs with living wages, increases access to clean water or provides food, toxic or not.
How about if NYC were to use existing technology and it's storied wealth to stop dumping one million gallons per year of raw sewage into the waters of America.
Start with a single step.
1
@Jose Jordan Reagan Democrats.
Hallelujah. A Green New Deal could drive science and technology for a generation, develop products that the US could export, and improve our lives forever. Opponents (Republicans) claim it will cost $1T as if that is big money. We spend $1T annually for 'Defense', with practically no return, largely to protect our supply of oil from despots. This would be the bargain of the millennium.
7
Republicans (and quite frankly a great many Democrats) are not pro-business. They say they are. But they are actually pro-cronyism. Established industries like coal and oil have plenty of money with which to hire lobbyists and pour into super PACs. So we get government policy that favor and protect these established industries, which are called "pro-business" as a euphemism. But it's really a bunch of politicians playing cronies with a few big business donors.
Catering to established industries actually stifles innovation and the creation of new businesses and new jobs. We subsidize coal and oil both by tax incentives and by making taxpayers pay the environmental costs of fracking, drilling, and air pollution. It keeps the same handful of big companies holding near-monopolies, and since most of these industries are well-established they are usually in the phase of 'streamlining operations," which means shedding as many jobs as possible to minimize labor overhead.
New companies in new industries are what will create jobs in the long-term, not keeping the same handful of near-monopolies comfortable at the expense of everyone's future.
3
What will it take to change people's minds? Perhaps a temperature of 125 degrees in New York this summer? A hurricane to strong that winds approach 300 miles an hour?
or will it finally be the earth shifting its axis because of all the weight of water melting at its poles?
3
@Matt586 yes
@Matt586
How about NYC replacing its 100 year old sewage system and stop dumping one million gallons of raw sewage into the waterways?
This begins the discussion is a focused way of an enormously complex problem by inviting the intellectuals, scientists, and engineers to raise their voices. This is the new American renaissance brought to us by the millennials who are more focused on STEM than guns, more on social justice than greed. This effort is something that will take the support of a great country and whose importance far exceeds the NASA project of getting a man to the moon. This will provide a path for the children of those poor people suffocating from in the coal mines.
Thank this Congress for a new energy, a new sense of urgency, and courage for stepping forward. THIS is the function of government.
16
It's about dang time that our elected representatives came to therms with the FACTS of climate change. This is an urgent problem requiring bold action to fix; lucky for us that we've already figured out almost all of the basic technology needed (no-carbon electricity generation, electrify transportation, climate-hardening of buildings, etc.).
6
Rewrite the blueprints of our build environment, Congress!
If there is no infrastructure bill to make better rail, bus, bike and subway services, it doesn't matter how many wind farms we build. Electric cars are a short-term answer, but the long-term answer is everyone living in close proximity in cities, with wide open spaces of farmland and forest in between. Suburbs should go the way of the Dodo--Not be too "sky is falling," but anything less in terms of policy will not save us from ourselves.
3
Ocasio-Cortez apparently thinks she can set the agenda for the Democrat party with ridiculous and unreachable targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. She would destroy a whole sector of the economy by eliminating oil and natural gas production, not to mention the gas and diesel powered truck and automobile industry. Meanwhile Pelosi looks befuddled and powerless with her lack of a coherent response. This is great news for Republicans. The farther left these new Democrats shift, the more Americans will vote for political and economic sanity represented by Republicans.
12
@paul ah yes, the political sanity of the Republican party.
2
@paul
We once thought we couldn't get to the moon, too. If America is great, then let's do great things!
2
@paul Political and econonic sanity aren’t doing anything for most Americans.
Pelosi's moves trouble me. To not bring the bill to the floor smacks of McConnell. And to snub Ocasio-Cortez is small-minded and only supports the outcry for new Democratic leadership.
6
@Dimitra Lavrakas
Blame The Times' reporting. Multiple other outlets reported that Pelosi offered AOC a spot and she declined. Don't know why Friedman and Thrush are painting it the way they are.
Democrats need to follow Speaker Pelosi's LEADERSHIP on climate change and energy, not wander into the Cortez weeds of "dump-truck" measures that have no potential for enactment into law. Cortez talks a good line, but while she was dancing (and talking...) other's of us were actually insulating buildings, installing solar panels and making the world a better place in "measurable" ways. Talk is CHEAP - especially in Washington DC!
4
'100 percent of electricity through renewable sources like wind and solar in the next 10 years' Wonderful but the Germans tried to do the same and are now dependent on Russian gas.
'eradicating poverty by creating high-paid jobs' How? especially when she wants to abolish ICE. More low skill, limited education migrants from poor countries equals more poverty and lower wages; immediately and when low skill jobs become more automated.
And who creates high paid jobs when she starts taxing job creators; not just 'the rich', at 90%? The government assigns you a job? Like the former Soviet Union?
This is supposed to get anyone who doesn't already live off the state to vote for Democrats?
8
@CNNNNC
The Germans have replaced nuclear with coal.
So let me guess. This grand Green New Deal that's supposed to wean us off fossil fuels by 2030 is not going to put a price on carbon. Correct?
Good luck with that. It seems like, just as America is starting to emerge from 40 years of right-wing sham economics, what's it going to be replaced by? A new era of left-wing sham economics.
5
Well...just beginning talks about climate change and how to face it is "....one small step for mankind."
Three things you can be sure of:
*It will take decades to undo what Trump has done here and globally.
*It will take Dems in charge of the whole Congress and White House to get even small steps forward.
*Fossil fuel businesses will throw in everything they have to defeat it at every step along the way.
Yet it is the first step that starts any long and arduous journey worth making.
8
So the only un-oppressed people in this definition are straight, largely married white males who are middle-aged, native born, non-disabled and working in urban or suburban areas?
7
Did anyone believe in May 1961 that John Kennedy’s challenge to go to the moon by the end of the decade was preposterous? Plenty of people did and there was a vigorous argument about whether money should be spent here on earth rather than reaching for the moon.The argument for Green legislation follows the same path. There is a difference, however, because if we choose not to improve the environment we will suffer the consequences.Nature will not wait for a consensus in Congress- there will be more flooding, more severe hurricanes and more destructive wildfires.Parts of our country will not be habitable because of the rise of sea level.Costs at every level of government will rise. We fool ourselves if we think we can safely ignore the problem of our changing climate.
4
@Janet Michael.....The difference is that NASA was advised by Von Braun and his team who had spent 25 years building rockets and who understood what was possible.