Prospects for a Green New Deal

Presented on The Old Mole Variety Hour, December 3, 2018

The report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released last month seems to have tasked the governments of the world, or more broadly, the human species with an impossible task: to reduce and eliminate the use of fossil fuels, by the end of the next decade. Doing so could prevent the most serious climate catastrophes that will otherwise occur within the lifetimes of most of the world’s population. We have the knowledge and tools we need to make the changes in the production and use of energy necessary to avoid the destruction from floods, fires, heat waves, droughts, rising sea levels, and crop failures. What has been lacking is a concrete, actionable proposal,  put before the US Congress, that is equal to the task. There is now such a proposal before Congress. 

But first, consider how enormous that task before us is: .

Every item produced, transported, and used or consumed by the earth’s seven billion people involves the use of energy at every stage, from the mining, growing and transporting of raw materials, the manufacturing process, the transportation of the products, to the use of products, especially those that use power like stoves, computers, cars, and jet planes including fighter jets and bombers. How could all this energy be either eliminated or else produced without burning carbon? If we fail, if we go on adding CO2 to the atmosphere, thereby increasing the temperatures of the ocean, the air, and the earth, and ramping up a cascade of snowballing effects leading ultimately to the end of life as we know it, or indeed of all life, then what kind of crime would we be guilty of?[1]

Of course it is not really “we” – all of humanity, that is engaged in committing the crime of destroying the thin layer of water, soil, and air on which life depends but rather the masters of capital whose profits and power depend on the continuing expropriation and burning of buried carbon to fuel their industries. Any direct attack on their access to oil, coal, and natural gas is an attack on the foundations of their life blood – the flow of profits and the ever expanding growth of capital. The flow of capital from profits to investment to production to sale and thus to more profits, profits that must in turn be invested – this flow underlies and saturates life in capitalist society, which is why, as someone has written, it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.[2] But if we see that it is capitalism that will lead to the end of the world, we had better learn to imagine and to implement the end of capitalism.

Here's where the proposal  of newly elected congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortea for a Select Committee For a Green New Deal comes in. “The select committee,” according to proposal, “shall have authority to develop a detailed national, industrial, economic mobilization plan … for the transition of the United States economy to become carbon neutral and to significantly draw down and capture greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and oceans and to promote economic and environmental justice and equality.”

Like the original New Deal, this calls for more than a legislative proposal or even a package of bills. It has to be, like the original New Deal of the 1930s, quoting from Mike Carr,  “a fundamental shift in approach that is relentless and comprehensive.” The breadth and depth of this  shift is obvious in the list of goals for the Select Committee, all to achieved in the next ten years:

1. 100% of national power generation from renewable sources;
2. building a national, energy-efficient, “smart” grid;”[3]
3. upgrading every residential and industrial building for state-of-the-art energy efficiency, comfort and safety;
4. decarbonizing the manufacturing, agricultural and other industries;
5. decarbonizing, repairing and improving transportation and other infrastructure;
6. funding massive investment in the drawdown and capture of greenhouse gases;
7. making “green” technology, industry, expertise, products and services a major export of the United States, with the aim of becoming the undisputed international leader in helping other countries transition to completely carbon neutral economies and bringing about a global Green New Deal.

The proposal for a Green New Deal adds that “a national, industrial, economic mobilization of this scope and scale is a historic opportunity to virtually eliminate poverty in the United States and to make prosperity, wealth and economic security available to everyone participating in the transformation.” Accordingly, it calls for guaranteed employment for everyone who wants to work (and obviously the plan calls for a lot of work), for a national universal health plan, and some form of guaranteed income.

The Green New Deal does not rely on the private sector to pull all this off. Rather, quoting from the proposal, “the majority of financing of the Plan shall be accomplished by the federal government, using a combination of the Federal Reserve, a new public bank or system of regional and specialized public banks, and [public] venture funds… in order to ensure that interest and other investment returns generated from public investments made in connection with the Plan will be returned to the treasury, reduce taxpayer burden and allow for more investment.”

It is unlikely that Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal for a select committee will be agreed to by the Democratic leadership with their ties to big energy companies. Even if it were, its proposals could not survive the Republican Senate or the current President. But the proposal is something that can, and must, be at the center of a political movement that is fully and openly aware that the claims of the very rich to own and control the productive wealth of our nation are bogus. That wealth must now be devoted, not to the profits of a few, but to the survival and the flourishing  of the many – and not just the many humans, but all the creatures of our living planet.

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[1] Perhaps crimes of this magnitude can be named only after they have been committed, but if there is no one around after this crime, it will be nameless, though no less real, for all eternity. Is something a crime (or ugly or beautiful, or good or evil) if there is no one to call it by names of that kind?

[2] Mike Shaughnessy writes on The London Green Blog: “The problem is, that burning fossil fuels to provide the energy for our economic system of productivism, is what drives economic growth, and therefore provides wealth, is not compatible with reaching climate change goals. Yes, we should be moving to renewable sources of energy much faster than we are, but if growth keeps rising, as it must within the logic of the system, it is unlikely to ever be enough.

We need a great transformation of our societies and global economy, to use less resources, and to focus away from increasing GDP, if we are to have a realistic chance of stopping catastrophic climate change.

[3] Local or regional grids might give people more democratic control over how power is generated and distributed. Bill Resnick and Jeremy Brecher discuss this in a recent interview.