The evening after I wrote last week’s RF Diary on energy storage, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went on a special All In America with Chris Hayes to dive into what the Green New Deal is all about.
tl;dr Saving the planet, of course, but also how we reshape the economy to work for everybody, like the original New Deal, and how that is all interconnected.
I am going to give a summary of the show, but you could watch that yourself. More importantly, I am going to fill in some gaps in what was discussed, and point out topics that we need to take up at greater length in future Diaries.
Hayes, voiceover: [train videos] America prides itself on building big things, stretching a railroad across the continent, [Normandy videos] storming the beaches of Normandy, [NASA videos] putting a man on the moon, [traffic video] building highways and [video of computer hardware] the infrastructure for the Internet. The politics today seem incapable [Inhofe with snowball] of producing [Mike Lee, Reagan riding dinosaur while firing machine gun] change on that scale. We face [global heat map] a civilizational challenge right now [fires] and the clock is ticking. [hurricane damage] If we don’t radically transform our economy [heavy freeway traffic] away from fossil fuels in the next decade [gas pump; filling coal truck] we are courting climate catastrophe.
AOC in Congress: We are facing a national crisis. This is about American lives.
[AOC at Green New Deal rally] Hayes, voiceover: The Green New Deal is a vision for reinventing American society [teenagers demonstrating, adults demonstrating] around a new vision of a carbon-free economy that works for everyone. [teenagers demonstrating, then wind turbines] Is it a fantasy? Or, the beginnings of a new historical pivot point? [teenagers demonstrating] The answer is unfolding right now, before our eyes.
We can’t embed MSNBC videos here, so I went to YouTube, which has this in four segments, including one that wasn’t aired. This one picks up right after Chris’s introduction.
Hayes: Good evening, from the Bronx, New York.
Hayes and AOC went to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, which is where Hayes was born. He got right to the point.
Chris: If we had started in 1979, we could have cut a little bit every year…What we have to do to avoid the most catastrophic effects of Climate Change is to cut emissions in half in twelve years.
And into the vacuum has come a bold new idea…Green New Deal. It envisions a carbon-zero economy by the middle of the century and a transformation of the American economy and indeed society.
And why? Because it’s all interconnected. In particular, financialization of the entire economy messes up everything and brings major crashes more frequently. Oppression of numerous segments of society in a universal game of Beggar Thy Neighbor messes up everything for everybody. We need to provide for all of us, and empower all of us.
AOC: This issue is not just about our climate.
We are dealing with a crisis of how our economy is made up.
We have a nexus of social justice here in the Bronx.
The issues in the Bronx, just like everywhere else, include the climate, jobs, healthcare, income inequality, and education. And human rights. One example is the extreme concentration of diesel trucks in the South Bronx, leading to extreme levels of asthma among those who can’t move to healthier neighborhoods.
AOC: There is this false idea that we have to put these issues all in a line and say, do this or do that? But I started to realize that all of these issues are part of the same problem, just like in the Great Depression. The answer has been an ambitious and directed mobilization of the American economy to solve our biggest problem. Historically speaking we have mobilized our entire economy around war. But I thought to myself, it doesn’t have to be that way. We will have to mobilize our entire economy around saving ourselves and taking care of this planet.
Chris: And the Right just loses its mind. On Trump TV it’s 24/7 AOC/GND. [clips of insanity: Socialism, destroying society, getting rid of cows and hamburgers]
AOC: I expected it. I didn’t expect them to make total fools of themselves. I expected a little more nuance, I expected a little more concern trolling.
Tucker Carlson made himself the lead fool on the following Monday night.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez slam dunks on Tucker Carlson after he calls her 'nasty' in pathetic attack
Chris Hayes is what every man would be if feminists ever achieved absolute power in this country.
So it’s official. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a moron and nasty and more self-righteous than any televangelist who ever preached a sermon on cable access.
But Carlson will have stiff competition.
Then there was the concern trolling from the Left over her working draft FAQ that was published when it wasn’t ready. Guaranteeing jobs for those who could not work.[?] Cow flatulence.[OK, I know about that one.]
Chris: Cow flatulence is an issue when it comes to contributing to methane, but that doesn’t mean that you end cows.
AOC: It means that we need to innovate [on feeding grain to cows]. We really need to take a look at regenerative agriculture.
