I share this from The Observer, who published it yesterday. As co-creator of the Green New Deal I claim the right to do so:
The Green New Deal is probably the most fashionable policy in the English-speaking world. In Britain it is advocated by both Tory MPsand Jeremy Corbyn; while a non-partisan Canadian coalition of nearly 70 groups are backing such a scheme. However, it has been made flesh by US Democrats, in particular the political phenomenon in the US House of Representatives, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ms Ocasio-Cortez has spelled out what a Green New Deal involves in a House resolution: rejecting economic orthodoxy to confront climate change. She ought to be congratulated twice over.
At present the thinking is for governments to tackle global warming by including the social cost of carbon in the prices people pay, either through a carbon tax or a system of tradable carbon-emission permits. Such ideas have a role to play in changing the way societies consume and produce energy, but they are only moving us incrementally — if at all — towards sustainability. Global emissions of carbon dioxide are higher than they have ever been, almost three decades after the first global conference aimed at reducing them. The situation is becoming dangerous for human life. The latest figures show there is little more than a decade to save ourselves and the other creatures with whom we share the planet. To do so we must decouple economic activity from carbon emissions and ecological destruction.
This will not be easy. Economic power has become increasingly concentrated, giving rise to grotesque levels of inequality — both within and among countries. With financial speculation now a feature of capitalism, so are fraud and instability. Meanwhile, investment in public goods across the globe has stagnated. Growth increasingly relies on resource extraction, threatening civilisation itself. Ms Ocasio-Cortez's plan recognises this and is rooted in making the economy both greener and more equitable. Her prospectus calls for a reduction in the inequality of income and wealth, essential given that the world's richest 10% are responsible for half of carbon emissions. It sees large public spending to transform the US economy with an industrial base that would be net-zero in carbon emissions in a few decades. The plan is to create good job opportunities as the economy is made sustainably viable for the future.
Critics claim such ideas are pie-in-the-sky and would require huge spending, sparking inflation or resulting in massive tax increases. Democratic leaders fret that it would make the party unelectable in conservative-leaning US states. Yet the issue is not the money to pay for the investments proposed. US government deficits are historically normal and often economically necessary. The constraint is what a nation can produce. As the economist Stephanie Kelton, who is advising Bernie Sanders, notes in her defence of the Green New Deal: “Inflation isn't triggered by the amount of money the government creates but by the availability of biophysical resources that money tries to go out and buy.”
Policymakers ought not wait for economic theory to catch up to real-world events. Ms Ocasio-Cortez rightly sees parallels with the response to the 1930s crisis where President Roosevelt dispensed with economic orthodoxy and tamed Big Finance. He created a New Deal jobs programme that employed millions, oversaw a massive expansion of government and remade the US industrial base. Humanity will run out of limited global resources long before the US runs out of dollars. Britain needs something like Ms Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal. And we need it now — before it is too late.
Some thoughts. First, I like that this is the most fashionable policy in the English speaking world.
Second, The Observer might have noted it began here in the UK in that case.
But, third, that would require that it be recognised that UK politicians ignored this issue for a decade.
Fourth, as the editorial makes clear, you also have to embrace modern monetary theory to see how the Green New Deal is possible, which I know it is.
Fifth, it does not help that Labour resoundingly denies modern monetary theory's relevance.
Sixth: it's time the world discussed what this is really all about before it is all too late, because the clock is ticking on that remarkably fast. We've already used more than 5% of the available time. We really do need a Green New Deal now.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
Economic arguments that we can’t afford a Green New Deal are completely baseless. Even before we look at the massive costs that will be imposed by climate change, renewables are already now cheaper than fossil fuels in many countries. The UK alone pays over $8 billion per year in natural gas alone (over £150 M per week in Brexit speech) which could be replaced by domestic renewable energy. To which we could add petrol and diesel. No investment comes with lower risk than energy supply as returns are 100% certain, which should make them perfect for pension funds. The true problem is the write off on fossil fuel assets, but that is a case of caveat emptor for the wealthy. They were warned three decades ago but have only campaigned to stop renewables, thereby creating this crisis.
If I may add to this & expanding on this comment in the editorial: “but by the availability of biophysical resources that money tries to go out and buy.” – the renovation of the Uk’s housing stock from the point of view of energy efficiency would use large amounts of “biophysical resources” i.e. people. Energy renovation is labour intensive & will remain so even with advances in automation. In turn this offers the prospect of fairly paid jobs for 10s of thousands of people. Furthermore, most of the companies delivering these jobs could be local SMEs.
The articulation of the above, or lack thereof, by Labour, in terms of fairly paid medium term jobs and warm confortable homes for all is puzzling. This action would also reduce gas imports & improve the UK’s energy resilience (which support several of Mr Bruce’s points).
