Umair Haque wrote an excellent article on Medium:
(Why) the Green New Deal is Awesome, Urgent, and Necessary
It’s Shouldn’t be Radical Politics to Want to Save The Planet, the Economy, Democracy, and Us. It Should Just be Common Sense.
Umair puts our environmental crisis in the context of our economic crisis. Both brought on by a political framework that has served the capital class and has defined what is allowable, ‘reasonable’ and within the mainstream. A political framework that has been supported by both parties that will allow only policies that will result in economic and environmental armageddon.
“It shouldn’t be radical politics to want to save the planet, the economy, democracy, and us. It should be what it is: common sense.”
Here is where our economy is today thanks to the bipartisan ‘reforms’ that dismantled the Neal Deal and empowered capital:
“80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, 70% can’t raise $1000 in emergency savings, half don’t have anything saved up for retirement.”
That same unrestrained capital is accelerating the destruction of the environment to a frightening degree:
Greenhouse gas emissions worldwide are growing at an accelerating pace this year, researchers said Wednesday, putting the world on track to face some of the most severe consequences of global warming sooner than expected.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/climate/greenhouse-gas-emissions-2018.html
We are already seeing climate refugees impact the politics of the US:
The unseen driver behind the migrant caravan: climate change
Crop failures and food insecurity caused by climate change are turning masses of desperate, starving people into a new kind of refugee and this is just the start.
Climate change is a failure of capitalism as much as rampant income inequality and economic insecurity is.
The science behind Climate Change is now settled. What it will take for us to survive and the timeframe we have to get it done by is not up for debate. Yet Democratic leaders like Diane Feinstein lecture us about what can realistically get done within the political framework that defines what is allowable, ‘reasonable’ and within the mainstream. It’s like you got a diagnosis from your doctor. You have a cancer that will 100% kill you if left untreated. The good news is there is a course of treatment that will almost guarantee your survival. But you decide that the treatment is too disruptive and ‘extreme’. No, your are going to go with something more moderate and incremental. Better then doing nothing? Right?
Well, like the above example whether you do nothing or you do not enough, you die. The Green New Deal is not a maximalist position, it is the minimum necessary starting point for survival. But that will require we dump the politicians who live within the confines of what has been. We need revolutionary change. Humans are here today because they have proven capable of repeated revolutionary change. Our adaptability has been key to our ability to survive and thrive.
We need politicians who will do more then pay lip service to a Green New Deal to get elected and then throw up their hands once elected and proclaim we are constrained by the realities of our current political framework. We need politicians who will fight for a Green New Deal like our survival depends on it. Because it does. I’ll leave you to decide for yourself who among the candidates will do whatever it takes to ensure that we do what we have to do. I’m thinking the number is a very small minority of those running.
So the Green New Deal is the bare minimum that all sensible and thinking people should agree that we need — if we want to go on prospering, that is.
All that’s exactly why you should use the Green New Deal as a litmus test for aspiring leaders, for pundits, for thinkers, for intellectuals. You should treat it as a kind of minimum, not a maximum, the starting point of acceptability, reason, thoughtfulness, consideration, understanding, the lowest possible bar that you want a leader or idea to jump over. If someone can’t even get that far, you should rightly think of them as either incompetent, deluded, foolish, or living in la-la-land.
https://eand.co/why-the-green-new-deal-is-awesome-urgent-and-necessary-518c01e031d
“The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger--but recognize the opportunity.”
― John F. Kennedy
A Green New Deal could be the greatest jobs engine and economic stimulus package in human history. Out of every crisis successful human societies turned crisis into opportunity and thrived. Those societies that could not rise to the challenge and adapt died. Vote like your life depends on it, because it does. Hold your candidate to the high standards of the deadly challenges we face.