Before the State of the Union speech on February 5, there was a livestream conference from Sunrise Movement to prepare people for supporting the imminent Green New Deal resolution sponsored by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Edward Markey. They are organizing people to write, call, email, and tweet to their pet politicians to ask them to support this resolution (not legislation), to visit House and Senate offices on February 11-13 to get EVERY Representative and Senator to support it, and have set a February 26 deadline for the politicians which they have scheduled for a day of action to support the resolution for a Green New Deal.
The speakers were Aru Shiney Ajay, Jeremy Ornstein, and Naomi Wolfe. Ajay and Ornstein are two young organizers for the Sunrise Movement and Naomi Wolfe played the part of the grizzled elder supporting the “kids these days.” Those kids not only see but feel down to their bones that climate change is a matter of life and death NOW. They see it effect their lives and expectations for the future today and they are determined to do something about it, something different, something commensurate with this wicked problem, and something that can not only rebuild an ecological future but also redress some of the grievances of an extractive and unjust economy. They want nothing more than to rebuild the existing economy to stop climate change and create good jobs for all those who want to work.
For them, the Green New Deal is a 10 year plan to become 100% renewably powered by 2030, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by the same date, to create and guarantee millions of jobs while promoting justice and equality. They want a clear plan to transition completely off fossil fuels by 2030. By collectively imagining a trajectory to climate sanity in the next decade or so, they want to open up the chance to build a beautiful present.
You can sign up for Rep/Sen office visit at http://bit.ly/gndblitz and learn more at
sunrisemovement.org/...
There are now 130 Sunrise Movement hubs around the USA, from an organization that started in June 2017 with 12 people. They are also planning a mass presence at the Presidential candidate debates to make the Green New Deal a major issue in the 2020 election and to get ALL Presidential candidates to commit to the Green New Deal. They also plan a 15 city tour to promote their actions this summer.
PS: I may be the first to diary this, according to my search of dkos in preparation for writing. I shouldn’t be. Why doesn’t the dailykos community care about climate change enough to support these young people determined to save their own lives (and ours)?