
The call for meeting 100 percent of power demand through “clean, renewable and zero-emission energy sources” deserves praise. The proposal does not map specific projects, only general areas of “invest in the next generation of American industry and innovation.” (5) Repairing, stopping, and heading off “historic oppression of the “frontline and vulnerable communities,” whether identified as marginalized by poverty or origin. (4) To ensure clean water and air, as well as climate and community resilience and (3) To “invest in the infrastructure and industry of the United States” (2) Create millions of high-wage and good jobs (1) To achieve net-zero emissions through a “just transition ” Ocasio-Cortez’s draft legislation, much like the draft document from the New Consensus, was bare bones. Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortez’s former Chief of Staff, has added that “we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.” Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez has spoken warmly of Tennessee Valley Authority-style programs and “public-private partnerships.” She has put forward the figure of ten trillion dollars as its cost. In the words of Demond Drummer, the head of the New Consensus think tank, the quiet catalyst of the GND discussion, it is a domestic agenda for governing, a chance “to see the elephant whole.” Like the New Deal to which the GND refers, it aims big. Toxic levels of cobalt, which is used in electronics, have been found in the blood and urine of the miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo, especially children. Industrial upgrading requires metals and metal-mining displacement of the people living on that land and pollution. Yet at the moment, the most visible environmental legislation - the Green New Deal (GND) - is being made and unmade in the North, the primary polluter and home of the largest corporations. Climate change has and will continue to pulverize the global South, where disaster is not on the horizon but has already arrived. Reports warning of the disappearance of the world’s flora, fauna, and land increasingly seem like forecasts for the end of the world. The normally cool prose of scientists has been heating up as well, channeling the anxiety induced by the catastrophic conditions they describe. Wildfires raged in the United States, and continental firestorms rake Australia. The spring of 2019 was the season of failed monsoons in Chennai, its reservoirs meters from desiccation. The Green New Deal (GND), Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s draft legislation to reduce US carbon dioxide emissions, was literally 2019’s talk of the town.Ĭlimate apocalypse is on everyone’s mind.
