The Green New Deal: FAQs/Mythbusting
First, I’m going to cover what the Green New Deal is, and then some of the common concerns/myths I hear about it: how to pay for it, why it’s not a “socialist wish-list”, its popularity, the impact of COVID-19, and the ambitious timeline for getting this all done.
Let’s talk about what the Green New Deal is.
The Green New Deal (read the first resolution here) is a vision for a ten-year national mobilization effort, with these goals:
What would this look like? The resolution currently in the House enumerates these goals and projects:
There’s a lot to unpack in those two lists, so I think of the Green New Deal as three pillars: climate, jobs, and social justice.
The following section deals with some FAQs that I myself have asked or heard about in the past couple years. Last week, I registered for Sunrise School and took a four-day course, diving into the specifics of the Green New Deal, and I want to share what I’ve learned.
How do we pay for the Green New Deal?
Many activists argue that ideally, the Green New Deal will pay for itself by averting the worst effects of climate change (lives lost, destruction to infrastructure, damage to our coastal military bases, and more would cost trillions) and by using job creation as an economic stimulus.
If you can’t tell already, I personally support the Green New Deal, but even I am not completely persuaded by that argument. While true in the long term, we still need money to initially set up the programs. Here’s the second part of “How to pay for it”: we reassess our priorities in the federal budget and use the money we already have.
As the recent $2-trillion Coronavirus stimulus package has shown, our government is willing to dump money into such programs during a crisis. Going further back into our history, Green New Deal advocates often compare this moment to the Great Depression and the New Deal. I won’t take too much time to digress and discuss that history, but the point is, we’ve used federal spending for mass mobilization projects before, and our country is in a position where we can do it again.
Let’s talk about what the Green New Deal is.
The Green New Deal (read the first resolution here) is a vision for a ten-year national mobilization effort, with these goals:
- achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions;
- establishing millions of high-wage jobs and ensuring economic security for all;
- investing in infrastructure and industry;
- securing clean air and water, climate and community resiliency, healthy food, access to nature, and a sustainable environment for all; and
- promoting justice and equality.
What would this look like? The resolution currently in the House enumerates these goals and projects:
- building smart power grids (i.e., power grids that enable customers to reduce their power use during peak demand periods);
- upgrading all existing buildings and constructing new buildings to achieve maximum energy and water efficiency;
- removing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation and agricultural sectors;
- cleaning up existing hazardous waste and abandoned sites;
- ensuring businesspersons are free from unfair competition; and
- providing higher education, high-quality health care, and affordable, safe, and adequate housing to all.
There’s a lot to unpack in those two lists, so I think of the Green New Deal as three pillars: climate, jobs, and social justice.
The following section deals with some FAQs that I myself have asked or heard about in the past couple years. Last week, I registered for Sunrise School and took a four-day course, diving into the specifics of the Green New Deal, and I want to share what I’ve learned.
How do we pay for the Green New Deal?
Many activists argue that ideally, the Green New Deal will pay for itself by averting the worst effects of climate change (lives lost, destruction to infrastructure, damage to our coastal military bases, and more would cost trillions) and by using job creation as an economic stimulus.
If you can’t tell already, I personally support the Green New Deal, but even I am not completely persuaded by that argument. While true in the long term, we still need money to initially set up the programs. Here’s the second part of “How to pay for it”: we reassess our priorities in the federal budget and use the money we already have.
As the recent $2-trillion Coronavirus stimulus package has shown, our government is willing to dump money into such programs during a crisis. Going further back into our history, Green New Deal advocates often compare this moment to the Great Depression and the New Deal. I won’t take too much time to digress and discuss that history, but the point is, we’ve used federal spending for mass mobilization projects before, and our country is in a position where we can do it again.
Think of all the money being spent on various wars right now! We have the resources necessary to invest in a livable future.
This is just a left-wing wishlist/trojan horse for “socialism”.
