#green new deal

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Amy Goodman: The Green New Deal Threatens Congressional Dinosaurs with ExtinctionThis is the latest

Amy Goodman: The Green New Deal Threatens Congressional Dinosaurs with Extinction

This is the latest weekly column written by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan. Read the full column on democracynow.org here.

“In recent weeks, a polar vortex blew across the U.S., killing at least 20 people. At the same time, U.S. government scientists reported that 2018 was the fourth-warmest year on record, with the five hottest years occurring in the past five years.

A huge hole in one of the largest glaciers in Antarctica is causing accelerated melting there, while across that continent, large lakes of meltwater are bending, buckling and threatening to collapse these vast ice sheets — all leading to rapidly increasing global sea level rise. Glaciers melting in the Himalayas threaten tens of millions of people downstream with flooding and the disruption of water supplies.

As evidence that the planet is experiencing what has been called “the sixth great extinction,” a recent review of scientific data concludes that 40 percent of the world’s insects are on the brink of extinction.

President Donald Trump’s response? During the polar vortex, he tweeted: “What the hell is going on with Global Waming? (sic) Please come back fast, we need you!” Yet there are signs of hope. Two Democrats, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, have submitted a resolution to Congress recognizing “the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal.” House Resolution 109 had a remarkable 67 co-sponsors in the House, all Democrats, and has been distributed to 11 different House committees for consideration.

“Today is the day that we truly embark on a comprehensive agenda of economic, social and racial justice in the United States of America,” Ocasio-Cortez said, announcing the effort. “Climate change and our environmental challenges are one of the biggest existential threats to our way of life, not just as a nation, but as a world.”

The Green New Deal is named after the original New Deal, the massive government program launched by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to help the United States recover from the Great Depression. In addition to imposing a slew of regulations to constrain the big banks that were largely responsible for the financial collapse, FDR’s New Deal empowered the federal government to directly hire millions of workers to do everything from building roads and bridges to writing poetry. The Social Security system was created to protect the elderly from the ravages of poverty. In the decades since, the New Deal has become synonymous with successful government intervention on a grand scale to solve massive, seemingly intractable problems.

The parallel Senate and House resolutions put forth by Markey and Ocasio-Cortez — known as “AOC” to her supporters — are a call to action to Congress to craft laws that implement a true Green New Deal, rapidly shifting the U.S. economy to one that is powered by renewable energy, and to do so in a fair, equitable and just manner.

When asked on “60 Minutes” by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, “Are you talking about everybody having to drive an electric car?” AOC replied: “It’s going to require a lot of rapid change that we don’t even conceive as possible right now. What is the problem with trying to push our technological capacities to the furthest extent possible?”

Cooper also challenged her on the cost of a Green New Deal, which, in part, AOCwould pay for with an increased marginal tax on the super wealthy — a 70 percent tax rate on income earned in excess of $10 million, for example. Several national polls suggest strong support for such a tax.

While almost every Democratic presidential hopeful has embraced the Green New Deal, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi casually derided the plan, saying, in response to a reporter’s question about its legislative chances: “It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive. The green dream, or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it, right?”

After Sen. Markey submitted his Green New Deal resolution, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters, “We’re going to be voting on that in the Senate to give everybody an opportunity to go on record.” He and the Republican Party are calculating that a vote in favor will politically damage incumbent Democrats come re-election time.

But McConnell is wrong. A majority of Americans believe that climate change is real, poses a threat to humankind, and that something must be done. It is time for the dinosaurs in Congress and the White House to wean themselves off fossil fuels and support the Green New Deal, or face extinction.”


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Looking beyond straws to clean up the plastic in the oceans. New illustration done for NBC News.©Lil

Looking beyond straws to clean up the plastic in the oceans. New illustration done for NBC News.


