There's a Green New Deal on the Horizon, and It Just Might Be Our Only Hope
Recycle. Take shorter showers. Turn the lights off.
Over the past several decades, most of us have heard these diatribes repeated over and over, and have perhaps become numbed to these mantras, which promise that tiny droplets of collective action could potentially save the planet from environmental ruination.
It's true that small changes are important, and that each person contributes to the growing levels of waste and pollution that are killing our ecosystems and raising the planet's temperatures so dramatically that Manhattan-size gaps are forming in Antarctic ice. But it's also true that 71% of carbon emissions come from just 100 companies. It's also true that the scale of the crisis has grown unmanageable, and poses an unprecedented threat to human life.
That's where the Green New Deal comes in.
"It's the only plan that matches the scale of the crisis," said Naomi Klein of the proposal, speaking on livestream yesterday night to thousands of activists tuning in across America. The livestream was hosted by the Sunrise Movement, a millennial-founded organization dedicated to supporting and fortifying the Green New Deal, especially as it's proposed in Congress in the coming week. Klein is the author of This Changes Everything, a book that argues that impending climate catastrophe actually presents an extraordinary opportunity to revamp the world's economic systems for the better. "I believe we were born for this moment," she told viewers.
Named after FDR's New Deal—which revolutionized the entire country on a tremendous scale, planting three billion trees and establishing hundreds of national forests in addition to catalyzing widespread economic, agricultural, and social reforms—the Green New Deal seeks to implant reforms on an equivalent scale in a time when it seems like there is no other option.
The plan has gone through several phases, but the one that's being proposed in Congress this week focuses on several fundamental points. First: achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2030, and transition to renewable energy on a huge scale through initiatives like the creation of a nationwide electrical grid. Second: institute a living wage for all, in tandem with the creation of unlimited numbers of green jobs. These are the plan's main tenets, but its ideological aspirations stretch much further. It hopes to generate thousands of jobs in the form of start-ups and maintenance, and to start a wave of international trade in the renewable energy sector.
The original plan focused on a switch to 100% renewable energy by 2030, but a recent five-page draft obtained today by Bloomberg didn't mention this point, perhaps as a nod to moderates, though the omission is still subject to change. The draft proposes large-scale investment in green technology, the restoration of threatened lands, waste removal, and "massive growth in clean U.S. manufacturing, removing pollution byproducts and greenhouse gas emissions from that sector as much as technologically feasible."
The term "Green New Deal" is not a new one, though it has been going through different iterations since its inception. It was coined in a 2007 column by Thomas Friedman, and Barack Obama included it in his 2008 platform. Britain also took note, but a surge of Republican/Tory victories stymied its momentum.
The GND has found new life in Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Bronx electorate whose rise to political success has been accompanied by widespread social media fame. Ocasio-Cortez showed up in person to support a Sunrise Movement sit-in in Nancy Pelosi's office, demanding the creation of a committee dedicated to developing and pushing the GND, and since then she has become one of its biggest proponents. Now she will be proposing it in Congress this week, alongside Massachusetts senator Ed Markey. The plan has also garnered support from Rep. Ayanna Pressley, as well as 2020 presidential candidates Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Bernie Sanders.
The Sunrise Movement began in 2015, when it was founded by climate activists Sara Blazevic and Varsini Prakash, and quickly gained momentum, taking notes from the heady drive of the 1963 civil rights protests of Birmingham, Alabama. Its founders gathered activists, reached out to politicians, and pulled together the finer points of the Sanders campaign and other recent social movements; the successful Pelosi sit-in was the product of months of organizing.
The movement is appealing in a narrative sense: the vision of young people fighting against bloated fossil fuel behemoths has a definite draw to it. There's also the fact that science says the fate of the entire world requires unprecedented global change over the next few years, otherwise catastrophes like Hurricane Sandy and the California wildfires will become the stuff of the everyday.
But the GND is still just an idea, and it could remain that way. Its lack of specific policy has been subject to criticism, though an official draft has yet to be unveiled, and conservative news sources have labeled it as a hoax, an amorphous idea without policy to back it.
While the GND might seem like an impossibly ambitious proposition, humans have revamped and reshaped the world before a hundred times over, and we are nothing if not creative and adaptive. We've created technologies that connect the globe and turned empty landscapes to highway-lined cities in a matter of years. Now—unless you like the idea of joining Elon Musk's exclusive Mars colony—it's time to turn all of our collective energies towards the future of the home we share.
70 leading Democrats have signed on in support so far, and momentum is building for its official proposition. The Sunrise Movement is planning on facilitating office visits to congress people across the country this week, as well as a rally in Washington on February 26th.
In an age of doomsday threats and constant headlines about plastic oceans and refugee crises facilitated by environmental droughts, the idea of a Green New Deal—something that could actually, genuinely make a difference that touches every aspect of life—seems like a light at the end of the tunnel. Now it's just a matter of getting there.
