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green new deal
How We Can Keep the Green New Deal Alive Despite Trump’s Fossil Fuel Authoritarianism
The Green New Deal is being created right now by flesh-and- blood people under real-life conditions. It is being created in communities, cities, states, and regions—from below.
Nov 21, 2024
To resist and eventually overcome the looming authoritarian national government, we need to create bastions of what the Polish activists who overthrew their country’s dictatorship called “social self-defense.” That will involve many methods, including mutual aid, on-the-ground protection of those under attack, intelligence sharing, and many other forms of solidarity. For the past five years, I have been studying initiatives that are realizing the principles and policies of the Green New Deal—what I have called “The Green New Deal from Below.” I believe these Green New Deal from Below initiatives can be a critical component of our social self-defense.
The Green New Deal is a visionary program designed to protect the Earth’s climate while creating good jobs, reducing injustice, and eliminating poverty. Its core principle is to unite the necessity for climate protection with the goals of full employment and social justice.
The Green New Deal erupted into public attention as a proposal for national legislation. But there has also emerged a little-noticed wave of initiatives from community groups, unions, city and state governments, tribes, and other nonfederal actors designed to contribute to the climate protection and social justice goals of the Green New Deal. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez (AOC), who helped initiate the campaign for a Green New Deal, has called it “a Green New Deal from Below.”'
The Green New Deal from Below is showing that it is possible to challenge the powers that are imposing climate change, inequality, and oppression.
The purpose of this book is to provide an overview of Green New Deal from Below initiatives in many different arenas and locations. These initiatives encompass a broad range of the programs already under way and in development. The projects of Green New Dealers recounted here should provide inspiration for thousands more that can create the foundation for local, national, and even global mobilization—and reconstruction.
The Green New Deal is happening, and whatever happens is possible. The Green New Deal is not an impossible leftist fantasy, or something that could never win popular support, or a dream that couldn’t possibly be realized in practice, or something that would bring disaster if it were realized. The Green New Deal is being created right now by flesh-and- blood people under real-life conditions. It is being created in communities, cities, states, and regions—from below.
Of course, only a limited proportion of U.S. geographies and institutions have fully developed Green New Deals. But efforts to create Green New Deals are ubiquitous; an article in Popular Science magazine soon after the first Green New Deal proposal in Congress found that plans and first steps to realize Green New Deals were happening in every state in the union. Today the Green New Deal from Below, dispersed throughout the United States, is transforming the realities where it is—and creating models for broader transformation everywhere.
Green New Deals in cities like Boston and Los Angeles are reducing the greenhouse gases that are destroying our climate. They are creating jobs that protect the climate and training workers to fill them. They are mobilizing city resources to reduce poverty. They are investing in climate- protecting buildings and technologies in low-income neighborhoods. They are expanding cheap or free public transit to reconnect isolated neighborhoods, provide people who lack cars with access to jobs, and reduce greenhouse gas pollution.
In states like Illinois, California, and New York, Green New Deal-style programs are shifting major resources to climate-safe energy development. They are setting targets for greenhouse gas reduction and schedules for shutting down fossil fuel-producing and using facilities—and implementing them. They are reducing fossil fuel use by increasing the energy efficiency of buildings, transportation, agriculture, and other energy users. They are investing in infrastructure to correct historical injustices like polluting facilities concentrated in poor communities. They are creating jobs in the green economy with high labor rights and standards and providing job training, jobs, and job ladders for people who have been marginalized in the labor market.
Unions like the IBEW are promoting programs to expand renewable energy production, building coalitions to support them, training the workers needed to realize them, and monitoring the results to ensure that they produce good union jobs. Unions of educators and nurses are fighting for—and winning—green schools and hospitals.
The Green New Deal from Below is showing that it is possible to challenge the powers that are imposing climate change, inequality, and oppression. That it is possible to formulate realistic alternatives. And that those alternatives can actually be implemented.
Perhaps someone could look at the diverse projects, programs, and initiatives of the Green New Deal from Below and see them as simply scattered, unconnected, one-off phenomena. But that would be like saying, I see the students, the classrooms, and the football field, but where is the university? The Green New Deal from Below is indeed composed of many parts, but that does not prevent it from being a real entity as a whole.
The Green New Deal transformed America’s political imagination. It transgressed the neoliberal, market-only assumptions that dominated public discourse for four decades. It proposed the long-disparaged notion of using government to solve problems. It refused to accept the growing inequality that had reshaped American society. It advocated tackling rather than ignoring the climate emergency. To paraphrase Green New Deal mayor Michelle Wu of Boston, it shifted “the sense of what was possible.” It thereby expanded the limits of what was possible.
