What is the 'Green New Deal'?

[FaxModem1]

CNN

Here's what the Green New Deal actually says
Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf, CNN
Updated 7:01 AM EST, Thu February 14, 2019


(CNN) Green New Deal fits perfectly on a bumper sticker.

But the proposal, which is on its way to becoming a litmus test for the Democratic Party's many 2020 contenders, isn't a simple fix for what ails the US. It would equal taking American society back to the drawing board and rebuilding it from the safety net up.

President Donald Trump and Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell want to use the proposal to paint Democrats as trying to mandate a socialist utopia on the country, which is probably why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been publicly skeptical -- even though most Democrats running for president have signed on, at least conceptually.


The Green New Deal is more a list of ideas and ideals than an actual proposal, although the new climate change regulations it suggests could run to $1 trillion.

What was entered as official legislative language on Capitol Hill declares the government should take a stronger position on everything from cutting carbon emissions to giving every American a job to working with family farmers to retrofitting every building in the country.

Here's a look at some passages that stuck out in the 14-page resolution, and what they might mean for the country:

Renewable energy
"meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources"

This would be a wholesale turnaround in US energy. Renewables -- including hydroelectric, wind, biomass, solar and geothermal -- currently account for about 20% of US energy production, about on par with nuclear energy as outlined by the US Energy Information Agency. Natural gas accounts for the largest share -- about 32% -- and coal isn't far behind, at 30%. The current projection is for renewable energy to account for about 31% of US energy generation by 2050, with steep drops for nuclear and coal.

Smart grid
"building or upgrading to energy-efficient, distributed, and 'smart' power grids, and working to ensure affordable access to electricity"

Improving the nation's patchwork electrical system is an enormous undertaking that Congress has been grappling with for more than a decade. It provided funds toward a smart grid -- a reimagined electrical grid that makes use of technology to improve reliability and efficiency -- as part of the 2009 economic stimulus, but not explicitly since then. The Department of Energy has provided some funds since then, according to the Congressional Research Service, putting $3.6 billion each year toward the smart grid -- not nearly enough to implement it nationwide by 2030. It'll cost hundreds of billions of dollars over 20 years, according to estimates, but greatly improve the country's electrical infrastructure.

Energy efficiency
"upgrading all existing buildings in the United States and building new buildings to achieve maximal energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability, including through electrification"

Without having to Google, we know there are a LOT of buildings in the US. Upgrading all of them would certainly make the green building industry explode. Would it be done through tax credits? Grants? Large-scale building upgrades have been tried before, including in the 2009 stimulus, which put $4.5 billion toward retrofitting federal buildings and $3 billion toward retrofitting public housing projects. Here's a HUD report on the public housing effort, which argues that savings on electricity and water costs were achieved. However, to repeat, there are a LOT of buildings in the US, and no one knows what it would cost to make them all "green."

Transportation
"overhauling transportation systems in the United States to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible, including through investment in (i) zero-emission vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing; (ii) clean, affordable, and accessible public transportation; and (iii) high-speed rail"

There are models to encourage low-emission vehicles that the current government is abandoning. Some federal tax incentives for people buying electric vehicles are running out (Tesla!) and haven't been renewed. Others, like increased emissions standards, have been jeopardized by the Trump administration. Relatively cheap gas in recent years also hasn't helped Americans move toward better fuel efficiency.

But encouraging people with a tax incentive is different from overhauling transportation systems. And that's hard: Just days after the Green New Deal was introduced, California's new governor, Gavin Newsom, a Democrat and progressive, nixed his state's planned high speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco to instead focus on three smaller Central Valley communities. One reason Newsom said he didn't end the program altogether was because he didn't want the state to have to return a $3.5 billion federal loan.

Low-tech solutions
"removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and reducing pollution, including by restoring natural ecosystems through proven low-tech solutions that increase soil carbon storage, such as preservation and afforestation"

This could cover a lot of things, one of which, essentially, would be planting trees to combat climate change. It's a thing. It's been tried in Israel and Europe and there are efforts to reforest in Brazil. It is the cutting of rainforests there, however, that plays a biggger role in climate change. Carbon Brief has a handy world map. The US Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service have a complicated cost estimate for afforestation in every county in the US. Another might be the protection and rehabilitation of wetlands to guard against the effects of climate change.

Cows and climate change
"working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible"

This element has already been boiled down to cow farts, according to the President and that prematurely published set of FAQs. Cow and livestock emissions are something that deserves attention. This is not about your your purebred heritage cow, but rather about industrial agriculture.

Beef is responsible for 41% of livestock greenhouse gas emissions, and that livestock accounts for 14.5% of total global emissions, according to a CNN special report this year, which also pointed to the UN Panel on Climate Change Report, which suggested changing diets worldwide could contribute 20% of the effort needed to keep down global temperatures. The USDA projects the average American will eat about 222.4 pounds of meat and poultry in 2019, 53.4 pounds of which will be beef.