©Lily Padula, 2019


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Challenge 144: 10 Years, Looking Forward: Growing a Better FutureWith all the change that has happenChallenge 144: 10 Years, Looking Forward: Growing a Better FutureWith all the change that has happen

Challenge 144: 10 Years, Looking Forward: Growing a Better Future

With all the change that has happened in the last year alone it is pretty difficult to imagine where I will be personally in ten years, let alone describe it in visual form. So I opted to go in a less personal direction with this challenge and design a follow up to the Green New Deal poster I illustrated a couple of years ago for Creative Action Network.

My original poster envisioned a society more in tune with and respectful of the environment, represented by a city growing from a flower. My follow-up image looks forward to show this society as a growing and thriving garden. If we can adopt better environmental policies we too will have a chance to thrive.

I graduated from SCAD in 2013, and again in 2015 with my MFA in Illustration. I am currently freelancing and displaying my art at galleries around my home in North Georgia.

Where will I be in ten years? Like I said, it is hard to imagine at this point, hopefully still freelancing. But I know my art will continue to be a major element of my future due in part to the amazing support and motivation from the awesome people at Square Carousel. In the short time I’ve had the privilege of being a member my work has improved exponentially and I feel I have the momentum to carry what I have learned here with me into whatever the future holds. Thank you guys!

James McInvale
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thank god you’re here #neverbiden

thank god you’re here #neverbiden


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so honored to be a part of this teach-in w @sftporg tomorrow morning! come listen to us discuss our so honored to be a part of this teach-in w @sftporg tomorrow morning! come listen to us discuss our

so honored to be a part of this teach-in w @sftporg tomorrow morning! 

come listen to us discuss our experiences in the intersections of sustainability, self-sufficiency & art! there’s also a Q&A after to sate all your curiosities.

(begins @ 12 noon sharp EST!) link to register: https://bit.ly/35LeYTP


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jfkthedilf:

solarpunk-aesthetic:

tilthat:

TIL that in 1935 the US Government planted 220 million trees in 7 years to combat Dust storms. It was a huge success and if it was repeated today it would help in the fight against the climate crisis immensly.

viareddit.com

Don’t let anyone tell you there’s nothing our governments can do to combat climate change. They can. They simply choose not to, because they don’t consider anything worth doing unless it’s immediately profitable. Profit takes precedence over progress. This has not only caused virtually every environmental problem we’re facing, but it’s also why our entire society is stagnating under a culture of consumerism and disposable commodities.

This is referring to the CCC (civilian conservation corps), basically a tree planting army under FDR. Overall they planted about 3 billion trees all over the country, it was so successful that most Americans really don’t know that a solid chunk of their forests are only about 100-85 year old new growths. Volunteer conservationist groups nowadays could potentially recreate this at a notably smaller scale if the government were to provide a store of local seeds and land to remediate.

The Canadian government is doing this, with an aim to plant 2 billion trees. Right now they’re starting with seed banking to make sure they have seeds for indigenous varieties, to plant native species in their correct locations.  

Former Reddit CEO Yishan Wong is also backing reforestation with his company Terraformation, by creating mobile seed bank labs that fit in shipping containers, that are self-contained and solar-powered. 

peashooter85:

I was reading the “Green New Deal” and I have to say that solar, wind, and geothermal are not going to be the clean energy future for humanity. They will have some roles to play, but there is something much better.The future will be fusion, which is cleaner, safer, and more efficient than those three mentioned previous. It will not only be the best source of green energy, it will not only make the climate change debate a moot argument one way or the other, but it will be the source of energy which will transform mankind into a new social and technological era. I earnestly believe it’s going to happen in the next handful of decades at the very most and it’s going to be really awesome and I wish I could live longer to see more than just barely see the very beginnings of it.

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No. Climate Change is happening now, fusion power is at best decades away, if ever. No one has ever demonstrated a viable form of fusion power generation. By wrapping fusion into the climate debate, it turns solutions into something that could happen in the future. Climate Change requires solutions now, not in fifty years.

Theoretical technology has no place in the Climate Change debate.

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