Actually, it’s mostly belching. It turns out that adding garlic to their feed cuts cow emissions of methane in half. Most of the methane comes from replacing natural mixed pasture with fast-growing perennial ryegrass, which is much less nutritious, for greater “efficiency” at great cost to the animals’ health. OK, there is more to it, but we’ll have to come back to agriculture on another Friday.
Chris: You are in the center of every aspect of America’s polarized, divided politics.
AOC: For me it’s surreal. I still live in Parkchester, and I go to my same bodega guy. [applause] On the fourth day, the fifth day in DC I’m like get me out of here. I have to come back to my life, in order to come back to the solutions, and to the commitment to these solutions. [applause]
A lot of what the GND is about is shifting our political, economic, and social paradigms on every issue. Because we don’t have time to wait when people are dying because their insulin and other medications are skyrocketing…lead in the water…This is urgent. And to think that we have time is such a privileged and removed from reality attitude. [applause]
Chris: The original New Deal included agriculture, financial policy, industrial policy, the Works Progress Administration going out...in a comprehensive reshaping of American society.
Rachel Cleetus, economist and Policy Director with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Demond Drummer, co-founder and Executive Director, New Consensus.
Chris: [New Consensus] is kind of a think tank that was the birthplace of the Green New Deal in many respects.
In the Depression we had people eating dirt in Oklahoma, starving in the streets. We have something different. Why should people think that the scale is the same?
RC: We’re already seeing the impacts of Climate Change around us. Most kids who are graduating high school have not seen a year without a record-breaking temperature. We’ve had 18 of the 19 hottest years since 2001.
AOC compares this to thousands dying in the 9/11 attacks, when we went to war in response. [At a cost of trillions of dollars.]
AOC: 3,000 people died in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Where is our response? [applause]
Ah, Trump. Don’t get me started on Trump.
Chris: The Green New Deal does nothing. It’s a resolution. It has five goals.
- Net-zero emissions [Not enough. We need to go Carbon Negative]
- Good high-wage jobs [And union rights]
- Infrastructure & industry [Properly regulated]
- Clean and sustainable environment [and public health and family planning to get us to Peak Humanity]
- Justice & equity [And liberty and human rights]
Exactly right. The Green New Deal Bill is Not the Answer
It just asks the right questions.
Many of them. And not just for the US, but we are finessing that question for the moment, except on global climate and energy.
Chris: Demond, what’s the theory of the case of why the things have to go together?
DD: The Green New Deal is a massive investment in our industrial capacity to deploy all the resources of our entire society, not just money, but our ingenuity, to tackle this crisis in a way that gives people a share.
AOC: If we solve the environmental issue on top of our existing framework of economic injustice, we will perpetuate our social problem.
Chris: Doesn’t tacking on universal health care to the climate problem make it harder?
DD: It actually makes it easier to attack the crisis. If we’re creating millions of jobs, with universal health care, universal family care, the Green New Deal says no more disposable people.[Applause]
Chris: But that sounds like Socialism!! [light applause] OK, all right, but not everybody applauds when they hear about Socialism.
AOC: One thing that you cannot deny is that Climate Change is a problem of market failure and of externalities. [applause] Moreover, Exxon-Mobil knew that Climate Change was real and man-made as far back as 1970. The government knew in 1989, the year I was born.
So the initial response was let the market handle it. Forty years, and market solutions have not changed our position. We need to do something. Something.
But we know that renewables are winning in the Free Market. Fossil fuels are only holding on by regulatory capture, by demanding illegitimate favors from governments, or in China and India, being parts of the government that fight the other parts.
Chris: Everyone talks about the Green New Deal, they talk about politics. Let’s put that aside. Imagine the House and Senate and the President down with the Green New Deal. Not the world we live in, but let’s imagine it.
Rhianna Gunn-Wright, New Consensus
Rep. Ro Khanna of California
Chris: We’re not talking about politics. Just technical feasibility. Zero emissions by 2050, cut in half by 2030.
RK: Well, we gotta start. There are some very pragmatic things we could do. Instead of the President yelling at GM’s CEO, we could expand the electric vehicle tax credit, link it to domestic manufacturing, and open up those GM plants to make electric SUVs. [applause] China is making 50% of the electric vehicles. We could match China’s spending and we could get to 50% solar and wind energy by 2025. California is already doing it. We’re going to get to 60% by 2030. [applause]
Peak Gasoline Looming Out of Smog in India, China
Chris: So the $93 trillion, the figure the critics use, is that the figure you’re thinking of?