This transformation flows from the core concepts of the Green New Deal. These core concepts integrate multiple concerns rather than addressing them in separate “silos” or adding them together in “laundry lists.” They unite the urgent and universal need for climate protection with the economic and social needs of disadvantaged groups and of working people. They do so by articulating a strategy for rapid greenhouse gas reduction that prioritizes programs that create jobs and reduce injustice. This strategy provides a new way of integrating the interests of previously disconnected or antagonistic constituencies.
The Green New Deal is not just a slogan, a list of demands, or a menu of policies. The Green New Deal provides a framework for moving beyond piecemeal policies to a set of integrated strategies. Like the original New Deal, it makes seemingly antagonistic policies and constituencies complementary by transcending the limitations of established assumptions. It pro-poses a set of changes in the social framework that meet both the common and the distinct needs of those affected. It thereby constructs a common interest that incorporates the particular interests of different groups. This allows needs and interests that may currently appear incompatible—for example, between jobs and environment—to become compatible or even synergistic.
The Green New Deal integrates such distinct elements in two ways. First, it integrates different kinds of needs and their solutions. Front and center is its integration of the need for climate protection, the need for good jobs, and the need for greater equality. But it integrates other needs as well. For example, it combines policies that attack entrenched forms of discrimination and injustice with ones that increase the power of workers on the job by strengthening their right to organize and engage in concerted action. Legislation in Connecticut and other states exemplifies this by requiring that offshore wind clean energy projects provide both project labor agreements ensuring union wage standards and conditions and community benefit agreements providing access to jobs for communities and demographics often deprived of that access.
Second, the Green New Deal integrates the needs of different constituencies. For example, two separate coalitions backing different bills developed in Illinois to shape climate legislation. One, the Illinois Clean Jobs coalition, was rooted in the environmental movement and local social justice organizations. The other, the Climate Jobs Illinois coalition, was based in the state’s labor unions. After considerable tension and extended negotiations, the two united on a common program that included the demands of each—laying the basis for the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, described by one journalist as a “Green New Deal” for Illinois.
Integrating programs and integrating people go hand in hand. For example, the Green New Deal tames the purported conflict between employment and climate protection. It challenges the “jobs vs. environment” frame. At a local and state level, the Green New Deal from Below has therefore been able to unite often-divided labor, environmental, and climate justice advocates.
The Green New Deal is driven by a sense of urgency. There is the urgency of the climate emergency. There is also the urgency of people who are suffering and even dying as a result of injustice. The original Green New Deal proposal responded to this urgency by calling for a 10-year mobilization that would reconstruct American society and economy as dramatically as the New Deal and mobilization for World War II.
The Green New Deal arose in a sea of hopelessness and despair. It pointed the way toward viable alternatives to realities that evoked that hopelessness and despair. The Green New Deal from Below provides people a way to start building those alternatives day by day where they live and work.
The world historian Arnold Toynbee once delineated how great civilizational changes occur. Existing leaders of existing institutions face new challenges—but fail to change to meet them. Their civilizations thereby become vulnerable to collapse. In such a setting, however, a creative minority may arise that proposes—and begins to implement—new solutions. Surely climate change represents such a civilizational challenge, and just as surely our existing institutions and their leaders are failing to make the changes it requires. But at the grassroots a creative minority is at work establishing new solutions that are reconstructing society on new principles. Their work is manifested in the Green New Deal from Below.
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Capitalism Is Killing Us, But You Won't Hear a Whisper of It at the Democratic Convention
Out of some sort of atavistic hope, I watched the Democratic Party convention searching for some glimmer of rational wisdom. How stupid of me! I ought to know by now that the soul of democracy is made out of marshmallow fluff.
Aug 22, 2024
Neither politicians (across the continuum) nor corporate media pundits engage in meaningful public discourse on climate and the environment. They choose not to acknowledge the scope of the threat or to sincerely analyze real means of addressing the gathering onslaught. The bogus dialogue on climate is all smoke and mirrors, feeding the masses fatuous illusions—promising future technological triumphs—and wielding uncertainty as a means to disarm public ire. Our popular discussions about the environment are almost never about capitalism precisely because (in the real world, as opposed to the world of mass fantasy) it is always and obviously about capitalism.
The wealth of information on climate available at the click of a computer may be staggering, but only a few stilted, corporate approved narratives leak into the popular climate conversations featured in political debates or commercial media. Our climate stories have been mutilated, distorted or subtly degraded by the money and influence of those whose profits come from environmental destruction.
