Should climate activists tailor climate legislation narrowly? From the
Washington Post’s editorial board to
Dianne Feinstein, critics purporting to care about climate change have pushed back not so much on the climate portions of the Green New Deal, but instead on some of its more radical economic propositions. These skeptics argue that (1) large-scale changes to the American economic system are not related to climate change, and (2) the socio-economic changes included in the Green New Deal are unpopular and/or controversial, which means that they threaten its political viability. In other words, they imply that climate activists should stay in their lane. This is wrong.
Serious efforts to address climate change may require significant changes to our way of life, and these changes may in turn impose significant hardships onto a wide swath of Americans. Asking ordinary Americans to shoulder a huge burden to help address a problem they may not understand and may feel no responsibility for helping create is a recipe for political calamity. Indeed, a transition to a sustainable-emission economy is much more likely to be politically untenable without including an overhaul of the socio-economic system, than with one. Thus, Green New Deal proponents have it exactly right. The best way to address climate change is as one piece of a large-scale effort to make the American economy more fair and just.
The Economics of Responding Fairly to Climate Change
Any serious attempt to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of global warming will require massive changes in (1) how we produce and (2) consume energy, and potentially, (3) carbon sequestration, such as reforestation. Energy production is easy enough conceptually - just shift from carbon-emitting sources to renewables - and won't be particularly noticeable for many people, aside perhaps from short-term fluctuations in energy prices. That being said, shifting from carbon-emitting energy sources to renewables will result in economic hardship and even displacement for numerous Americans currently working in industries related to the extraction, transportation and creation of carbon-emitting energy.
Simply changing the electrical grid to renewable energy is probably insufficient. Imposing measures that require meaningful changes in Americans’ patterns of energy consumption will be particularly challenging given the sheer scope of our current reliance on carbon. Eliminating or dramatically reducing transportation emissions will be especially disruptive. This can be done through some combination of replacing gas-burning vehicles with electric (which will be incredibly expensive to consumers) and transitioning towards a more urban-based population. Inducing people to move from rural areas and suburbs to the cities will require massive infrastructure development, especially in public transit and affordable housing. Food consumption habits may need to shift as well, especially if large amounts of marginal agricultural land must be reforested as part of carbon sequestration efforts. Changing our heating grid from natural gas to electricity will be expensive too.
In sum, any serious effort to address climate change will impose significant hardships on many Americans. And these economic hardships will inevitably be borne disproportionately by those least able to afford it. The comfortable can afford to pay some additional money to ensure that their next vehicle is compliant with emissions standards. The working class probably cannot. As a result, the suburban and rural poor and middle classes, potentially unable to afford to live anywhere but within cities, may face displacement. As folks move to cities, the urban poor and middle class will face pressures as affordable housing become scarce and public services become stretched.
Viewing progressive economic policy as unrelated to climate change policy ignores this basic fact. We have known about climate change for 30 years, and our failure to take significant action in that time means that there may now be no way to tackle the issue without major disruption and expense. This inescapable conclusion leads to a simple question: who
should bear the burden of this transition? This one is easy. All of us, to be sure. The American people have a remarkable ability to sacrifice on behalf of a moral cause when asked to do so. That being said, it is the wealthy who have not only the means to bear the largest burden, but the moral culpability that suggests they should. Those currently wealthy have become so in an economic system premised on imposing environmental costs onto future generations. And it is the wealthy who have largely controlled our politics in the past 30 years and in that time made the
collective immoral decision to fail to address this problem.
As a matter of justice and common sense, therefore, any response to climate change should include redistributive economic policies that shift costs from the less fortunate otherwise likely to bear a disproportionate burden and onto the wealthy, who will be much less disrupted by the change. In this respect, the Green New Deal gets it exactly right. These supposedly extraneous economic policies are not extraneous at all. They are fundamental to addressing climate change in a just way.
The New Deal Part of the Green New Deal Is Politically Necessary
As for the second part of the Green New Deal skeptics' critique, the socio-economic changes included in the Green New Deal do not threaten its political viability. To the contrary, they are what makes it politically palatable.
To put it bluntly, the progressive changes to the economy proposed in the Green New Deal are, generally, wildly popular. From universal health care to a wealth tax to increasing marginal income taxes on the wealthy, economic justice polls incredibly well. Granted, some of the proposals in the Green New Deal are relatively new to American political discourse. That being said, there is nothing to suggest that good progressive public policy will be anything but popular once implemented. Major progressive changes to the American socio-economic fabric such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were once new and controversial too, but eventually become virtually unassailable. Even Obamacare has grown significantly in stature after its implementation in the face of sabotage and constant disingenuous attack.
Nor will these economic policies pose a significant additional hurdle in getting the Green New Deal passed in the first place. It is difficult to envision a political figure who might otherwise support serious climate change legislation (which may require massive changes to the economy) but will not support such legislation when other progressive measures are included. Indeed, including wildly popular progressive economic priorities may provide some additional reasons to vote
for the aggressive climate change policies. Moreover,
30 years of inaction suggests that Republicans and moderate-to-conservative Democrats will not agree to incremental climate-change policy standing on its own, so there is no risk that including progressive economic policy will cost the Green New Deal any hypothetical climate-friendly moderate or conservative votes.
These past 30 years of climate inaction reveal the depravity of the objections of the Green New Deal's supposedly “moderate” or “practical” skeptics. Previous efforts to kill climate bills have relied in large part on the argument that addressing climate was too disruptive to the economy to countenance. Suggesting now that economic policy alleviating the deleterious impact of these inevitable disruptions is extraneous reveals the reality: these critics simply don't care about addressing climate change, at least so long as the response threatens their wealth, status and privilege.
Conclusion
The economic and social priorities espoused in the Green New Deal are neither extraneous, nor are they an obstacle to is passage. Indeed, any climate legislation that omits progressive economic changes will be incomplete. Furthermore, as a political matter, if those on the left ever attain political power, there is no reason to limit our agenda to climate change, or addressing economic injustice, racial injustice, etc. If our political history tells us anything, it that is progressives may only ever get one shot at remaking our economy green. Since the Civil War, there have really been a few short bursts of justice in 150 years, each preceded and followed by decades of stagnation and regression. If progressives gain power, then anything unfulfilled in their agenda may have to wait another 50 years. When it comes to preventing the most catastrophic effects of climate change, the planet cannot afford that wait.