The Green New Deal has moved from a policy few had ever heard of to a litmus test issue for Democrats, thanks mostly to agitation from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. How should we think about the original New Deal in pushing for a green one?

Doug Henwood put this question to Richard Walker, professor emeritus of geography at the University of California–Berkeley for Henwood’s podcast Behind the News. Walker is the director of the Living New Deal, a project devoted to educating Americans about what is possible when government is dedicated to the public good and national reconstruction. Here, he recounts the vast scope of the original New Deal, its complicated relationship to white supremacy, and why a Green New Deal that restricts itself to tackling the climate crisis will be “dead in the water.”