AOC: No, no, no! First of all, we wave a magic wand, we pass the Green New Deal, what happens? Nothing. Because it’s a resolution. It says that the scope of the solution must be on the scale of the problem. It outlines the way that we can pursue that scope.
Chris: Is it technically feasible to get the US to meet these goals, emission-wise?
RGW: Yes. [No actual discussion needed]
The key piece that people miss out on is the workforce piece. Our workforce system is very broken. We have these low unemployment numbers, but what that hides is that in certain communities unemployment is still quite high. The Green New Deal is about the training, making sure that people have health care so that they can move where jobs are. When we have the full workforce of America at the ready is unknown.
AOC: Not just which industries we’re going to grow, but how we’re going to grow them. Good, dignified, unionized jobs. [applause] The New York Times took a deep dive, and says that it is technologically possible, but is it politically feasible?
A Green New Deal Is Technologically Possible. Its Political Prospects Are Another Question.
AOC: They have to be better than fossil fuel jobs.
I’m tired of us worrying more about the future of fossil fuels than about the future of fossil fuel workers. [applause]
RGW: The Congresswoman makes a good point. That is one of the reasons why the Green New Deal ties together Climate Change and income inequality. [We need] the same kind of investments to tackle [both]. [applause]
Renewable energy jobs are better and safer. Infrastructure building jobs are better. We can make teachers’ jobs better by raising their pay and fully funding the public schools. With a $15/hr minimum wage, many people will be able to drop their second and third jobs, and make room for those who have been excluded from the jobs market. Then maybe we can get a good enough labor shortage to start ratcheting wages up further, and giving workers their fair share of productivity gains that they have been robbed of since Reagan.
Chris: Rep. Khanna, what are the lessons about the frontiers of the possible in [California]?
RK: Well, California is a leader, but so are states like Iowa and Texas. This is something that states across the country can do. California has set a standard: 60% renewable energy by 2030. Every new home built in 2020 should have solar panels on it. There is a real investment in creating solar farms and wind farms.
The idea that the economics don’t make sense is a myth! Republicans are engaged in nonsense! [applause]
AOC: Exactly. And they wave this wand, and they say, “Oh, it’s going to cost a bazillion dollars.” They sound like Dr. Evil. How about we start by fully funding pensions for coal miners in West Virginia. [applause] How about we start by rebuilding Flint. [applause] Let’s just start. Let’s start now.
I had the chance to ask Rep. Khanna a question about getting out the word on cheaper renewables. I was calling in to the Thom Hartmann Show on Free Speech TV a few days ago. He gets it. He knows that renewable energy saves money, and knows the specifics about how quickly renewable energy and battery storage costs have been coming down, as we have seen in these Diaries. He understands that Democrats need to hammer that point home against the claims that the Green New Deal will cost trillions of dollars. But he only got to say it once on this show. I want to be able to watch a Rachel Maddow-type deep dive analysis on this.
Heather McGee, Demos Distinguished Senior Fellow and an MSNBC Analyst
Bob English, Republican Representative from South Carolina, Defeated in a primary in 2010 because he said that he believes in Climate Change.
Chris: Have things gotten better or worse, politically, on the Republican side of the aisle since 2010?
BE: Much better. Incredibly better. Headline: “Republicans are focused on pragmatic solutions to Climate Change.” The next day Greg Walden, Fred Upton and John Shimkus penned an op-ed [on the Conservative-leaning Real Clear Policy Web site] saying Climate Change is real, and we as Republican leaders are ready to do something about it.
This is the article in question, with its actual deliberately insulting title.
By Greg Walden, Fred Upton & John Shimkus
February 13, 2019
Climate change is real, and as Republican Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, we are focused on solutions.
We should promote carbon capture and utilization [boo], renewable hydropower [OK, but without much room to expand], and safe nuclear power [safe enough when you don’t leave idiots in charge, but hugely expensive, and incapable of rapid expansion], which is emissions-free. We should also look to remove barriers to energy storage and commercial batteries [OK. Jumping on the bandwagon after it is well started] to help make renewable sources more viable and our electricity grid more resilient. And we must encourage more research and business investments in new clean energy technologies. These are bipartisan solutions we must seize on to deliver real results for the American people.
Meanwhile, many Democrats are rallying around the
recently introduced Green New Deal. This agenda calls for a 10-year plan to move U.S. power generation to 100 percent zero-emission energy sources. [False] But even though this proposal is being billed as a solution to climate change, it also includes numerous unrelated [false], prohibitively expensive [false] policy goals such as government-run health care and guaranteed employment.