Apologies for sounding like a broken record – I work on the basis that nagging works and hopefully Labour people reading the blog will eventually get the message (I’m an optimist as well).
I agree with you
It’s also making rapid progress this side of the channel.
Projet Renaissance (La République en Marche’s EU elections programme, that came out a couple of days ago) includes a demand for €1 trillion investment by the EU over the next 5 years in a Green New Deal (although they do not use that specific term, even if it is well-known here, usually as a ‘New Green Deal”.
LREM thus ‘saw & raised’ the French Greens’ (EELV) programme for a ‘Green New Deal’ of €100 billion (and an end to the 3% limit on budget deficits) that was revealed almost two months ago.
I hate the ‘f’ word but if you are happy with it fair enough.
Thorny subject but is it time to tax pets, mainly dogs and cats? Or limit breeding via tax or regulation?..debate down the local recently that pets are more harmful to the environment than driving a people carrier..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ethicalman/2009/11/time_to_eat_the_pets.html
It is an interesting – and necessary idea – that has occurred to me
And I have a dog
But maybe not another one when this one pops it
Thank you laurie for raising one of my pet 😉 topics which, possibly because of people’s emotional attachments, doesn’t get the attention it should. It is the pet food industry, which is an environmental catastrophe, with no sign of it abating.
Globally ‘the market was worth US$ 98.3 Billion in 2018, growing at a CAGR of 5.3% during 2011-2018. The market is further projected to reach a value of US$ 128.4 Billion by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 4.5% during 2019-2024 (https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/02/21/1739493/0/en/Global-Pet-Food-Market-Report-2019-Industry-Trends-Share-Size-Growth-Opportunity-and-Forecasts-2011-2018-2019-2024.html).
Gregory Okin, professor of Geography at UCLA, reckons that in the US alone ‘meat-eating by dogs and cats creates the equivalent of about 64 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, which has about the same climate impact as a year’s worth of driving from 13.6 million cars.’ (https://phys.org/news/2017-08-truth-cats-dogs-environmental-impact.html).
This is probably not an appropriate place to articulate the issue in greater boring detail; besides all the info & stats are available via Google. But clearly the carbon paw-print of our four-footed friends needs to be addressed. But because of the therapeutic role of pets in society – often for the elderly, lonely, very young and anyone wanting to walk more – it presents a bit of a conundrum. Taxation (direct and/or indirect) would be largely regressive. Yet some form of regulation is required on environmental grounds. It’s a tricky one, isn’t it? I don’t much fancy the chances for a political party that puts it in its manifesto pledges. The Green Party has a policy on Animal Rights but I’m not sure if it does specifically on pet food. Does anyone out there know?
Actually dogs can survive pretty well on a plant-based diet whereas cats can’t because they need taurine.
Maybe this is a way to go (or not) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8YjvHYbZ9w.
For time-constrained readers and interested pet owners / lovers:
‘A big pawprint: The environmental impact of pet food’ – https://theconversation.com/a-big-pawprint-the-environmental-impact-of-pet-food-74004
‘Dog food made from insects to go on sale in UK for first time’ –
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/10/dog-food-made-from-insects-on-sale
‘Dogs, Cats And Climate Change: What’s Your Pet’s Carbon Pawprint?’ – https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2017/08/02/whats-your-dogs-carbon-pawprint/#68d9ecd213a6
‘Environmental impacts of food consumption by dogs and cats’ – https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0181301
(Apologies RM – it was a longer post than intended).
I am aware that my dog does not have a great deal of meat – because that’s what we choose
And at 10 he’s in good shape
Maybe better than me in dog year terms…annoyingly
So your dog was born 1 year after you co-created a Green New Deal calling for urgent action alongside someone who at the time claimed we had 10 years to save the planet.
Not something I’d admit to myself.
And there’s been an awful lot of business air travel by yourself between then and now on which the social cost of CO2 has not been paid.
If at the time you’d called for an assymetric CO2 tax instead you look far better intellectually. And you’d be in the good company of a couple of Nobel laureates too.
I know, I know. Me and Emma Thompson. Not perfect. I agree. Realising too late, I accept. Not appreciating everything at once. And so, apparently, quite unable to have an opinion. After all, they’re only permitted for those who have been vegan from birth, never been in a car and have only ever used power generated from their own wind turbine and solar panels. Everyone else needs to shut up. Obviously.
Does conflating eco-system crisis with social justice risk losing the first due to opposition to the latter? Wouldn’t a strategy that was not handicapped by “equality” better save the eco-systems?
Inequality is driving people, perversely, to Farage
He is a climate change denier
I believe the two have to go together
Not my point, this comment has nothing to do with Brexit, or Farage.