Articles include: Algae blooms & otters; cars versus mass transit; Study: meat & dairy lobbyists; US offshore wind targets; EV battery availability problems; fossil fuel divestment; climate jobs; Green New Deal; Report: Must electrify transportation; rewilding our cities; pandemic and EVs; sunlight blocking tests.
Tag: Green New Deal
Study: Yale Climate Connections, February 5, 2021
Articles include: mini-Green New Deal; What’s ‘normal’ in a changing climate?; Reports probe prospects for climate action on Capitol Hill; One-fourth of carnivorous plant species at risk of extinction, study finds; Fleas and ticks; Secretive Eastern black rail imperiled by habitat loss and sea-level rise; homes could lose 15% in value this decade, report finds; Dynamic glass; NFL restores a coral reef near Miami.
Economic Giants Are Restarting. Here’s What It Means for Climate Change.
The New York Times discusses how Economic Giants Are Restarting. Here’s What It Means for Climate Change. Want to know whether the world can avert catastrophe? Watch the recovery plans coming out now in Europe, China and the United States.
As countries begin rolling out plans to restart their economies after the brutal shock inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic, the three biggest producers of planet-warming gases — the European Union, the United States and China — are writing scripts that push humanity in very different directions.
Europe this week laid out a vision of a green future, with a proposed recovery package worth more than $800 billion that would transition away from fossil fuels and put people to work making old buildings energy-efficient.
In the United States, the White House is steadily slashing environmental protections and Republicans are using the Green New Deal as a political cudgel against their opponents.
G.O.P. Coronavirus Message: Economic Crisis Is a Green New Deal Preview
The New York Times discusses the tack being taken by the Republican Party – our current economic crisis is a preview of the Green New Deal. As the economy melts down, embattled conservatives are testing a political response: saying Democratic climate policies would bring similar pain.
The coronavirus and the struggle to contain it has tanked the economy, shuttered thousands of businesses and thrown more than 30 million people out of work. As President Trump struggles for a political response, Republicans and their allies have seized on an answer: attacking climate change policies.
“If You Like the Pandemic Lockdown, You’re Going to Love the Green New Deal,” the conservative Washington Examiner said in the headline of a recent editorial. Elizabeth Harrington, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, wrote in an opinion article in The Hill that Democrats “think a pandemic is the perfect opportunity to kill millions more jobs” with carbon-cutting plans.
And last week Mercedes Schlapp, a senior campaign adviser to President Trump, said on Fox Business that Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, supports “rainbow and unicorn deals like the Green New Deal” that would raise energy prices and harm an already-ailing economy.
Michael Moore’s new movie is BS – 2 articles
The Green New Deal Is Cheap, Actually
Rolling Stone discusses why the Green New Deal is actually cheap. Decarbonizing will cost trillions of dollars, but it’s an investment that will have big return — for the economy and the environment.
Opposition to the Green New Deal is often framed as a matter of cost. President Trump’s re-election campaign blasted the “radical” plan, claiming it would “cost trillions of dollars, wreck our economy, and decimate millions of energy jobs.” But science shows that the costs of unchecked global temperature rise are far higher than transitioning to clean energy — which will, in fact, boost the economy. “Everybody thinks, ‘Oh, you have to spend a huge amount of money,’” says Mark Jacobson, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Stanford University. “Well, yeah, there’s an upfront cost, but this is something that pays itself back.”
The coronavirus crisis is changing the world’s comfort levels with massive expenditures. Fresh on the heels of a $2.2 trillion economic rescue package, President Trump has begun calling for another $2 trillion infrastructure package to create jobs. Across the political spectrum, politicians are anticipating that the economy will need something approximating a New Deal to spring back to life after the pandemic subsides. And climate advocates are making the case that we can use this disaster response to invest in renewable energy, to ward off an even more dangerous crisis down the line.
Editorial: Here’s what a real Green New Deal would look like
The Roanoke Times editorial discusses what a real Green New Deal would look like. In summary:
- Free community college.
- Pay adults to go back to school.
- Force companies to create jobs in the coalfields.
- Turn the University of Virginia’s College at Wise into a major research university.
It’s Important to Keep Talking About Climate Change Now
Outside Online discusses the importance of talking about climate change now. Is it tone-deaf to talk about climate right now? Or is this an opportunity to tackle major global problems in tandem?
On Tuesday I woke up to an email in my inbox: “We’re thrilled to hear you’ve signed up for Sunrise School’s Green New Deal & Coronavirus crash course!”
While stress-scrolling through the internet the day before, looking for signs of hope amid the pandemic news, I’d registered for Sunrise Movement’s webinar series about the overlap between climate organizing and the novel coronavirus. The youth-led group is known for organizing climate actions in the U.S. in solidarity with Greta Thunberg’s international strikes; but when the pandemic struck, it pivoted to address the burgeoning global health crisis.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on How to Build a Green New Deal
Rolling Stone discusses how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants to build a Green New Deal. The congresswoman on her vision for a post-fossil-fuel future and an economy that works for working people.
There was, essentially, no Green New Deal before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It was just a slogan rolling around the mouths of newspaper columnists and environmental activists until the 30-year-old political phenom put her star power behind it. Just a month after she was sworn in as the youngest congresswoman in history, Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey debuted a 14-page resolution outlining the principles she hopes will form the foundation for a slew of climate legislation over the next decade. A jobs program to save the planet shouldn’t be all that controversial, but skeptics along the political spectrum found something to hate. The concept was ridiculed by Republicans even as some attempted to co-opt it (Rep. Matt Gaetz’s Green Real Deal), and deemed too audacious by liberal Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But the Green New Deal’s ambition was always the point, and in just one year, it has already dramatically changed the way Washington talks about the climate crisis. This winter, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce released a plan committing to a 100 percent clean-energy economy by 2050 — three times longer than the Green New Deal’s 10-year timeline, but a quantum leap from the toothless regulations that typified past policy conversations.
Ten Things to Know About the Clean Economy Act
Virginia Mercury discusses 10 things to know about the Clean Economy Act.
There’s been a lot of hype and a lot of hand-wringing over the Clean Economy Act, the Democratic energy omnibus that outlines a path for Virginia to get to zero carbon emissions by 2050.
In the largely partisan debate, Democrats have contended the VCEA is an ambitious but practical way for the state to combat climate change, the effects of which can already be seen in the sea level rise threatening Hampton Roads. Republicans have complained it sticks electric utility ratepayers with too much of the cost of transforming the state’s energy landscape and will further devastate the already economically disadvantaged coalfield communities of Southwest Virginia.