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Green New Deal
New debates are emerging around how the Green New Deal should tackle the critical challenges the country faces today—environmental, political, and economic. We are currently developing research that engages with these conversations, while drawing on the key lessons of the original New Deal. This section offers an overview of key debates about how the Green New Deal should achieve the transition to a low carbon economy, bring equitable growth, and rebuild the nation.
POLITICAL CHANGE
How FDR’s Original Green New Deal Challenged Jim Crow
BY
PAUL J. BAICICH / RICHARD A. WALKER
The Jacobin
The Civilian Conservation Corps, FDR’s original Green New Deal, cared for the environment and gave jobs to the unemployed. And though its record on racial equality was imperfect, it helped undermine key parts of Jim Crow.
What We Can Learn from the First New Deal to Make the New One Better
“Whether it is called “Build Back Better” or a “Green Industrial Policy” or, indeed, a Green New Deal, it is imperative to reject the false dichotomy of ‘jobs against climate.’”
Photo: Peg Hunter/flickr/cc
Stimulus isn’t enough. Our cities need a post-pandemic New Deal.
“With 22 million-plus out of work, we need jobs and public-works vision for the future” By Patrick Sisson, Curbed.
Gray Brechin was interviewed by By Patrick Sisson for a Curbed story. Reflecting on the current crisis, Brechin noted that, “advocates and boosters of the New Deal constantly spoke of ‘increasing the health of the country in the broadest possible terms,’ part of what he calls the ‘lost ethical language’ of the program. Improving health, both physical and economic, was a measuring stick for success.”
What the New Deal Can Teach Us About a Green New Deal
An Interview with Richard A Walker, Jacobin
Nine Principles that Should Guide the Green New Deal
Lessons drawn from the successes—and failures—of the first New Deal.
By Richard A Walker, Living New Deal Director
Op-ed, Washington Post
Read the PDF
Green New Deal: Can we be the next Greatest Generation?
By Helena Birecki Jan. 3, 2020, San Francisco Chronicle
The Role of Public Capital” A Reconstruction Finance Corporation for the 21st century
BY Kevin Baker December 5, 2019
Photo: “President Franklin Roosevelt called a special session of Congress on March 9, 1933, to deal with the banking crisis.” (AP Images)
The Role of Public Capital” A Reconstruction Finance Corporation for the 21st century
BY Kevin Baker December 5, 2019
Photo: “President Franklin Roosevelt called a special session of Congress on March 9, 1933, to deal with the banking crisis.” (AP Images)
Forged in Fire: California’s Lessons for a Green New Deal
By Naomi Klein, Nov. 18, The Intercept
Photo: “Flames climb trees as the Camp Fire tears through Paradise, Calif., on Nov. 8, 2018., Noah Berger/AP”
The Chico Green New Deal framework marries rapid decarbonization targets with calls for more affordable housing; a safe and sustainable food system; investments in “clean, 21st century” public transit; green jobs creation…and much more.
Naomi Klein’s new book, On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal.
In her recently published book, Naomi Klein makes the case for urgent climate action and the need for a Green New Deal.
Listen to Naomi Klein speak about the Green New Deal here and the Extinction Rebellion here.
The climate crisis is our third world war. It needs a bold response
Joseph Stiglitz Opinion, The Guardian
Critics of the Green New Deal ask if we can afford it. But we can’t afford not to: our civilisation is at stake
The climate crisis is our third world war. It needs a bold response
Joseph Stiglitz Opinion, The Guardian
Critics of the Green New Deal ask if we can afford it. But we can’t afford not to: our civilisation is at stake
Where Our New World Begins: Politics, power, and the Green New Deal
By Kevin Baker, Harper Magazine
“The manifesto that announced the Green New Deal will not be instituted literally. Some parts of it will be compromised, some will be improved, added, or subtracted. But it had better come into being, or we will leave to future generations a world of natural disasters unlike anything we have ever known.”