The major political parties avoid an honest evaluation of our environmental crises in the manner of a vampire cringing before a clove of garlic. Don't hold your breath waiting for Kohei Saito or Jason Hickel to be interviewed on CNN or Fox News. Extinction Rebellion (XR) has demanded that governments tell the truth about climate overheating, but XR might as well insist that the cow jump over the moon. If the U.S. government were to voice even a timidly honest approximation of our environmental realities it would open the floodgates of its own complicity. Here are some truths that governments will never tell:
1) There is no adequate climate mitigation currently in practice anywhere on earth, and no plan to initiate any. Fossil fuels are being extracted and burned at all-time highs with no adequate regulation.
2) The sixth extinction is well underway, with species die offs now proceeding at a velocity unprecedented in geological history. (The Chicxulub meteor (Alvarez Impact Theory) would have created an even more abrupt mass extinction, however, Gerta Keller's rebuttal to Alvarez, compellingly argues that Deccan Traps volcanism (and not a meteor) did in the dinosaurs. Until the Alvarez/Keller dispute resolves into a clear verdict, our sixth extinction ought to be awarded the interim title for murdering life on earth swiftly.)
3) CO2 concentrations are increasing at least ten times faster than during the greatest mass extinction in earth's history—the "End Permian." In 2023, atmospheric CO2 increased by an astonishing 4.7 parts per million.
4) Climate ruin in the Global South will create more than a billion climate refugees in the next few decades, driving fascist movements and increasing the risk of famine, genocide, and war.
5) Temperature increases as high as 5 degrees Celsius are very possible by the end of the century if governments do not cooperate and radically change course globally. It must be said, they show no signs of even considering this. A 5°C rise in temperatures transpiring over the course of a mere two centuries would make our planet uninhabitable for human civilization as we know it. Bear in mind that the volcanism driving all five mass extinctions of deep time (I am giving the nod to Gerta Keller here) transpired across hundreds of thousands of years in each instance. Capitalism can obliterate millions of species in a geological nanosecond.
6) Sea level rise could be as much as seven feet by the end of the century, displacing billions of people in coastal areas.
7) The immediate future will feature anoxic oceans, slowing of ocean currents, massive dead zones, bleached coral reefs, and the cataclysmic die-off of fish. Inland, 120,000 square kilometers turn into desert annually.
A piece by Clayton Page Aldern just published in Aeon magazine details the ways that heat impinges on neurological functioning. We have just been sent reeling by the Covid-19 pandemic that, uniquely among pathogens, has a propensity to diminish cognition. Lead, the mother of all neurotoxins, is still ubiquitous in U.S. cities thanks to austerity that prioritizes military spending and government handouts to fossil fuel companies while gutting infrastructure spending.
Leaded gasoline, banned several decades ago, caused tens of millions of global deaths and created a worldwide epidemic of brain damage simply because General Motors held the patent on tetraethyl lead and blocked the use of cheap alternatives. Many survivors of leaded gasoline, including myself, now have the task of using our injured brains to come up with a solution to our environmental crises. Increasingly brain damaged people now must tackle increasingly unsolvable environmental assaults.
Factor in pesticides, plastics, mercury and a host of agricultural contaminants that make it difficult to think straight. The bruised remnants of our minds gravitate toward the immediate relief of addictive substances. The biggest of all addictions in a capitalist universe is spending and material consumption. We can't think about complex issues, but we can buy stuff created by fossil fuels.
With capitalism driving humanity toward a warp speed plunge into planetary ruin, our democratic systems have distilled the climate narrative into a bifurcated choice between Republican psychosis and Democratic hopium.
The Republican Party environmental narrative holds that climate change is either a complete hoax or an over-hyped inconvenience spurred by alarmists looking for academic funding. The Democratic Party narrative optimistically assumes that we merely need to defer to the free market and allow green industries to build the windmills and solar panels needed to make oil, coal, and gas obsolete. In other words, we face a certain apocalypse armed only with surrealistic fantasies.
Out of some sort of atavistic hope, I watched the Democratic Party convention searching for some glimmer of rational wisdom. How stupid of me! Conventions promote empty oratory as a matter of tradition. I ought to know by now that the soul of democracy is made out of marshmallow fluff.
There were no speeches suggesting that our politicians have been in touch with our scientists. No one mentioned the trajectory of atmospheric carbon, the future certainty of catastrophic weather or the looming extinction of myriads of species, including humanity. Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama did not mention climate—even in passing.
A couple of millennia ago, Nero allegedly "fiddled while Rome burned," and we still do not forgive him. Thousands of years in the future no one will be alive to hold our orchestra members accountable. For the record, Bernie Sanders did state that nothing in the Democratic Party platform is radical but "allowing polluters to destroy the planet" (he was talking about Republicans) is radical. Alexandra Ocasio - Cortez offered that Americans need "the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water." Barack Obama mentioned something about "America protecting the world from climate change," but with no elaboration. None of these one-liners counts as climate policy. Real climate policy for either party is greenwash and burn it down.