Environmental crisis affects the poor and vulnerable at disproportionate levels; it catalyzes mental and physical illness, economic decline, and overall devastation. Irreparable damage has already been done—but the fight is not quite over yet, though time is running out.
Eden Arielle Gordon is a writer and musician from New York City. Follow her on Twitter at @edenarielmusic.
Trump Refuses to Sign G20 Statement on Climate Change
Donald Trump singled out the United States before the entire international community at the G20 summit over the weekend. He was the only leader in attendance to refuse to sign a joint statement pledging a non-binding commitment to continue combating climate change.
After a strenuous, all-night negotiation in Buenos Aires, the world leaders issued a communiqué re-affirming that the Paris climate agreement "is irreversible" and vowing "full implementation" of its policies to "continue to tackle climate change, while promoting sustainable development and economic growth."
However, the summit was fraught with tensions over various countries' objections and demands, including Trump's refusal to budge on climate change or trade agreements. As such, world leaders struggled to pen a separate clause to account for Trump's "America First" stance. The communiqué reads: "The United States reiterates its decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, and affirms its strong commitment to economic growth and energy access and security, utilizing all energy sources and technologies, while protecting the environment."
In another compromise forced by Trump's intransigence, this year's G20 statement also shirked its usual promises to fight protectionism and uphold multilateral trading rules. The summit weakly acknowledged the "contribution" of the "multilateral trading system," despite the fact that it's "falling short" of its goals in trade growth and job creation. One European official present at the weekend's negotiations told NBC News, "There were moments when we thought all was lost."
At last year's summit, Trump shocked world leaders with his first refusal to join the consensus on climate and trade issues. He continued to alienate the U.S. from the international community over the summer. In June, the president refused to sign a joint statement on global economic policies from the G7 summit, even taking to Twitter to deride Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over the policies.
As a final act of belligerence, Trump stormed off the stage as the rest of the world leaders gathered for a photo to commemorate the end of a two-day effort in global solidarity. After shaking hands with Argentine President Mauricio Macri, Trump left Macri visibly confused on stage as he hastily left. Trump was audibly recorded telling an aide, "Get me out of here."
Reluctantly, he returned to the stage moments later to pose for group photos.
Hilarious moment Trump caught saying "get me out of here" at G20 Summit www.youtube.com
Meg Hanson is a Brooklyn-based writer, teacher, and jaywalker. Find Meg at her website and on Twitter @megsoyung.
How Much Can We Blame Climate Change for Hurricane Michael or Florence?
As fall descends on the United States every year, it happens: reports spread across news feeds that something scary is brewing in the Atlantic.
A reported tropical storm becomes a categorized hurricane making landfall, leaving us with flooding, destruction, and rising death rolls. The Facebook donate buttons proliferate, coastal friends are marking themselves "Safe," and inevitably in our current political climate, op-eds bemoaning the death sentence of climate change or denying its existence are shared on your timeline.
"Climate change" has become a buzzword and political bludgeon, but the fact is 70% of Americans believe it's happening, and 97% of climate scientists agree that it's caused by human activities. It's enough to embolden your friend's incessant need to tag his sweaty Instagram selfies with "#climatechange" for every day over 80 degrees in New York City.
That being said, is it possible to blame global warming as the reason behind Hurricane Florence being the second wettest storm behind Harvey? Or for Hurricane Michael's ranking as the third most powerful storm to ever hit the continental United States? There's also the question on everyone's mind—will we be seeing more destructive hurricanes every year?
The answers: Yes, yes, and it's complicated.
Tropical cyclones, like hurricanes, are indeed affected by factors that climate change directly impacts like warmer air, warmer sea surface temperatures, and rising sea levels.
Warmer air contains more moisture than cooler air. Therefore, it makes sense that as the temperature of Earth's troposphere (the weather layer 5-10 miles above the ground) rises, the air can hold more water. This is happening across the globe. And when the air has more water… Yes, you guessed it: there's more rain. Average precipitation in the U.S. has been increasing, and heavier downpours are expected to increase across the country both in intensity and frequency (in the Northeast by a whopping 71%). This increased ability to hold onto moisture will affect hurricanes like Harvey and raise their ability to unleash massive loads of rain.
As for storm strength? Some scientific models project a 45-87% increase in the frequency of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes by 2100 if we continue along our rate of estimated global temperature increase. The warming of the ocean and higher sea levels are the main culprits here. By increasing the temperature of the sea surface, human activity can create hurricanes with 2-11% greater wind speeds that may deliver more damage when making landfall, and with sea levels expected to rise by 1-4 feet in the next 100 years, storm surges will only worsen intense coastal flooding. None of this is made better by reports that storms are slowing down, allowing them to inflict more damage for longer periods of time.
So, yes, the picture is bleak. But wait, there's more—what about the possibility of more storms in general, and more with greater ability to create massive damage? Take a breather, this is a nuanced question.