Building a “Green New Deal”: Lessons From the Original New Deal
“Demands centering on the need for a “Green New Deal”, focused on the creation of a public works “green jobs” infrastructure policy, have helped energise the American left in recent weeks. In this article Matt Huber offers four vital lessons from the original New Deal that contemporary activists and policymakers must learn.”
By Matt Huber, Verso Books
This Is An Emergency, Damn It
Green New Deal critics are missing the bigger picture. Does this change everywhere?
By David Roberts, Vox
Photo: Nelson Klein, Sunrise
Economy and Cost
Climate Change Will Cost More Than We Think
The New York Times
Economists greatly underestimate the price tag on harsher weather and higher seas. Why is that?
By Naomi Oreskes and Nicholas Stern
Dr. Oreskes is a professor of the history of science at Harvard. Professor Stern is chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
Oct. 23, 2019
The New Deal Wasn’t What You Think
If we are going to fund a Green New Deal, we need to acknowledge how the original actually worked.
By Louis Hyman, Atlantic
Make Corporations Pay for the Green New Deal
A Green New Deal will require trillions of dollars of investment. But the government doesn’t actually need to put up all the cash — we can make corporations pay.
By Christian Parenti, Jacobin
How to Make the Next Green New Deal Work
To make green investments pay off, policymakers must learn from past mistakes and stop subsidizing polluters.
By Edward B. Barbier, Nature
A Green New Deal
Data For Progress Policy Report
Greg Carlock Lead Author, Emily Mangan Contributing Author, Sean Mcelwee
A Green New Deal is fiscally responsible. Climate inaction is not
Opinion: Justin Talbot Zorn, Ben Beachy and Rhiana Gunn-Wright, The Guardian
The War On Climate Change Won’t Be Won Quibbling Over The Green New Deal’s Costs
The mounting damage of global warming is a crisis far greater than the deficit.
By Zach Carter and Alexander C. Kaufman, Huffington Post. Photo: David Mcnew Via Getty Images
Tesla’s new SUV model shows just how silly the Green New Deal really is
By Henry Olsen, Opinion, Washington Post
If Washington rejects the Green New Deal, California should step up and do it ourself
By Jacques Leslie. Photo: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times
“The Green New Deal is an audacious, ambitious proposal to treat the climate threat with the radical seriousness that it requires, while also reversing economic inequality and injustice.”
A California coalition is tackling one of the hardest, unsexiest parts of climate policy
Decarbonizing buildings: it’s tedious, but oh so necessary.
By David Roberts, Vox
Success On A Green New Deal Runs Through Public Lands
The ambitious climate resolution includes specific language about land preservation and protecting fragile ecosystems. By Chris D’Angelo, Huffington Post.
Photo: Associated Press.
Jobs & Justice
Green Economy Program
The UC Berkeley Labor Center
The Labor Center Green Economy Program conducts research on issues of job creation, quality, access, and training in the emergent green economy.
Labor Unions And the Green New Deal: Love, Hate, Or Indifference?
Nives Dolsak and Aseem Prakash and Sarah Tucker, Green Tech
The Promise of the Green New Deal
“[J]ust as the New Deal needed an index of success, so does the Green New Deal, but it requires a different one. We need to measure things that contribute to quality of life and the restoration of the environment and subtract those that do not.”
By John de Graaf, Front Porch Republic
The US Needs a New Civilian Conservation Corps
FDR’s CCC worked in the 1930s, and it would work today.
By Paul J. Baicich, The Nation
Advocacy and Organizing
Green New Deal
Mobilizing for a Just, Prosperous, and Sustainable Economy
By Rhiana Gunn-Wright And Robert Hockett, New Consensus
Statement of principles from the think tank behind the GND Resolution
Green Jobs in a Global Green New Deal
“An investment that fights climate change, creates millions of green jobs and spurs green growth.”
Friends of the Earth Urge Congress to Support the Green New Deal
We need a Green New Deal to fight climate change while tackling issues of justice and rising inequity.