Guaranteed job, leave, vacation and retirement
"guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States"

Here we veer from the climate change portion of the document to goals that seem even more difficult to achieve. Would a family-sustaining wage mean different pay for people with different numbers of children? Would it require that both adults in a given household work? The living wage in Springfield, Illinois -- chosen randomly -- in MIT's Living Wage calculator is $11.41 per hour for one adult and $18.44 for two adults and two children. If one of the adults is working part-time, the baseline hourly wage rises to $26.39.

Things change when you factor in benefits. An interesting 2018 report from the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities with some back-of-the envelope calculations on the cost for a federal jobs guarantee suggested the government could provide 9.7 million jobs to the under- or unemployed at a mean wage of $32,500 to account for different levels of experience, etc. Adding in taxes and benefits makes the annual cost of each job about $56,000. So the total cost to the government each year would be about $543 billion.

That's less than the nearly $674 billion the government spends on the Pentagon's budget. It is much less than the government spends on safety net programs Medicare and Social Security each year.

Labor laws
"strengthening and enforcing labor, workplace health and safety, anti-discrimination, and wage and hour standards across all employers, industries, and sectors"

There's a patchwork of wage laws across industries. Tipped workers, like restaurant employees, have a lower minimum wage. Some states have enacted much higher minimum wages for their workers. Creating new laws on this front would require a national debate. Discrimination is already illegal. But it also has very little to do with climate change.

Public ownership
"providing and leveraging, in a way that ensures that the public receives appropriate ownership stakes and returns on investment, adequate capital (including through community grants, public banks, and other public financing), technical expertise, supporting policies, and other forms of assistance to communities, organizations, Federal, State, and local government agencies, and businesses working on the Green New Deal mobilization"

The public is going to pay for all of this change, so the public should get a return, is one way to look at this passage. The public as an owner is likely enough to strike fear in many Republicans. And it'd be a sure trigger for them to bring up Venezuela, which has squandered the riches of its state-run oil company.

On the other hand, California is again dealing with the bankruptcy of a privately owned public utliity, PG&E, and debating whether it should be turned into a public utility. How governments should own things is an important question without a clear answer.

Providing higher education
"providing resources, training, and high-quality education, including higher education, to all people of the United States, with a focus on frontline and vulnerable communities, so those communities may be full and equal participants in the Green New Deal mobilization"

There's a lot in this portion, but let's focus on the part about higher education for all people. That sounds a lot like the free-college proposals of recent years. It might not be something any Democrats are going to oppose, exactly. But it's also not something they've found a way to accomplish yet. One free-college proposal, which was not included in Green New Deal but offers a guideline, came from from Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent. He would provide states with $47 billion per year to cover two-thirds of the cost of tuition for students at public colleges and universities. Sanders proposed a new tax on Wall Street trades to finance the program.

Trade unions
"strengthening and protecting the right of all workers to organize, unionize, and collectively bargain free of coercion, intimidation, and harassment"

Unions have been in a long-term decline in the US. While 20% of US wage and salary workers were in unions in 1983 -- about 17.7 million people, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- that was down to 10.5% of wage and salary workers and 14.7 million union workers by 2018. There are many reasons for this decline, not the least of which is the changing nature of US manufacturing.

Unions remain strongest in the public sector and among government workers ranging from law enforcement to teachers. An additional 1.6 million workers are in jobs covered by union contracts but are not members of the unions.

Trade deals
"enacting and enforcing trade rules, procurement standards, and border adjustments with strong labor and environmental protections"

In this case Green New Dealers might align with Trump against trade deals, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren has. She, like Trump, opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He said it was poorly negotiated. She said it didn't do enough for international worker rights. But the Green New Deal crowd goes further, and opposes even the deals Trump supports, like the planned US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, which Warren has called NAFTA 2.0.

Indigenous people
"obtaining the free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous people for all decisions that affect indigenous people and their traditional territories, honoring all treaties and agreements with indigenous people, and protecting and enforcing the sovereignty and landrights of indigenous people"

You could see this playing a role in particular in terms of oil drilling, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or in terms of standoffs like the one at Standing Rock in North Dakota in 2016. This would certainly be a policy shift for the US government, which has at times seemed to give deference to oil companies.

There could be lost development opportunities, but many Democrats would certainly trade that for the twin objectives of slowing oil dependence and honoring indigenous peoples.

Health care, housing, security, clean air and water, healthy food and nature
"providing all people of the United States with — (i) high-quality health care; (ii) affordable, safe, and adequate housing; (iii) economic security; and (iv) access to clean water, clean air, healthy and affordable food, and nature"

This is lumping a lot of things in together. The quibble here between progressives and conservatives will be whether the US government should be providing access to health care. Many Green New Deal supporters all support "Medicare-for-all," which is both a general idea that many Democrats are behind and also a specific policy proposal that has fewer supporters.

