Just last month, Al Jazeera ran a story about a congestion tax in New York City — a $12 fee for driving into Manhattan. The headline called it a “litmus test” for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal. Quite incorrectly, the article claimed that just like AOC’s proposal, the tax would raise prices for everyday people. It suggested that if New York failed to pass this small measure because of popular opposition, the much bolder agenda of the Green New Deal would be dead in the water.

The Congresswoman from the Bronx fired back. “It’s sloppy to call any + all climate plans ‘Green New Deal’ policies,” she tweeted. “Green New Deal policies center jobs + justice in frontline, working communities as we transition our economy + infrastructure. Not all climate policies are the same.”

The Green New Deal can seem all-embracing. To some, it refers to jobs — either as a generator of well-paid employment, or a threat to existing industries in which people work. To others, it conjures up images of socialized housing surrounded by wind farms. To others still, it is a set of specific rules and regulations, or financing mechanisms, or institutional infrastructures enabling a transition to a zero-carbon economy. It can be framed in terms of capitalist incentives or socialist transformation.