Climate change, not immigration at the southern border, is a national emergency.
We don’t need more border patrol officers stomping their boots around an ineffective wall, we need the Green New Deal.
The Green New Deal, or House Resolution 109, cited that climate change acts as a direct threat to the national security of the United States. Climate Change is a “threat multiplier,” according to the deal. It’d bring economic turmoil by risking the damage of one trillion dollars worth of coastal real estate. More than 350,000,000 people would be exposed to deadly heat stress by 2050.
I could go on with facts about the potential devastation climate change would bring, but it’s worthless without a solution.
New York House Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rolled out the Green New Deal with Sen. Ed Markey in early February. The resolution wrote it’s the duty of the federal government to create a Green New Deal to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. This transition would bring millions of high wage jobs according to the deal.
I don’t think the deal should be a matter of policy; the resolution is something countries should be doing anyway: cleaning up hazardous waste at abandoned sites, transitioning to complete use of renewable energy, and implementing clean public transit.
However, I can completely understand why one would be against the Green New Deal. How would big oil company executives fuel their yachts? Or worse, what would we do with all that clean air?
The deal may seem completely unattainable, but it’s the closest thing we have to a real solution. Haters of the resolution call Ocasio-Cortez a socialist due to the amount of government involvement it would take to implement the deal.
Renewable energy currently accounts for 20 percent of U.S. energy according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA). The EIA projected that renewable energy would take up 31 percent of the country’s energy in their annual energy outlook.
So yes, it will be tough to transition to 100% renewable energy as the deal calls for. Frankly, I don’t care. If I’m not going to make it to 80, I want it to be because I got stuck in some sort of journalism hotspot, not because dirty air made my lungs sick.
The clock ticks faster every day we wait to find a meaningful solution for climate change. The Green New Deal is the policy we need.
Share this post