I used to distance myself from a “progressive agenda” because I was swayed by this very argument. When I read the Green New Deal for myself, however, I saw a vision that inspired me and really looked like something I could get behind.
We are living in a mixed economy and under a mixed government. There’s a spectrum between complete Capitalism and complete Socialism, and we are somewhere in between right now. The Green New Deal won’t push America all the way to socialism because it can’t, even if all its supporters wanted it to. And many Green New Deal supporters don’t want that, anyway!
The United States already has programs like free public school which, one could argue, are relatively “socialist” yet widely accepted as just “American”. With the Green New Deal in place, environmental programs and job creation would fall into that category.
Often related to this question is when people ask “why does this have so much about racism? It should be about climate!" Policy lead Rhiana Gunn-Wright explains this all much better than I could, so watch this awesome video!
I support the Green New Deal but others won’t. We need to water it down!
Watered-down proposals have failed over and over, and they won’t be enough to rally support or enact meaningful change. The video below offers a glance at the mistakes of history and how the Sunrise movement is learning from those failures.
On a more positive note, the Green New Deal is more popular than you probably think.
In this 2018 survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, participants were shown a description of the Green New Deal policy proposals (without mention of which members of Congress or political party champions it). 81% of registered voters said they supported it.
Since then, misinformation and polarization have spread, but approval is still higher than I would have expected. When people see the text of the Green New Deal and aren’t swayed by “AOC supports it” or “Fox News is against it”, they make their own decision and more often than not, resonate with the goals of the Green New Deal.
Outside controlled studies, we can’t erase bias that comes from influential political figures. But we have enough support that nothing needs to be watered down.
Everything in the Green New Deal is there for a reason. We can’t mitigate climate change effectively without an ambitious timetable. We can’t get to net-zero emissions and leave out social justice or jobs, because then our economy will crumble (disproportionately harming the most vulnerable, already marginalized communities) and we won’t get the strong, diverse movement we absolutely need.
We’re literally in an economic crisis for COVID-19. Why prioritize environmental legislation?
Coronavirus has made it even more clear that we need a Green New Deal, and solutions to COVID-19 like the People's Bailout are quite similar to the Green New Deal (my local Sunrise hub is fighting for both right now). Interestingly and unsurprisingly, ideas like government intervention and a federal jobs guarantee are less far-fetched than they seemed before.
You’ve probably heard by now how nature is making a comeback during the COVID-19 outbreak, but we have to be cautious in our optimism. Recovery from this pandemic is both an opportunity for positive, lasting change in our relationship with our planet (which passing the GND could be a part of!) as well as a risk for even worse consequences. This New York Times op-ed really put things in perspective for me.
The Green New Deal isn’t a law, and there’s no way to actually pass this!
It’s true that the Green New Deal is not a single piece of legislation. Rather, it’s a ten-year plan for a group of bills. Those pieces of binding legislation will codify the vision of an overall “Green New Deal” for our country.
Then what’s in the House of Representatives right now? That’s a resolution basically stating here’s what a Green New Deal would look like, and we need to start making it happen. Resolutions aren’t binding laws, but as an experienced grassroots lobbyist I can tell you that these really do work wonders as momentum-building tools, allowing members of Congress to take the first public steps and increasing public support before the heavy stuff gets dropped for real.
As early as this year (possibly 2021, though), the first of those actual bills will be introduced in Congress. This “appetizer bill” will pave the way for the rest of the Green New Deal. Details are scarce at the moment — we don’t know exactly which policies will be included in the “appetizer bill” or when it will be introduced, but here’s what we do know:
Thank you for taking the time to educate yourself about the Green New Deal! I'm not an expert (but these folks are), so don't just take my word for it. Keep reading about the Green New Deal, with an eye for credibility of sources.
This is just a left-wing wishlist/trojan horse for “socialism”.
I used to distance myself from a “progressive agenda” because I was swayed by this very argument. When I read the Green New Deal for myself, however, I saw a vision that inspired me and really looked like something I could get behind.
