Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Unveils Landmark 'Green New Deal' Resolution

[bigtree]

Last edited Thu Feb 7, 2019, 03:17 PM - Edit history (1)

Link to tweet

NPR:

The bill calls for a "10-year national mobilizations" toward accomplishing a series of goals that the resolution lays out.

Among the most prominent, the deal calls for "meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources." The ultimate goal is to stop using fossil fuels entirely, as well as to transition away from nuclear energy.

In addition, the framework, as described in the legislation as well as "FAQs" from Ocasio-Cortez's office, calls for a variety of other lofty goals:

- "upgrading all existing buildings" in the country for energy efficiency;
- working with farmers "to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions... as much as is technologically feasible" (while supporting family farms and promoting "universal access to healthy food" )
- "Overhauling transportation systems" to reduce emissions — including expanding electric car manufacturing, building "charging stations everywhere," and expanding high-speed rail to "a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary";
- A guaranteed job "with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations and retirement security" for every American;
- "High-quality health care" for all Americans.

read more: https://www.npr.org/2019/02/07/691997301/rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-releases-green-new-deal-outline


HuffPo::

On Thursday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) unveiled a landmark resolution cementing the pillars of an unprecedented program to zero out planet-warming emissions and restore the middle-class prosperity of postwar America that the original New Deal helped spur.

Just three months after calls for a Green New Deal electrified a long-stagnant debate on climate policy, the Democratic lawmakers released the six-page document outlining plans to cut global emissions 40 to 60 percent below 2010 levels by 2030 and neutralize human-caused greenhouse gases entirely by 2050.

The resolution stakes out a “ten-year national mobilization” plan to build “smart” grids and rapidly increase the share of American power generated from solar and wind from 10 percent today to as close to 100 percent as possible over the next decade. The plan reframes tired talk of repairing the nation’s crumbling bridges, highways and ports as a crisis in a new era of billion-dollar storms. It gets local, demanding upgrades to “all existing U.S. buildings” to “achieve maximum” efficiency with energy and water use.

Energy and infrastructure issues are the centerpiece of the resolution, with explicit goals of overhauling the transportation sector ― the country’s biggest source of climate pollution ― to expand public transit and high-speed rail and to spur a “clean” manufacturing boom with a particular focus on electric vehicles.

But, unlike most existing Green New Deal concepts, food and water are focal points. The resolution proposes “building a more sustainable food system that ensures universal access to healthy food” and “guaranteeing universal access to clean water.” To meet those goals, the document describes “working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers” to reduce agricultural pollution with “sustainable farming and land use practices that increase soil health” and “supporting family farming.”

read more: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ocasio-cortez-green-new-deal_us_5c588e7fe4b09293b20730d7


The legislators scheduled a news conference at 12:30 p.m. EST Thursday.

[jalan48]

1. The most important issue we should be dealing with, but humans, like pea-size brained birds, fall

for the new shiny object every time.

[cilla4progress]

2. This is the one Pelosi

mocked?

[Bradical79]

3. I don't recall her mocking this

But she certainly needs to support it. We've consistently failed to do enough. Every day that action is not taken, the more extreme any action will have to be.

[cilla4progress]

4. Something from Shaun King

on twitter this morning.

[progressoid]

5. "...The green dream, or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they're for it, right?"

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211788678

[bigtree]

6. resolution

House link: https://t.co/3LxGdFbnKb

[riverine]

7. Why load it down with job guarantees and health care?

Tackling the AGW crisis is enough of a challenge.


I guess since the Senate won't do anything anyway this could be a political strategy.

[bigtree]

9. sponsors of this legislation have advocated incremental moves toward their goals

...but favors this comprehensive approach as an overriding strategy for changing the outcomes of communities and individuals affected by these issues.

One of its goals is “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”.

The resolution says significant portions of the American population are suffering from declining life expectancy, exposure to pollution, and lacking access to healthy food, healthcare, housing, transportation and education. It spotlights wage stagnation, lacking socio-economic mobility, income inequality, a racial wealth divide, a gender pay gap and weakened bargaining power for workers.

The Democratic congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who is the co-chair of the House progressive caucus and a sponsor of the legislation, said the resolution defined the scale and scope of what must be done to combat global warming.

Such legislation has little chance of becoming law as long as Republicans control the Senate and Trump is president. But Jayapal said Democrats would continue to lay the groundwork for a Green New Deal while pushing more incremental legislation.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/07/green-new-deal-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-plan

[oasis]

8. AOC will be on MSNBC'S MTP today w/Chuck Todd. She'll likely

expand on the value of the bill.

[bigtree]

10. Chuck Todd

...imagining that.

"Tell us, Rep. Cortez, why should Americans support this socialist bill?"

Maybe it'll be okay.

[oasis]

12. AOC is no lightweight. Chuck needs to "check himself before he

wrecks himself" trying to discredit this rising star.

[Achilleaze]

11. The whole world needs this

republican lies about climate change are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate change are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate change are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate change are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate change are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate change are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate change are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate change are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate change are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate change are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate change are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate change are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate change are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate change are profoundly dangerous
republican lies about climate change are profoundly dangerous

[akraven]

13. It won't be an easy sell way up here, but damn if I'm not willing to try.

Ice fog diminished significantly when Ft. Wainwright was forced to clean up it's power plant. The water cleared up significantly as well. My garden helps 4 months of the year and indoor-grown herbs year round. Public transit is nonexistent except in the immediate downtown area (here, you drive or hitch, period) but we try to do our bit on fuel saving with the motorcycle, again 4 months total.

I think it's especially do-able in cities and larger towns. And kicking polluter's butts in the wallet!