Common Weal’s ‘Our Common Home’: the best Green New Deal plan yet?

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I admit it's one of those mornings when much blogging is hard, and it may stay that way for much of the day: there's work to do (and yesterday also finished very late).

So let me make a recommendation for reading elsewhwere. Saw some readers will know I have long been a supporter of Common Weal, the Scottish think thank that campaigns for independence from a non-party perspective, and who embrace a radical vision for what that country might be.

Common Weal launched what they called  Our Common Home plan last weekend. I had rather hoped to be there, but family commitments intervened. Why do I think that this matters? Because, to date, I think this the best plan for a Green New Deal that I have seen. It is comprehensive, costed, and ambitious. I am aware that it has taken a great deal of work to produce. 

As Common Weal say:

We have a clear, coherent plan for structural change by transforming how we generate electricity using clean, renewable sources; by building our homes efficiently using non-polluting materials; by shortening supply chains and creating new, sustainable industries; by replanting our forests and reorganising our food production through a system of agroecology - all with the benefits of employment, prosperity and skills. This is a massive engineering project on scale with post-WWII governments level of investment and development in new systems and  infrastructure, healthcare and welfare. This is the Common Home Plan.

Yes, I know it's about Scotland, and for many readers that seems remote from where they are. But the Green New Deal is a universal, and this plan is a ‘how to think about it' manual for everyone else, I would suggest.

Might I suggest taking a look, and start exploring the ideas? Even buy the books. There are two. This is only about all our futures at the end of the day, after all.


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