We Need a Green New Deal, Now

The core of this campaign for Congress has been from its inception the urgent need to transform our nation from a fossil fuel-based economy to a renewable energy economy – a strategic initiative that would at once address the energy crisis, the economic crisis, and the climate crisis of global warming.

We need this on such a level, and so urgently, that I refer to it as this generation’s New Deal, Marshall Plan and Apollo Project all rolled into one.

I am especially delighted to report that I am far from the only one or the first, to think this. There are several current books out on the topic by Michael Brune, Van Jones, and and even The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman, of all people.  And the idea of a “Green New Deal,” has struck a chord with many.  It’s an idea that’s powerfully relevant now that our government has started discussion of yet another economic stimulus package.

Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow and noted author of such books as The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (New Society, 2003, 2005) has written powerfully on the urgency of this moment, and what we need.  His short commentary is below, and can also be read at
http://energybulletin.net/node/46934

“Conversations at the Bioneers conference last weekend (and by e-mail for many days now) have been dominated by a single theme: There is immediate need for a coherent policy with which the new US administration can deal with both the financial crash and the energy transition. Instead of propping up failing financial institutions, the new president must inject investment into the real economy by supporting wide-ranging but tightly coordinated projects to create far more renewable energy generation capacity, build railroads and public transport facilities, insulate millions of homes while providing alternative heat sources, and re-configure the national food system to dramatically reduce and soon eliminate the need for fossil fuels.

Clearly the next administration will have to do something dramatic to stop the hemorrhaging of the economy. Why a Green New Deal and not some other kind of stimulus package? Is this just the demand of a single constituency, one that will have to be weighed against and balanced with the needs of business, national defense, the struggling middle class, and of course, the bankers?

The answer to that question must be clear and unequivocal: This recession or depression is appearing at the exact historical moment when action to end our dependence on fossil fuels is required in order to avert the chaotic collapse of the entire human enterprise. Peak Oil and Climate Change present threats and imperatives of a scale unprecedented in human history. By taking up these imperatives through a de-carbonized retrofit of the nation’s (and ultimately the world’s) transport, food, and manufacturing systems, policy makers can address a number of crises simultaneously—environmental decline, resource depletion, geopolitical competition for control of energy, unemployment, balance of trade deficits, malnutrition and food-related health problems, and more.

If we (meaning, ultimately, the human species) cannot agree upon and undertake this course of action, then we will have lost what is almost certainly our last chance for collective survival. More policies will be required, such as ones to stabilize and reduce population and to rework the economic system so that it operates on a steady-state rather than a continuous growth paradigm. But the rescue process must begin with a plan to get society off of fossil fuels.

The plan must be comprehensive and compelling so that it can be sold first to the administration, and then to the American people. Soon, public education on a massive scale will be required to help ordinary citizens understand what is at stake and how sacrifices undertaken now can help build a better world later.

The plan must not be merely a wish-list of unrelated good ideas, but a prioritized, staged program with hard but realistic targets and adequate funding.

Now is the time to be formulating the elements of the plan, so that it can be formally presented immediately following the election. Now is also the time to be gathering input from energy, food, and climate leaders.

The moment may for action may be soon and brief. This morning Ben Bernanke called for a new economic stimulus package, and there are indications that such a package may be cobbled together prior to the change of administrations, hopefully with the President-Elect team’s input.

On Anniversaries, Happy and Otherwise

October 7 is a special and important date for me, but like so much else in our world these days it’s neither simple nor straightforward.

October 7 is the date in 2000 that I married my long time friend and partner, Emily Piccirillo.

Regrettably, just one year later, October 7, 2001 is the date that our nation started the war in Afghanistan, and began a bloody and seemingly endless war against the amorphous threat called “terrorism.” It was a hell of a first anniversary. And it was damn close to October 7 in 2002, just a couple days after our 2nd anniversary, that Congress voted to give George Bush authority to start the moral, financial and foreign policy catastrophe that is the war in Iraq. So as I say, October 7 is a date that I have very mixed feelings about.

As we face an increasingly perilous world, though, I do come back, again and again, to the significance of our relationships. As Emily wished me a happy anniversary this morning, I was filled first with embarrassment (okay, I’ll admit it – in the craziness of a political campaign I actually forgot about our anniversary for the first time), but then a very quiet joy. Emily has been with me through thick and thin for 16 years now (yes, it took us awhile to get around to getting married), and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. Through good times and bad, through delightful wine dinners and hard fought political struggle (how many have a partner who would risk arrest with you at a nonviolent anti-war action?!), they have been the best 16 years of my life.

So for all the sorrow, hardship and craziness in the world, here’s to you Emily, the love of my life – and may we have many more years together. As the blues song says, it’s great to have someone to scratch your back.

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth…

With all eyes focused on the spiraling economic crisis for the past several weeks, little attention has been paid to two environmental bombshells, pieces of news that once again point to global warming as the most dire and urgent threat we face – even in the face of the current financial meltdown, and that’s saying something.

The Independent 9/23/08: “Millions of tons of methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide, are being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed. Massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats. Scientists believe that sudden releases of underground methane in the past have been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and the mass extinction of species. In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through ‘methane chimneys’ rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a ‘lid’ to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.”

Associated Press 9/26/08: “The world pumped up its pollution of carbon dioxide last year, setting a course that could push beyond IPCC’s projected worst-case scenario, international researchers said Thursday. Carbon dioxide jumped 3 percent from 2006 to 2007, an amount that exceeds the most dire outlook for emissions from burning coal and oil and related activities. Meanwhile, forests and oceans, which suck up carbon dioxide, are doing so at lower rates than in the 20th century.”

The Washington Post wrote about the second finding in a fine, strongly worded editorial today, “Earth Aboil.”  Yet even while they use words like “dire” and “urgency” and write that our federal government must “change its ways” and lead the effort to confront global warming, they have consistently refused to cover any candidates for Congress, including yours truly, who have made the fight against global warming a central focus of their campaign.  If the Post actually takes its own warnings seriously, why can’t they provide any coverage at all for Congressional candidates who do the same?  Does Planet Earth care whether the candidates who are calling for urgent action on this dire threat are Republican, Democrat, Green or Independent?

The inability of mainstream media to inject this most vital of issues into the election debate is one of the reasons so little is happening in Washington.  We will continue to wage that battle, regardless, and bring the message of a clean, renewable energy economy to the voters in Maryland’s 8th Congressional District.  When reading information like this, though, it’s hard not to conclude that we are running out of time.

Please join our campaign, and help us make this happen – now!