One question is whether the government would have to essentially end the private health care industry in order to create a public one. That kind of drastic change has the potential to really frighten voters, who punished Democrats for creating the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and then published Republicans for trying to take it away in 2018.

The government already does quite a lot, although some say not nearly enough, on the food, water, air and nature fronts with the Food and Drug Administration, the USDA, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Park Service, so it's hard to so say what would change under a Green New Deal without more specifics.

Thoughts?

[madd0ct0r]

i refer the OP to my sig.

[FaxModem1]

Bloomberg

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal Could Cost $93 Trillion, Group Says
By Ari Natter
February 25, 2019, 11:13 AM CST Updated on February 25, 2019, 12:43 PM CST
Republican-aligned think tank estimates cost of proposed plan
Plan backer Markey says analysis relies on ‘lazy assumptions’

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ambitious plan to fight climate change won’t be cheap, according to a Republican-aligned think tank led by a former Congressional Budget Office director.

The so-called Green New Deal may tally between $51 trillion and $93 trillion over 10-years, concludes American Action Forum, which is run by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who directed the non-partisan CBO from from 2003 to 2005.

That includes between $8.3 trillion and $12.3 trillion to meet the plan’s call to eliminate carbon emissions from the power and transportation sectors and between $42.8 trillion and $80.6 trillion for its economic agenda including providing jobs and health care for all.

“The Green New Deal is clearly very expensive,” the group said in its analysis. “Its further expansion of the federal government’s role in some of the most basic decisions of daily life, however, would likely have a more lasting and damaging impact than its enormous price tag.”

Backers of the plan say cost of inaction would be more expensive. The resolution itself, released earlier this month by Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ed Markey points to a major report on global warming released by the United Nations last October that says catastrophic climate change could cost more than $500 billion annually in lost economic output in the U.S. by 2100.

“Any so-called ‘analysis’ of the #GreenNewDeal that includes artificially inflated numbers that rely on lazy assumptions, incl. about policies that aren’t even in the resolution is bogus," Markey said on Twitter. “Putting a price on a resolution of principles, not policies, is just Big Oil misinformation.”

Representatives of Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Republicans have embraced the sweeping plan because they think they can use it to cast Democrats as extreme, take back seats in Congress and possibly keep the White House in 2020.

So, this is the figure going around, that the cost would be so astronomical that it would bankrupt the nation.

[The Romulan Republic]

So, Republican bullshit which can't even come up with a more precise bullshit figure to smear with than "51-93 trillion".

[K. A. Pital]

So, Republican bullshit which can't even come up with a more precise bullshit figure to smear with than "51-93 trillion".

Don’t be hard on them TRR. They probably were math failures at school.

As a side point - no matter the cost, the alternative is destruction, right? Idiots who keep applying capitalist logic to a fundamental problem will inevitably fail to grasp that this is not a matter of „costs“.

[Oscar Wilde]

As a side point - no matter the cost, the alternative is destruction, right? Idiots who keep applying capitalist logic to a fundamental problem will inevitably fail to grasp that this is not a matter of „costs“.

Perhaps its a notion of 'If we CAN achieve this Christmas List of wants and ideals, will it be enough and what if other countries don't commit as hard as we're going to push?' The idea that we can roll out this ten year plan that only buys us time, then we're in a fucked country on a fucked planet.

Being the example is a good thing for sure and the Green New Deal is at least a good list of WANTS. Its a very solid idea on paper but when one comes down to the execution... not to mention the notions of The Big Socialism™ that are in it.
It does at least bring the conversation of 'hey maybe we shouldn't break the Earth I sorta keep my stuff there' into the forefront.

[Proletarian]

Being the example is a good thing for sure and the Green New Deal is at least a good list of WANTS. Its a very solid idea on paper but when one comes down to the execution... not to mention the notions of The Big Socialism™ that are in it.

So far as I can see, it's an attempt by the left-wing of Capital - the green and tech sectors - to harness the political energy of social democracy towards the goal of displacing their fossil fuel opponents.

It isn't socialism; socialism is a temporally-determined movement which develops from within the conditions of capitalism, and is not a political programme to be implemented. A Universal Basic Income, for example, is a deeply capitalist proposal, supported by capitalists as diverse as Elon Musk and Richard Branson. Socialism abolishes wealth; it does not redistribute it. And capitalism has always relied on redistributive mechanisms, from eighteenth century enclosures to the twentieth-century welfare State, to stimulate capital accumulation.

Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, etc. can call themselves whatever they please. Their aim is to save capitalism from itself, and "the real movement which abolishes the present state of things" will be directed as much against the kinds of institutions they support as against the traditional conception of Capital.

[Proletarian]

*double post*

[The Romulan Republic]

Being the example is a good thing for sure and the Green New Deal is at least a good list of WANTS. Its a very solid idea on paper but when one comes down to the execution... not to mention the notions of The Big Socialism™ that are in it.

So far as I can see, it's an attempt by the left-wing of Capital - the green and tech sectors - to harness the political energy of social democracy towards the goal of displacing their fossil fuel opponents.

