by Joe Morris
The Green New Deal. For some people these are fighting words. For others, they represent inspirational, literal goals that must be achieved for the world to survive. In my view, the GND lies somewhere closer to the middle of those interpretations. Let’s take a look at what the GND is, and what it isn’t. Iit’s an aspirational resolution, a statement of progressive values that goes beyond the environmental actions required to combat climate change, andincludes such items as: high-quality healthcare; safe, affordable housing; quality education for all; and access to affordable food. It’s not the place for this column to discuss those items. The GND does not authorize one cent.
For the purpose of this document, I’ll focus on the climate change portion. In terms of climate change, the GND calls for: 1) meeting 100% of US power demand through clean renewable energy; 2) repairing our infrastructure by eliminating greenhouse gas emissions as much as technologically feasible; 3) upgrading our power grid to an energy-efficient, distributed and smart grid; 4) upgrading existing and new buildings to maximize energy efficiency; 5) overhauling transportation systems to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions through zero-emission vehicles, clean, affordable public transportation; and high-speed rail; and 6) work collaboratively with farmers and ranchers to eliminate polluting greenhouse emissions from this sector as technologically feasible.
Nowhere does it call for the elimination of airplanes and hamburgers as some opponents would have you think. For example, there is substantial work being done on all-electric airplanes that would eliminate substantial aircraft emissions. They’re a few years away, but there are nearer term designs for “hybrid” powered aircraft that use a combination of jet engines and electrical drives, similar to hybrid cars, to reduce emissions. Meanwhile, high-speed rail makes sense in some locations because it not only reduces emissions, but it can also reduce travel time by connecting city centers.
As for hamburgers, there are a number of reasons for reducing the reliance of diets on meat. In terms of climate change, the focus is mainly on cows and other animals’ emissions of methane through natural elimination processes. There has been substantial work on additives to grain that can reduce this by as much as 50%. With this taken into account, the focus moves to non-climate change reasons that probably have less support among the public.
Many of the opponents of the climate change portion of the GND see their industries at risk. Rather than adapting, they’re fighting it. History shows that the arrow of progress is immutable. Once a technology is introduced and shown to have intrinsic value, resistance becomes futile. The buggy whip makers of the 21stCentury, the fossil fuel producers, can only slow things down for a while. The sad thing about that is that delay can have serious climate effects impacting the lives of millions of people.
Last Updated on 04/25/2019 by Marc Slonim