While there is evidence corroborating global warming causing wetter and stronger storms, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's research of storms over the past century and complex climate model projections for the future do not support the claim that climate change will lead to an increase in overall hurricane numbers in the Atlantic. In fact, there is some evidence that the number of hurricanes is actually decreasing.
It also gets murky when trying to blame the global crisis on the dramatic increase of hurricane-related costs. The statistics are pretty sobering: three of the five costliest U.S. hurricanes on record occurred last year alone. 2017's Hurricane Harvey is tied for the top spot with Hurricane Katrina (2005) at $125 billion in damages, Hurricane Maria comes after them at $90 billion, and Hurricane Irma rounds out the list at $50 billion (Hurricane Sandy in 2012 is no. 4 at $65 billion).
From those numbers alone, it's easy to become despondent. However, a large reason for the heightened costs of natural disasters is an increase in development along U.S. coastal populations. Americans across the board, and probably your retired parents sick of Minnesotan winters, are flocking to the coasts, whose population grew by nearly 35 million people between 1970 and 2010. Coastal counties made up nearly 40% of the last U.S. census, and this is only estimated to increase. Where there are more people, there are more houses and businesses in harm's way when a hurricane descends on the area. Climate change notwithstanding, storm-related costs would only grow in these places.
I'll admit, it's a bit of a respite to be able to blame something other than global warming on one part of the gloomy picture that is our world's climate future. Climate scientists agree that it's not accurate or compelling to blame individual storms or other weather events on climate change. There are many factors that affect how a hurricane plays out, including planetary orbits, factors local to the creation and path of the storm, as well as year-to-year variances in global weather patterns. The 1900s saw many terrible storms, including the deadliest in our history (by far) at the turn of the century.
However, when looking at overall trends around the world, the case is clear: climate change is happening and it's not going away. It's likely to make hurricanes more severe, unleashing more powerful wind, rain, and flooding.
Perhaps it's best to quote Michael Wehner, a senior staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who says it perfectly. "It's not: climate change flooded my house," he explained. "It's: climate change changed the chances of flooding my house."
Joshua Smalley is a New York-based writer, editor, and playwright. Find Josh at his website and on Twitter: @smalleywrites.
Experts Urge "Unprecedented Changes" to Prevent Environmental Disaster
When responding to a disaster, the last phase is containment. The latest report from the world's leading experts on global warming is urging world leaders and policy-makers that that time is now. In order to prevent the earth's temperature from rising any more than another .5 ËšCelsius over the next 12 years, "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society" are necessary.
The report is the latest from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which draws from thousands of publications and reviews of data on climate changes to assess and measure "increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level." In the past five reports, the IPCC has gone from investigating if and to what degree global warming was taking place to finding it "unequivocal" that global warming was an ongoing disaster with a 5% chance of being caused by natural climate change and a 90% probability that society's emissions of greenhouse gases were perpetuating the damage.
Now, the IPCC is no longer concerned with spreading awareness or recommending practices to prevent damage from global warming, but to contain the coming destruction. The latest report cites that global temperatures are already 1 ËšC higher than in pre-industrial times; if temperatures rise more than 1.5 ËšC, environmental damages will put hundreds of millions of human lives at risk.
Furthermore, Earth's temperatures are expected to rise to the catastrophic 1.5 ËšC as early as 2030, unless "unprecedented changes" in transportation, agriculture, and energy are implemented. The IPCC's report verifies that carbon dioxide emissions have not been hampered by existing environmental policies, or lack thereof, recommending "rapid and far-reaching transitions" in society that leave some doubtful of its feasibility.
Skeptics include Glen Peters, research director of the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo, who stated, "Even if it is technically possible, without aligning the technical, political and social aspects of feasibility, it is not going to happen. To limit warming below 1.5 ËšC, or 2 ËšC for that matter, requires all countries and all sectors to act."
The rhetoric of environmentalism has been deemed alarmist and even fear-mongering in the past, but one reason skeptics remain unmoved could be due to a history of sanitized language. Phil Duffy, president of the Woods Hole Research Center, doubts not only the IPCC's radical changes but their words: "If you're expecting IPCC to jump up and down and wave red flags, you're going to be disappointed. They're going to do what they always do, which is to release very cautious reports in extremely dispassionate language."
Scientists involved in the IPCC hope that the newest report will counteract that history of apathetic fatalism, urging that the present risk should merit the global, united response it will take to scale back potential disaster. "It's a line in the sand and what it says to our species is that this is the moment and we must act now," affirmed Dr. Debra Roberts, co-chair of the IPCC's working group on climate impacts. "This is the largest clarion bell from the science community and I hope it mobilizes people and dents the mood of complacency."
Meg Hanson is a Brooklyn-based writer, teacher, and jaywalker. Find Meg at her website and on Twitter @megsoyung.