It isn't socialism; socialism is a temporally-determined movement which develops from within the conditions of capitalism, and is not a political programme to be implemented. A Universal Basic Income, for example, is a deeply capitalist proposal, supported by capitalists as diverse as Elon Musk and Richard Branson. Socialism abolishes wealth; it does not redistribute it. And capitalism has always relied on redistributive mechanisms, from eighteenth century enclosures to the twentieth-century welfare State, to stimulate capital accumulation.

Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, etc. can call themselves whatever they please. Their aim is to save capitalism from itself, and "the real movement which abolishes the present state of things" will be directed as much against the kinds of institutions they support as against the traditional conception of Capital.

So in other words, you're so concerned with ideological purity that you will reject an idea that could literally save human civilization from an existential threat because some capitalists support it, or because it doesn't fit perfectly into what your interpretation of socialist doctrine predicts*/demands?

Well, I for one call that incredible short-sightedness and selfishness.

Who cares whether its technically socialist or not? A good policy that will save millions of lives is a good policy that will save millions of lives . With all due respect, I am tired of internet ideologues who are willing to watch millions suffer and die for the sake of their ideology.

The only ideology worth a damn is protecting the lives, liberty, and dignity of sapient beings. Anything else is just different window-dressings for despotism (I would also argue that if wealth is sufficiently redistributed, it will cease to exist, as much as it can cease to exist- wealth only has meaning when there is disparity).


*One of the things that most pisses me off about radical socialists and Marxists (and lots of other ideological extremists) is how they tend to predict that such and such will inevitably happen- that socialism will inevitably grow out of capitalism and lead to a revolution, abolition of class and wealth, etc. And anything that doesn't fit that pattern is implicitly or explicitly disregarded. Its why I tend to compare Marxism, communism, etc. to a religion- because it evidently relies on set of prophecies that must inevitably be fulfilled, a position that I find to be dangerously full of hubris. Its magic, not politics.

[K. A. Pital]

Comrade Proletarian here is again being radical. Sure, the „New Deal“ is not a communist program. Very much so.

But has he got an answer on how industrial socialism is going to solve the problem? (I can give some clues, but I won’t). Hint: „abolition of wealth“ and „abolition of class“ are not directly impacting emissions.

In fact, if further expansion of current-level means of production is considered in the future, then socialism would not be able to solve the problem of climate change even if it would succeed in abolition of class, wealth and such.

That all aside, what does UBI (a capitalist welfare mechanism, of course) at all have to do with the issue of climate change? These are completely separate issues.

Let us all stay on topic.

[Proletarian]

Being the example is a good thing for sure and the Green New Deal is at least a good list of WANTS. Its a very solid idea on paper but when one comes down to the execution... not to mention the notions of The Big Socialism™ that are in it.

So far as I can see, it's an attempt by the left-wing of Capital - the green and tech sectors - to harness the political energy of social democracy towards the goal of displacing their fossil fuel opponents.

It isn't socialism; socialism is a temporally-determined movement which develops from within the conditions of capitalism, and is not a political programme to be implemented. A Universal Basic Income, for example, is a deeply capitalist proposal, supported by capitalists as diverse as Elon Musk and Richard Branson. Socialism abolishes wealth; it does not redistribute it. And capitalism has always relied on redistributive mechanisms, from eighteenth century enclosures to the twentieth-century welfare State, to stimulate capital accumulation.

Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, etc. can call themselves whatever they please. Their aim is to save capitalism from itself, and "the real movement which abolishes the present state of things" will be directed as much against the kinds of institutions they support as against the traditional conception of Capital.

So in other words, you're so concerned with ideological purity

No. I'm critiquing ideology here - that ideology which holds social democratic interventions to be essentially value-neutral, apolitical (much less pro-working class!) events that are not only contingently justifiable, but justified in themselves.

that you will reject an idea that could literally save human civilization from an existential threat because some capitalists support it, or because it doesn't fit perfectly into what your interpretation of socialist doctrine predicts*/demands?

Who said anything about 'rejecting' an idea? The success or failure of this proposal doesn't hinge on my (or your) individual 'acceptance' of it. That's a religious idea - by grace are ye saved through faith.

Historical developments are almost never matters of intellectual 'conversion' en masse, and certainly not on an individual level. "Believing in" the Green New Deal will neither save my soul nor damn me to Hell.

I neithet 'accept' or 'reject' it, and it isn't relevant if I do or not. I rather understand it as a political play by one secror of Capital over another; its victory or defeat is contingent on the immediate needs of capitalist civilization and not on the individual policy preferences of voters.

Well, I for one call that incredible short-sightedness and selfishness.

Again, my view of it doesn't matter. What will be will be.

I suspect that something like the Green New Deal will eventually be instituted. I suspect it will have the effect of dramatically slowing climate change - and of simultaneously lowering the living standards of most of the world's working-class.

