Back in 2007, when he first started writing about it, and in his 2008 book “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” Thomas Friedman began warning us that if we didn’t start working on revolutionizing the way we provide energy for our American lifestyle, we were all going to regret it. Simply put, there were too many of us exploiting (what had for centuries appeared to be unlimited) natural resources to avoid a not too distant future of disrupted “climate, forests, rivers, oceans and ecosystems” and a world characterized by shortages of food, clean water, and the human suffering that those conditions entailed. In a chapter entitled “Green is the New Red, White, and Blue” Friedman argued that we could no longer pretend that fossil fuels provided a path forward, and that if we, as Americans, were to lead the world, we would need to commit to, invest in, and bring to scale, the clean energy technologies and products that would define the future for a world bent on imitating the lifestyle of 21st century Americans. Friedman prescribed a Green New Deal (GND) that would harness the power of Government to fashion the policies that only the engine of capitalism could turn into a shift from the fossil fuel burning economy that had lifted so many people out of poverty with the industrial revolution to the “Code Green” economy needed to ensure that path to wealth and health for the future.
Here we are over a decade later with the Federal government trying to reverse the trend of replacing the burning of fossil fuels with renewable sources and a new wrinkle has been added to the Green New Deal by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and most recently Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
So, what has changed between now and then? In a word, lots.
The parade of horribles, including devastating hurricanes, droughts, wildfires, coral reef bleaching and Antarctic ice shelf destruction occurred concurrently with scientific reports sounding the alarm that the worst was not only yet to come, but would arrive sooner than had previously been expected. “Dire” doesn’t do it justice, especially while deniers obfuscate the obvious and pretend that the status quo is sustainable.
The new wrinkle added by Ocasio Cortez and Markey is to combine an ambitious call for climate action with a veritable laundry list of social justice agenda items aiming to level the economic playing field for the non-one-percenters. The non-binding resolution they introduced in the House and the Senate became a liberal Christmas tree on which to hang everything from indigenous rights proclamation to a guarantee of a job with a “family sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States.”
What’s not to like? Well, the strategy for starters. By festooning what had been a call for urgent action to protect the environment against the addition of unsustainable green house gas emissions with a feel good list of practically everything that all liberals have ever desired, the Green New Deal has not only become a giant target for Conservatives, but a bulls-eye for anyone in public life that abhors the aspirational in favor of the immediately doable (much less the practical). In other words, the Green New Deal has morphed from a well-reasoned argument for a green revolution that meshes the best of public policy with the power of the capitalist system into a divisive partisan battle cry that seeks to unite the left in the same way that the march on Charlottesville sought to unite the right. And we know how that turned out, and it was beyond ugly.
Now what? Give up? Change the slogan? As it turns out, neither is necessary.
Believe it or not, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has figured out how to thread the political needle created by the moment. On January 15th, he announced New York’s version of the Green New Deal that aggressively funded renewable energy projects while setting ambitious goals for eliminating non-renewable power in the State by 2040. His goals are the most far reaching of any state in the country. Yet they also include social justice items such as compensation funds for communities that risk losing their tax base as a result of the closing of older polluting power plants and job training programs for those impacted by the transition to renewables. No, it’s not the sweeping plan to change the world that Ocasio Cortez and Markey have laid out in their GND. But it is the GND that is achievable by New York while protecting the most economically vulnerable New Yorkers. The fact that it honors Friedman’s urgent call to action while simultaneously laying out a path to “avoid the unmanageable and manage the unavoidable” makes it a welcome policy exemplar that we should all rally around and support. Let’s make it happen in New York and spread the good news as far and as fast as possible.