This is not a genuine policy proposal. It has much the same value as Trump’s claims that he will introduce a much better healthcare plan than Obamacare, just as soon as he gets to kill the ACA.
Carbon capture, feh. In Indiana, Carbon Taxes You (Not) is my Diary about the Rockport Coal Gasification Boondoggle’s collapse in Indiana six years ago. Clean coal was a lie, and clean coal is dead.
This is the Rachel Maddow rule: Ignore what they say. Look at what they do.
BE: Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor, this week, in his press conference, that he does believe that humans cause Climate Change.
HM: This is the result of the millions of mostly young people mobilizing on this issue. [applause] I don’t think you would have had Lamar Alexander and Mitch McConnell for the first time, just this past month, say, “Climate Change is real and human beings are causing it,” if it weren’t for the Green New Deal. This is a fundamentally popular idea in states where Republican Senators are looking at their prospects.
Chris: Even if the Democrats draw an inside straight and take the Senate, there aren’t the votes for this, are there?
AOC: That’s why we wrote the Green New Deal for the people. I’m not here to convince my colleagues. I’m here to go straight to the electorate. [applause] Because if the electorate overwhelmingly supports it, we create the political room to pass it. That’s why I firmly believe that this is not a partisan issue.
Chris, to BE: I’ve seen Conservatives say, “You’re alienating the people you need! We can make a Grand Coalition”, and I’ve seen other people say, “We’ve tried that for twenty years, and it hasn’t gone anywhere.” What do you think?
BE: Well, I think we are seeing the formation of a Tea Party of the Left [laughter] Last night Trump was at a rally in Michigan…
Chris: And the audience was chanting “AOC Sucks!” [AOC grins at this]
BE: And I would ask you what’s the difference between last night and tonight. This is the mirror image.
AOC: We’re committed to policies that are making people’s lives better, and we’re actually talking about something substantive. We’re not calling anyone names. People say Tea Party of the Left, and I find this idea very interesting because the grounding of the Tea Party was xenophobia, the underpinnings of White Supremacy, [applause] I understand why people say Tea Party of the Left, because I won a primary and ousted the fourth most powerful person in Congress. [applause] Our district was overwhelmingly Progressive, and our Representative was not representing our actual position so this is not a Tea Party of the Left, this is a return to American representative Democracy. And here’s a really big difference. The Koch brothers funded the Tea Party, and everyday people funded my campaign. [applause]
HMcG: The Green New Deal has been pressure tested. It’s more popular than the Trump tax cuts. It’s more popular than the Wall. They are Left in terms of the inside of Washington. In terms of the American people, they are centrist ideas.
As I have been saying.
What Genuine Centrist Ideas Look Like
The best for everybody. Progressive measures that the real and vocal majority of Americans want on every issue. Even gun safety and women’s medical choices.
Progressives are not “far to the Left”. Gerrymanders and voter suppression and fear-mongering have pretended to move the country far to the right for the last half-century.
Having stuck his foot in his mouth, English proceeded to shove in the rest of his leg, claiming that no Congress could actually pass the Green New Deal through all of the relevant committees to the necessary floor votes. So shouldn’t we break it up and deal with the pieces in sequence?
Someone in the audience loudly called English a moron when he suggested that a Universal Basic Income could come later.
AOC: Hey, hey, hey, hey. That’s unacceptable. And that’s the difference between me and Trump. [sustained applause]
These are long struggles, and intergenerational struggles. We stand on the shoulders of giants. But Climate Change is different, and we have an expiration date.
It commonly takes 50 years for a new idea to take hold and result in legislation or Supreme Court decisions. (I need to Diary that.) Racism is much harder. (Yes, I need to Diary that, too.) Global Warming Denialism began in the early 1970s, and has passed its sell-by date.
AOC on The Green New Deal: An extended conversation with MSNBC's Chris Hayes
All In Extra: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has an extended conversation with MSNBC's Chris Hayes and audience members as part of "The Green New Deal" special. Included are Sarah Nelson, Intl. President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO; Varshini Prakash of the Sunrise Movement; Waleed Shahid of the Justice Democrats; and Mark Paul, an economist with the Roosevelt Institute.
Sarah Nelson, President of the Association of Flight Attendants, AFL-CIO.