Who cares whether its technically socialist or not?

The majority of people for whom the Green New Deal is a point of contention, apparently.

A good policy that will save millions of lives is a good policy that will save millions of lives . With all due respect, I am tired of internet ideologues who are willing to watch millions suffer and die for the sake of their ideology.

I'm the opposite of an ideologue. I'm a critic of ideology.

The only ideology worth a damn

I'd suggest that no ideology is worth a damn.

is protecting the lives, liberty, and dignity of sapient beings.

This rhetoric justifies everything and means nothing.

Anything else is just different window-dressings for despotism (I would also argue that if wealth is sufficiently redistributed, it will cease to exist, as much as it can cease to exist- wealth only has meaning when there is disparity).

The Green New Deal can be, and probably will be, the cover for a new kind of despotism. This does not make it any less necessary.

*One of the things that most pisses me off about radical socialists and Marxists (and lots of other ideological extremists) is how they tend to predict that such and such will inevitably happen- that socialism will inevitably grow out of capitalism and lead to a revolution, abolition of class and wealth, etc. And anything that doesn't fit that pattern is implicitly or explicitly disregarded. Its why I tend to compare Marxism, communism, etc. to a religion- because it evidently relies on set of prophecies that must inevitably be fulfilled, a position that I find to be dangerously full of hubris. Its magic, not politics.

Not only will it happen, it is happening. The constant churn of Capital creates a Communist movement, just as it creates a constantly integrating and disintegrating working-class - quite distinct from, and in opposition to, those self-consciously "Communist" political movements.

[Proletarian]

Delete

[Proletarian]

But has he got an answer on how industrial socialism is going to solve the problem? (I can give some clues, but I won’t). Hint: „abolition of wealth“ and „abolition of class“ are not directly impacting emissions.

The Letter To Ruge should answer this one pretty definitively.

... In fact, the internal obstacles seem almost greater than external difficulties. For even though the question "where from?" presents no problems, the question "where to?" is a rich source of confusion. Not only has universal anarchy broken out among the reformers, but also every individual must admit to himself that he has no precise idea about what ought to happen. However, this very defect turns to the advantage of the new movement, for it means that we do not anticipate the world with our dogmas but instead attempt to discover the new world through the critique of the old... If we have no business with the construction of the future or with organizing it for all time, there can still be no doubt about the task confronting us at present: the ruthless criticism of the existing order, ruthless in that it will shrink neither from its own discoveries, nor from conflict with the powers that be.

The very point of materialism vs. idealism is that we do not conjure up utopias and impose them on a world in flux, but try to understand the world as it is developing and critique it from our vantage point inside of it. This means understanding ostensibly progressive movements in full and in their relation to the whole system.

A Green New Deal coupled to a UBI would very probably result in a net across-the-board reduction of current living standards for the vast majority of the country's working population, and a concomitant increase in the power of Silicon Valley, green technology companies, etc. It can simultaneously be true that this is historically necessary and deeply problematic.

In fact, if further expansion of current-level means of production is considered in the future, then socialism would not be able to solve the problem of climate change even if it would succeed in abolition of class, wealth and such.

Which is precisely why a New Green Deal may be historically necessary - while also creating new contradictions in itself.

We need neither 'support' nor 'oppose' it, but understand it in its totality as a movement - as an attempt by Capital to compensate for one of its self-destructive tendencies, which will surely lead to others.

That all aside, what does UBI (a capitalist welfare mechanism, of course) at all have to do with the issue of climate change? These are completely separate issues.

One of the most objectionable parts of the document to the public has been the pledge to financially support those "unwilling to work". A UBI is at the core of the New Green Deal programme, and it is this feature which has most been tarred with the 'socialist' brush.

[The Romulan Republic]

Who said anything about 'rejecting' an idea? The success or failure of this proposal doesn't hinge on my (or your) individual 'acceptance' of it. That's a religious idea - by grace are ye saved through faith.

I am genuinely baffled by how to respond to an argument this absurd, beyond pointing out that its yet another example of the "I know you are but what am I" school of rebuttal.

No, neither you nor I will single-handedly determine the future of this policy. But the collective actions and choices of many people will. That is not religion. It has nothing to do with faith, unlike your sweeping prophecies of the future of the global economy. It is simple, demonstrable fact, as much as "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

I neithet 'accept' or 'reject' it, and it isn't relevant if I do or not. I rather understand it as a political play by one secror of Capital over another; its victory or defeat is contingent on the immediate needs of capitalist civilization and not on the individual policy preferences of voters.

Yeah, I get it. Nothing matters, everything's inevitable, and you are conveniently absolved of any social responsibility for the positions and actions you take or do not take.

Again, my view of it doesn't matter. What will be will be.

Perhaps what will be will be, but your actions will play a role in brining it about, as will everyone else's. Perhaps there is no free will, and we are all pieces in a great machine, guided down a fixed path by the unbending laws of physics. But we are all pieces nonetheless, and if any one piece did not play its role, the machine could not exist or function in its current shape. A shape which is certainly far too vast and complex for you are Karl Marx to determine its future performance with certainty.