We are living in a mixed economy and under a mixed government. There’s a spectrum between complete Capitalism and complete Socialism, and we are somewhere in between right now. The Green New Deal won’t push America all the way to socialism because it can’t, even if all its supporters wanted it to. And many Green New Deal supporters don’t want that, anyway!
The United States already has programs like free public school which, one could argue, are relatively “socialist” yet widely accepted as just “American”. With the Green New Deal in place, environmental programs and job creation would fall into that category.
Often related to this question is when people ask “why does this have so much about racism? It should be about climate!" Policy lead Rhiana Gunn-Wright explains this all much better than I could, so watch this awesome video!
I support the Green New Deal but others won’t. We need to water it down!
Watered-down proposals have failed over and over, and they won’t be enough to rally support or enact meaningful change. The video below offers a glance at the mistakes of history and how the Sunrise movement is learning from those failures.
On a more positive note, the Green New Deal is more popular than you probably think.
 |
| https://bit.ly/2QTrRmI |
In this 2018 survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, participants were shown a description of the Green New Deal policy proposals (without mention of which members of Congress or political party champions it). 81% of registered voters said they supported it.
Since then, misinformation and polarization have spread, but approval is still higher than I would have expected. When people see the text of the Green New Deal and aren’t swayed by “AOC supports it” or “Fox News is against it”, they make their own decision and more often than not, resonate with the goals of the Green New Deal.
Outside controlled studies, we can’t erase bias that comes from influential political figures. But we have enough support that nothing needs to be watered down.
Everything in the Green New Deal is there for a reason. We can’t mitigate climate change effectively without an ambitious timetable. We can’t get to net-zero emissions and leave out social justice or jobs, because then our economy will crumble (disproportionately harming the most vulnerable, already marginalized communities) and we won’t get the strong, diverse movement we absolutely need.
We’re literally in an economic crisis for COVID-19. Why prioritize environmental legislation?
Coronavirus has made it even more clear that we need a Green New Deal, and solutions to COVID-19 like the People's Bailout are quite similar to the Green New Deal (my local Sunrise hub is fighting for both right now). Interestingly and unsurprisingly, ideas like government intervention and a federal jobs guarantee are less far-fetched than they seemed before.
You’ve probably heard by now how nature is making a comeback during the COVID-19 outbreak, but we have to be cautious in our optimism. Recovery from this pandemic is both an opportunity for positive, lasting change in our relationship with our planet (which passing the GND could be a part of!) as well as a risk for even worse consequences. This New York Times op-ed really put things in perspective for me.
The Green New Deal isn’t a law, and there’s no way to actually pass this!
It’s true that the Green New Deal is not a single piece of legislation. Rather, it’s a ten-year plan for a group of bills. Those pieces of binding legislation will codify the vision of an overall “Green New Deal” for our country.
Then what’s in the House of Representatives right now? That’s a resolution basically stating here’s what a Green New Deal would look like, and we need to start making it happen. Resolutions aren’t binding laws, but as an experienced grassroots lobbyist I can tell you that these really do work wonders as momentum-building tools, allowing members of Congress to take the first public steps and increasing public support before the heavy stuff gets dropped for real.
As early as this year (possibly 2021, though), the first of those actual bills will be introduced in Congress. This “appetizer bill” will pave the way for the rest of the Green New Deal. Details are scarce at the moment — we don’t know exactly which policies will be included in the “appetizer bill” or when it will be introduced, but here’s what we do know:
- We will have to fight to pass it.
- It won’t cover everything in the GND, but we need to claim it as the GND anyway to build public support for the overall plan.
Thank you for taking the time to educate yourself about the Green New Deal! I'm not an expert (but these folks are), so don't just take my word for it. Keep reading about the Green New Deal, with an eye for credibility of sources.
In the meantime, enjoy this uplifting video about the Green New Deal's vision!
Comments
Post a Comment