Republicans are telling their members that the Green New Deal means that all of the planes will be on the ground in ten years. What we are really seeing is that every day there is an increasing incidence of turbulence incidents, because of these extreme weather patterns. This is a major occupational threat to us. The industry wants to talk about keeping planes on the ground, but they don’t want their workers to read the part of the plan that concerns good union jobs at a prevailing wage.
We also have to make good on protecting pensions. We can’t just offer people a few hours of training, and tell them to go where the new jobs are.
AOC thanked Sarah for the flight attendants’ role in ending the government shutdown. [applause] That kind of action is a blueprint for this exact concern. We need pressure from voters to keep our promises. Just voting every few years isn’t enough, but we have to do it. It is the rubber to the road actual organizing by everyday Americans that is going to create the political pressure to say that we need a plan by 2020.
Not voting is a choice. We choose not to vote because we have become so cynical about this system that is not working for us. And so it creates a chicken and egg situation. We need to cast our vote to get the representation we deserve.
Varshini Prakash, co-founder and Executive Director of the Sunrise movement.
VP: We are building a movement of young people to stop the climate crisis and create millions of good jobs for our generation. And we organized the sit-in at Nancy Pelosi’s office that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez joined us at. [applause] So thank you.
I really appreciate what you said about younger activists standing on the shoulders of giants. We feel this urgency. We understand that people are dying. What’s inspired you about the role of young people?
AOC: One of the things that’s inspired me is the bravery and the courage of activists across the country. It means putting something of yourself on the line, actually risking something. I feel very deeply tied to that. What am I sacrificing of myself for them?
Chris: There are two things. One is that the facts are now just undeniable. 10% of the US F-20 fleet was taken out by weather. Those things are about $300 million a pop. And the second thing is the generational mobilization of young people around the world who realize that it’s here. That wasn’t there before. And you’re seeing a change in the politics.
Walid Shaheed, Justice Democrats spokesperson
WS: We’re part of the organization that recruited Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and pushed her to run in the first place. (Sorry about that.) We have a whole squad that’s being built in Congress. But we don’t have 50% of Democrats yet who are supporting the Green New Deal. Do others tell you, “I’d like to support it, but I just can’t put my name on it”?
AOC: People say, “My district won’t go for it.” I get that there are about 40 front-line swing seats, but I feel like about 200 people are telling me that. And I go, “You’re D+10, what are you talking about?” But that happens, not just on climate, that happens on everything. That’s the big, you know, dirty little secret. It is more about corporate donors.
Chris: But also, they are risk-averse. They don’t want to be yelled at [in Trump rallies].
AOC: It’s a stressful job. It is stressful, taking a stand. I’m stressed out all the time.
Attendee: We have your back!. [applause]
AOC: Thank you. But that’s exactly what I am saying! This is not supposed to be a comfortable job that we stay in our entire lives.
Mark Paul, economist and Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute
Chris: What do you have to say about this, Mark?
MP: As an economist I want to say that it’s unquestionable that Climate Change and income inequality are our two largest issues. What’s important is that they are inextricably linked. We can learn from the original New Deal, which unfortunately excluded certain communities, especially African-Americans.
That was at the insistence of Segregationist Southern Democrats, who told FDR that he had to leave agricultural and domestic workers out of Social Security, or he wouldn’t get a single Southern vote. Later on, they also arranged for Black GIs in the South to be excluded from benefits after WW II, by letting states administer the GI Bill.
MP: What type of lessons did you take from the New Deal? FDR did a tremendous amount in the first hundred days.
AOC: One is political will. One of the big parts of political will is fear, and especially fear within our own party. If we do this, if we are a little too bold, we will lose our majorities, we will lose everything. And it is a difficult question, because the House has been gerrymandered. But when we were bold, in the New Deal and the Great Society, we had supermajorities. So that I think is one of the encouraging lessons.
One of the lessons of the New Deal was redlining. It was an investment in White working-class Americans, and everyone else was left behind. And what we are dealing with today is the racial wealth gap that compounded from that disproportionate investment from then. Because you gave an entire community houses, which are the foundation of intergenerational wealth. And all these other communities, black, Mexican-American, brown, indigenous, were left behind. Which is what we are reckoning with today.
So that’s why in the Green New Deal there are special causes for racial justice and front-line communities.
Chris brings things to a close by bringing up an FDR quote:
The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it; If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But adove all, try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach.
A lot of us are trying all sorts of things, and there will be much more. But when we say to try something, we also need to fund it.