I suspect that something like the Green New Deal will eventually be instituted. I suspect it will have the effect of dramatically slowing climate change - and of simultaneously lowering the living standards of most of the world's working-class.

As opposed to the extermination of most of the human race when the planet becomes virtually unliveable? I'll take that trade.

Read up on some of the theories about the Permian Extinction (when 90% of all species died out-the closest life on Earth has ever come to total extermination) if you want to know what a runaway greenhouse affect can do to the ecosystem. Its some scary shit.

The majority of people for whom the Green New Deal is a point of contention, apparently.

Then they're fools engaging in a logical fallacy. What does it matter what label someone ascribes to an idea? The idea must stand or fall on its own merits.

I'm the opposite of an ideologue. I'm a critic of ideology.

To quote Captain Jean Luc Picard: "Saying that a thing is so does not make it so."

I'd suggest that no ideology is worth a damn.

I am sick of internet cynics acting like cynicism equates to intelligence, and using cynicism to absolve themselves of responsibility.

This rhetoric justifies everything and means nothing.

Would you like me to elaborate? I believe that the moral course of action is the one that evidence and reason indicate is likely to cause the least loss of life, liberty, and dignity (in that order of priority) to sapient beings.

The Green New Deal can be, and probably will be, the cover for a new kind of despotism. This does not make it any less necessary.

It is necessary, or something like it. I'm glad that on that much we can agree. Its success, however, is by no means assured- it will require the actions of people who will actively support it.

Whether it will lead to despotism likewise depends on a great many factors, not least of which being the choices of its proponents.

Not only will it happen, it is happening. The constant churn of Capital creates a Communist movement, just as it creates a constantly integrating and disintegrating working-class - quite distinct from, and in opposition to, those self-consciously "Communist" political movements.

Communists have been predicting the inevitable death of Capitalism and rise of Communism for 200 years, just as Christians have been predicting the Second Coming for 2,000. In both cases, I'll believe it when I see it. You say it is inevitable, and yet right now it is fascism's star, not communism's, that seems to be ascendant around the world.

Only an arrogant fool believes that they know what the future holds with certainty. There are simply too many variables. At best, you can say "If such and such happens, such and such is most likely to happen in response." And even then, unless you're a genius or a psychic, you're likely to be wrong as often as not.

[K. A. Pital]

Again comrade Proletarian espouses a „Do nothing“ attitude.

Not unexpected.

[FaxModem1]

So far, the Democrats or other think tanks have not come up with a lesser estimate regarding the cost of the Green New Deal.

And, the war on hamburgers has begun:

The Washington Post

The Energy 202: How the hamburger became the GOP's rallying cry against the Green New Deal

By Dino Grandoni
March 1 at 8:12 AM
THE LIGHTBULB


U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) holds a hamburger during a Congressional Western Caucus news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 27, 2019. (Congressional Western Caucus)

Dozens of Democrats are demanding all sectors of the U.S. economy drive down greenhouse gas emissions with their Green New Deal resolution.

The nearly overwhelming response so far from Republicans in Congress: Where's the beef?

Republicans are insisting that their Democratic colleagues want to take away that American classic -- the hamburger -- as part of their resolution to prepare for the effects of climate change.

Whether on Capitol Hill, on social media, or at political conferences, Republicans have made meat a central part of their messaging against the resolution introduced last month by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).

Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, the top Republican on the Natural Resources Committee, held up a hamburger during a news conference Wednesday railing against the Green New Deal. "If this goes through," Bishop said before taking a bite, "this will be outlawed.”

And Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who chairs of the powerful Freedom Caucus, joked Thursday during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland that “Chick-fil-A stock will go way up” because Democrats are "trying to get rid of all the cows."

Freshman Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee warned in an op-ed in Nashville's daily newspaper, the Tennessean, that if “the Green New Dealers have their way, cows would be effectively banned.”

Her GOP colleague, John Barrasso of Wyoming, who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, similarly went to the stake for cattlemen in his state during a speech last month on the floor of the Senate.“Say goodbye to dairy, to beef, to family farms, to ranches,” the senator said.

“American favorites like cheeseburgers and milkshakes would become a thing of the past. Millions of American workers will lose their jobs.”

And of course, there is President Trump, who claimed on Twitter that the Green New Deal would “permanently eliminate” cows.


Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
I think it is very important for the Democrats to press forward with their Green New Deal. It would be great for the so-called “Carbon Footprint” to permanently eliminate all Planes, Cars, Cows, Oil, Gas & the Military - even if no other country would do the same. Brilliant!

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5:21 PM - Feb 9, 2019
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The Green New Deal's supporters have pointed out that there is no meat on the bone to that criticism: The resolution itself does not mention beef, burgers or anything similar.