There was no talk about nationalizing fossil fuels, mobilizing all of the nation's resources for an all-out struggle against mass extinction. None of the feel-good slogans and platitudes had been aimed at climate. I will leave the readers with an important quote:
"From this angle, it becomes clear that capitalism is highly inefficient when it comes to meeting human needs; it produces so much, and yet leaves 60% of the human population without access to even the most basic goods. Why? Because a huge portion of commodity production (and all the energy and materials it requires) is irrelevant to human well-being. Consider this thought experiment: Portugal has significantly better social outcomes than the United States, with 65% less GDP per capita. This means that $38,000 of US per capita income is effectively ‘wasted’. That adds up to $13 trillion per year for the US economy as a whole; $13 trillion worth of extraction and production and consumption each year, and $13 trillion worth of ecological pressure, that adds nothing, in and of itself, to human well-being. It is damage without gain."
This quote is not from Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, or Tim Walz. No, it is from Jason Hickel, perhaps the most lucid and charismatic voice in the movement for degrowth. He was not invited to speak at the DNC convention, and I have no reason to quote him. Forgive me.
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How Harris and Walz Can Win Big at the DNC
By committing to three critical areas—housing affordability, green jobs, and a new direction in foreign policy—they can offer a vision of a fairer, more prosperous, and more just America.
Aug 17, 2024
The Democratic ticket of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is sparking a level of enthusiasm among party supporters and the general American public reminiscent of former President Barack Obama's transformative election in 2008. This excitement is palpable, driven by a combination of Harris' historic candidacy and Walz's grounded Midwestern appeal, on top of their strong records and qualifications.
Yet, maintaining this momentum requires more than charisma, qualifications, and historical firsts; it demands a robust policy platform that addresses the urgent needs of Americans and reflects the core values of the Democratic base.
This election will ultimately come down to turnout of the Democrat's working-class base. Harris signaled she understands this through her selection of Walz as her running mate, over "safer" bets more appealing to conservatives in swing states.
As Democrats gather in Chicago, the Harris/Walz ticket has a golden opportunity to present a bold, transformative platform that can energize the party and win big.
But for many "base voters" struggling to make ends meet, an exclusively anti-Trump message simply wonʻt cut it. Our communities are looking for common-sense solutions to the most fundamental problems we face. As the Democratic National Convention approaches in Chicago, it's crucial that the Harris/Walz ticket prioritizes three key pillars to solidify, expand, and energize their support base to show up big through November.
1. Cut the Cost of Living and Make Housing Affordable
Across the nation, Americans are grappling with rising housing costs that are increasingly out of step with their incomes. For too many, the dream of homeownership—or simply the security of affordable rent—is slipping away. The Democratic platform must commit to bold measures that ensure housing is not a privilege of the rich but a right accessible to all. This includes expanding funding for affordable and social housing projects, offering incentives for cities and states to cut red tape that hinders construction, and implementing rent controls to keep predatory landlords in check. By making housing affordability a cornerstone of their campaign, Harris and Walz can address a fundamental source of economic anxiety for millions.
2. Invest in Union Jobs, Public Infrastructure, and the Environment
The climate crisis poses one of the greatest threats to our health and safety. Tackling this issue head-on presents an opportunity to revitalize the American economy and workforce. While the historic Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act represent a solid step, the Harris/Walz ticket must champion further public investments that not only aim to drastically reduce carbon emissions but also transform our food and transportation systems. These initiatives should be designed to create high-paying, unionized jobs that provide lasting employment across the country. Furthermore, environmental justice must be at the forefront of this plan, ensuring that communities historically impacted by pollution and climate change are the first to benefit from these new opportunities.
3. Promote Peace and Diplomacy Abroad
Foreign policy is often a contentious and overlooked area of presidential platforms, but this year, it's risen to a deciding factor for the super majority of likely Democratic voters in key states. The ongoing conflict in Gaza and the substantial U.S. military support for Israel demand urgent reevaluation. Harris and Walz should courageously pivot U.S. foreign policy by advocating for a cessation of arms sales to Israel, focusing on diplomatic resolutions to the conflict, and underscoring the importance of human rights and international law. This stance would not only align with the values of a significant portion of the Democratic base but also position the United States as a leader in ethical foreign policy.
As Democrats gather in Chicago, the Harris/Walz ticket has a golden opportunity to present a bold, transformative platform that can energize the party and win big. By committing to these three critical areas—housing affordability, green jobs, and a new direction in foreign policy—they can offer a vision of a fairer, more prosperous, and more just America. This is the path to not just winning an election, but to making historical progress that will resonate for generations to come.
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