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Tuesday Tip: Why the Green New Deal is Essential

Illustration of sun shining down on windmill farm with mountains and clouds in the background.

The Green New Deal is – finally – a plan with the scope and ambition necessary to transition our society and economy away from fossil fuels and fend off the oncoming climate crisis.

Scientific research is now virtually unanimous: Unless we take drastic action to get carbon emissions under control in the next decade, by the year 2040, the global ecosystem will tip into an irreversible slide toward breakdown. In the United States, warming will devastate every sector of the economy, from agriculture to public health.

The Green New Deal is a plan to prevent this – and more. A proposal by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Green New Deal would entirely transform the U.S. economy, shifting us to 100 percent renewable energy within 10 years. Named for Pres. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal that helped lift the United States out of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the Green New Deal is a sweeping program of investment – not only in clean energy, but also in jobs, income inequality, infrastructure, and racial justice. It would give us an economy that is sustainable, strong and fair after our transition away from carbon.

By some estimates, a Green New Deal could create 10 million jobs over the next decade by putting Americans to work on the sustainable technology and infrastructure we need to transition away from fossil fuels. It would reduce income inequality and bring solutions to communities that have been left behind.

Like Pres. Roosevelt’s New Deal, this plan is ambitious – but it is necessary and possible. To make it a reality, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, 45 members of Congress and groups like our allies at the Sunrise Movement – an organization of young climate activists – have urged Speaker Nancy Pelosi to establish a House Select Committee on a Green New Deal with a mandate to create a solid plan by 2020 to transition to 100 percent clean energy by 2030, invest in communities on the frontlines of poverty and pollution, and guarantee good jobs to all who are willing to work for these goals. More than 61,000 CREDO activists have called on House Democrats to support Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal.

In addition, activists took their demands directly to Speaker Pelosi to demand immediate action on a new select committee: Hundreds of activists from Sunrise Movement staged multiple protests in the Capitol, the first of which was attended by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez herself, urging Speaker Pelosi to establish the select committee and make climate action front and center in the new Congress. Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi stopped short of doing so. Instead, she established the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, which does not have the same mandate that climate activists have pushed for, such as allowing the committee to write legislation to transform our economy in the way that’s needed to prevent a climate crisis.


But CREDO and our allies are not deterred by this small setback, and we’re ramping up pressure on the newly Democratic House of Representatives to pass bold, transformative climate and green jobs initiatives and legislation. In addition, we’re calling on 2020 presidential hopefuls to commit to supporting the Green New Deal platform. Recently, after announcing her 2020 campaign bid, progressive champion Sen. Elizabeth Warren said that she “supports the idea of a Green New Deal to ambitiously tackle our climate crisis, economic inequality, and racial injustice.”

To learn and read more about the Green New Deal, Vox has a detailed and lengthy explainer you can check out here.

If you’re concerned about climate change, here’s a step you can take right now: switch your phone service to CREDO Mobile and your home electricity to CREDO Energy. We fight for climate justice through CREDO Action and donate to environmental organizations that are fighting the climate crisis every day, as well as many other progressive nonprofits. Take a look at who we fund and vote for the organizations you think we should fund this month.

18 Comments on “Tuesday Tip: Why the Green New Deal is Essential

  1. I love the idea of “The Green New Deal”! This is something we have needed to do for years and I don’t know why our Government is dragging it’s feet on this issue. It make so much sense and I don’t understand why they can’t see it. Pleas keep the pressure on these leaders and maybe we can make this happen.

  2. It’s past time to do this! Tell the corporate Dems to “lead, follow, or get out of the way!”

  3. End of fossil fuel era long, long overdue. Only a vigorous Green New Deal has any chance of overcoming the vast damage wrought by the greedy and politically powerful fossil fuel syndicate.

  4. Hopefully the young statespeople will strongly lead our nation to a new Green Deal as FDR led an earlier generation.

  5. I support a Green New Deal and will not support a candidate who does not.

  6. I support any clean energy program. The fossil fuel industry, led by the Koch brothers, is motivated by money. Initiate a viable program that threatens their bottom line and they will react. We must be prepared to work against all fossil fuel initiatives, chief of which is their propaganda network, that would tell the citizenry that they need not worry.

  7. I agree that we need to progress to a new green economy but in the mean time we need to make sure that we are not recreating the assault on our environment somewhere else. For instance, the green economy depends on lithium. Many of the significant deposits of lithium are in countries that are ripe for exploitation. We need to make sure that the exploitation doesn’t happen. One of the solutions we need to aggressively pursue is decreasing the population. We have too many people pursuing limited resources.

  8. I believe we must pay a lot of attention to these new members of Congress. They want a world in which all can live comfortably and I believe their ideas will change at least our part of the world if they can manage to implement them. Give them a chance! We need change and we need it now.

  9. I am 85 years old and expect to live into my nineties so will have to endure the remainder of my live with extensive use of fossil fuels.

    Using fossil resources as an energy source is a waste of valuable resources that can be put to much better use such as a products that can enhance the quality of life for future generations.

    Energy and ingenuity will always be the engine that drives our economies. So a transition from using fossil fuels to using renewable sources will be needed. The Green New Deal seems to be one step in the right direction.

    I do not want my grandchildren and great grandchildren to be burdened by all the negative effects uf using fossil fuels as an energy source!

  10. I believe we also need a carbon tax and carbon capture to fully embrace all avenues to fight climate change.

  11. Fantastic!! Already on Credo Mobile and Arcadia Power (Wind Power)…prayers abound as well for success of Green New Deal! My granddaughter’s (and all grandchildren of the world) lives are in a balance!! We must support this in any way we can!!!

  12. One area that is seldom addressed in climate change is the HUGE role factory farming of animals for meat plays in global warming. This must be acknowledged as a threat to our environment. The large amounts of methane delivered into the air daily from these feed lots is staggering. For personal health and the health of our planet (remember, no planet B), people are going to have to drastically decrease or stop eating meat.

  13. Those that lead must be able to elequently explain the advantages to so many that are not on board with this yet. You have to take it to the people who are listening to the lies of the Conservative Media propaganda. Facts and the ability of ordinary people to be trained in these new jobs that will pay a good living. Flashy dances won’t do it. Planning and codifying what can be done and how will. Shock and awe didn’t do it. Hearts and Minds will. Let the long walk begin. Yes to the committee that will work out the common sense laws that are needed to make this happen.

  14. This should have been done years ago.An area that’s not discussed enough is transportation.We sorely need to drive and fly less.More affordable and accessible options are needed and desired like buses,trains,high-speed rail,bike and pedestrian paths that everybody can use that will connect rural and urban areas plus neighborhoods and communities.The economy will greatly benefit as well as us and the planet,which will save many badly needed resources in the end.Thanks so much for reading!

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