The rhetoric is among the latest instances of those on the political right fixating on Ocasio-Cortez as they search for a winning message in 2020 by casting the Green New Deal as a socialist fantasy. Every Democratic senator running for president has so far supported the freshman representative's climate resolution.

Republicans are latching onto a comment made by Ocasio-Cortez during an interview on Showtime’s “Desus & Mero” last week, which during which she explained that she wants to “address factory farming.”

“It’s not to say you get rid of agriculture,” she said. “It’s not to say we’re going to force everybody to go vegan or anything crazy like that. But it’s to say, listen, we’ve got to address factory farming. Maybe we shouldn’t be eating a hamburger for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

Democrats say the they're-taking-away-your-hamburgers argument is a stretch.


“This whole 'Chicken Little' approach, I don't think it's going to work,” Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who co-sponsored the Green New Deal and leads the Natural Resources panel, said of the GOP talking point. “The sky is not falling. There is serious legislation to be put together here that is going to require some balance.”

Right now, the Green New Deal is just a nonbinding resolution — not a bill that would have legal teeth if passed — that sets out a series of goals for the United States so that the nation can achieve “net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.”

The resolution's aim for the electricity sector, for example, is relatively clear even if it would be very hard to achieve: Get 100 percent of the nation's power from “clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources” within a decade. For agriculture, the goal is a little vaguer: Work with farmers to drive down emissions from farms “as much as is technologically feasible.”


To win broad support among Democrats, the Green New Deal resolution was designed to not explicitly ban anything in particular — whether it be burgers, ice cream, airplanes or even coal.

“I'm surprised that Republicans have left out apple pie,” Robert Hockett, a Cornell University professor who was as an outside adviser to Ocasio-Cortez on the resolution, wrote by email. “What it does do is to lay out goals to make alternatives to carbon-based energy so affordable that they simply out-compete carbon and thereby become more attractive to consumers than carbon. "

Yet Republicans are still pointing to an erroneous fact sheet published — but later withdrawn — by Ocasio-Cortez's office that tried to make a subtle point about the difference between bringing emissions of climate-warming gases down to zero from all sources and bringing the overall net emissions down to zero.

“We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast,” it read.

Even after Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats disavowed that document, the “farting cows” line took on a life of its own among conservatives such as former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who tried turning it into a punchline.


Gov. Mike Huckabee
✔
@GovMikeHuckabee
Democrat 2020 message: Elect us. We'll let caravans of MS-13 gang members come right in our open borders, but we'll stop cow farts! Sounds like a winning strategy. I think @realDonaldTrump will be reelected. https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/07/gree ... latulence/ …

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2:33 PM - Feb 7, 2019
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‘Green New Deal’ Looks To Tackle The Scourge Of ‘Farting Cows’
America loves beef. Deal with it

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In reality, agriculture does account for a significant portion of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions — about 9 percent in 2016, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. And while much of those climate-warming emissions do come from gassy cattle, both Republicans and Democrats are focusing on the wrong end of the animal.

Most of those emissions come not from cows' flatulence, but from their burps.

Correction: The original version of this story stated Marsha Blackburn represents Missouri in the Senate. She is from Tennessee.

[The Romulan Republic]

Humanity is causing a mass extinction that might end up destroying our civilization... but God forbid we might have to cut back on the hamburgers.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

Humanity is causing a mass extinction that might end up destroying our civilization... but God forbid we might have to cut back on the hamburgers.

Problem, vat-grown meat is simply not there yet... and even then the only time someone ate some vat-meat was when said meat was vat-chicken. I wouldn't be surprised that to make Vat-meat on an industrial scale (which you will need to feed us humies with the necessary protein), you'll be as bad if not worse in terms of ecological effects than raising cattle because people forget all the other things that go into that like electricity to power the equipment and get the water to the vats, water consumption, transportation, etc. This is especially so since this 'Green New Deal' ignores the fact that fission is the only viable main-source alternative to coal, oil, and gas. The renewable sources are too niche or restrictive when it comes to their use and placement. The US, for example, has dammed up all the available (or such a significant portion that for all intents and purposes, we have) spots for hydro-electric, the climate is too variable for relying on wind, solar has climate problems too but only due to the extent of available sunlight...

... see where I'm getting here?

Fission (and, hopefully, fusion) is the only way we can even hope to mitigate climate change and this Green New Deal tells fission where to stuff it.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, there are protein sources other than meat (I'm not a vegetarian, just saying).

I do have a lot of hope for vat grown meat technology.

I do support more investment in nuclear power. While there are many other forms of renewable energy, nuclear's efficiency makes it the fastest way to get off fossil fuels, and its also vital for the space program. The knee-jerk rejection of nuclear power is probably the single greatest folly of the environmental movement.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

Well, there are protein sources other than meat (I'm not a vegetarian, just saying).

I do have a lot of hope for vat grown meat technology.

Not at the densities that we humans require. Meat is one of the most protein-laden foodstuffs we have and there are proteins that you simply get from plants.

