The Green New Deal Needs WWII-Scale Ambition
We can end global warming pollution and build a just, green economy in ten years with a budget of $50 trillion a year.
The view from aerial tour of Hurricane Sandy damage of New Jersey’s barrier beaches, November 18, 2012.Sonya N. Hebert / White House
It’s time for America to be ambitious again.
Congressional advocates of a Green New Deal are calling for a “national, social, industrial and economic mobilization at a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal era” in order to decarbonize the US economy by 2030.
Taking the climate crisis seriously means getting the United States to net-zero or negative carbon pollution within ten years while working to undo the damage already done. Doing so involves reconstituting not only our electrical grid, but also our transportation system, agricultural system, financial system, built infrastructure, medical system, trade and manufacturing, land use, political system, gender relations, military — our entire economy, our entire relation to each other and to the rest of the world.
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