Industrial-sized lots is key here.

I do support more investment in nuclear power. While there are many other forms of renewable energy, nuclear's efficiency makes it the fastest way to get off fossil fuels, and its also vital for the space program. The knee-jerk rejection of nuclear power is probably the single greatest folly of the environmental movement.

From what I've heard, it was mostly the oil and coal industries using the environmental movement as useful idiots to make that happen.

[FaxModem1]

Humanity is causing a mass extinction that might end up destroying our civilization... but God forbid we might have to cut back on the hamburgers.

Problem, vat-grown meat is simply not there yet... and even then the only time someone ate some vat-meat was when said meat was vat-chicken. I wouldn't be surprised that to make Vat-meat on an industrial scale (which you will need to feed us humies with the necessary protein), you'll be as bad if not worse in terms of ecological effects than raising cattle because people forget all the other things that go into that like electricity to power the equipment and get the water to the vats, water consumption, transportation, etc. This is especially so since this 'Green New Deal' ignores the fact that fission is the only viable main-source alternative to coal, oil, and gas. The renewable sources are too niche or restrictive when it comes to their use and placement. The US, for example, has dammed up all the available (or such a significant portion that for all intents and purposes, we have) spots for hydro-electric, the climate is too variable for relying on wind, solar has climate problems too but only due to the extent of available sunlight...

... see where I'm getting here?

Fission (and, hopefully, fusion) is the only way we can even hope to mitigate climate change and this Green New Deal tells fission where to stuff it.

When it comes to solar and wind, you can become a self reliant nation. The American Southwest has plenty of unusable land wherein a lot of solar panels could be placed. There are also a lot of unused rooftops and parking lots in the US. Having those covered in solar panels would do wonders would offset power needs by a focused plant.

Can you do this everywhere? No. But you can do it in enough places to offset a lot of power production made by coal, oil, or other facilities, while also making more homes, offices, and businesses energy efficient.

[GrosseAdmiralFox]

When it comes to solar and wind, you can become a self reliant nation. The American Southwest has plenty of unusable land wherein a lot of solar panels could be placed. There are also a lot of unused rooftops and parking lots in the US. Having those covered in solar panels would do wonders would offset power needs by a focused plant.

Can you do this everywhere? No. But you can do it in enough places to offset a lot of power production made by coal, oil, or other facilities, while also making more homes, offices, and businesses energy efficient.

No, the cost-effectiveness of solar and wind is simply not there. I live in Montana where we have large fields of wind generators, and they pale in comparison to the hydro-electrics that dominate our electrical grid.

Solar is just as bad, if not worse in terms of effectiveness because of the very thing we need to survive: the atmosphere. We only get a mere fraction of the energy from the sun because a lot of it is absorbed by the atmosphere. To get the most bang out of your buck with solar, you'll need to create something like the solar array system from Gundam 00 at the minimum. That microwave transmitter nonsense that was a thing in the late '90s/early 2000s? Extremely inefficient.

Fission -and by association, fusion- is the only viable main-source for our power needs. Hell most of that 'reactor waste' just requires going through the centrifuge again to get the used fuel shaken off.

[FaxModem1]

When it comes to solar and wind, you can become a self reliant nation. The American Southwest has plenty of unusable land wherein a lot of solar panels could be placed. There are also a lot of unused rooftops and parking lots in the US. Having those covered in solar panels would do wonders would offset power needs by a focused plant.

Can you do this everywhere? No. But you can do it in enough places to offset a lot of power production made by coal, oil, or other facilities, while also making more homes, offices, and businesses energy efficient.

No, the cost-effectiveness of solar and wind is simply not there. I live in Montana where we have large fields of wind generators, and they pale in comparison to the hydro-electrics that dominate our electrical grid.

Solar is just as bad, if not worse in terms of effectiveness because of the very thing we need to survive: the atmosphere. We only get a mere fraction of the energy from the sun because a lot of it is absorbed by the atmosphere. To get the most bang out of your buck with solar, you'll need to create something like the solar array system from Gundam 00 at the minimum. That microwave transmitter nonsense that was a thing in the late '90s/early 2000s? Extremely inefficient.

Fission -and by association, fusion- is the only viable main-source for our power needs. Hell most of that 'reactor waste' just requires going through the centrifuge again to get the used fuel shaken off.

Solar panels have jumped in efficiency the past couple decades. We now have an idea of how much landmass would be required to power us by 2030: https://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127

Image for Solar Power

It'd require something like the Green New Deal to build something that big, but it is possible.

[Gandalf]

I wouldn't be surprised that to make Vat-meat on an industrial scale (which you will need to feed us humies with the necessary protein), you'll be as bad if not worse in terms of ecological effects than raising cattle because people forget all the other things that go into that like electricity to power the equipment and get the water to the vats, water consumption, transportation, etc.

Nope.

[K. A. Pital]

Not to mention insects are actually quite efficient as a protein source.