Not Waiting For a Green New Deal in San Diego

Progressive candidates and organizations are following up on November’s victories at the ballot box with legislative proposals and grassroots activism as a means of building support for positive change on issues surrounding climate change and the economy.

Powerful ideas being discussed on all these topics, and there are opportunities for folks in San Diego to get involved in the coming weeks. There is an emerging consensus on doing more than simply opposing the Trump administration’s schemes; we’ve got to start looking to 2020 with plans in hand for a better future.

Republicans and their allies in dirty energy, big pharma/insurance, and anti-democracy think tanks are already pushing back, mostly using tropes playing on people’s insecurities. Organizing community events is an effective countermeasure to the spread of ignorance and made up data.   

Green New Deal supporters are ready for action, according to Politico:

A recent Yale University poll found that 81 percent of Americans support the idea of a Green New Deal, including 64 percent of Republicans—but then again, the idea of an economic recovery bill was also popular before Fox News and GOP leaders began trashing it...

…[Sunrise Movement leader Stephen] O’Hanlon says Green New Deal backers are already preparing to pre-empt the coming backlash by holding rallies around the country highlighting rising seas, intensifying storms and other byproducts of the climate crisis...

…[Select Committee on the Climate Crisis chair Congresswoman Kathy] Castor said her committee also intends to hold hearings around the country, to emphasize how climate change is creating wildfires in California as well as floods in Miami. The goal is to convince the public that an extreme emergency justifies extreme actions.

The Green New Deal is much more than a simple plan for addressing climate change.

From the Intercept:

Like its 1930s counterpart, the “Green New Deal” isn’t a specific set of programs so much as an umbrella under which various policies might fit, ranging from technocratic to transformative. The sheer scale of change needed to deal effectively with climate change is massive, as the scientific consensus is making increasingly clear, requiring an economy-wide mobilization of the sort that the United States hasn’t really undertaken since World War II. While the Green New Deal imaginary evokes images of strapping young men pulling up their sleeves to hoist up wind turbines (in the mold of realist Civilian Conservation Corps ads), its actual scope is far broader than the narrow set of activities typically housed under the green jobs umbrella, or even in the original New Deal.

“People talk often about the infrastructure investment that has to happen, and new technology,” Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, told me. “But there’s also an industrial plan that needs to happen to build entirely new industries. It’s sort of like the moonshot. When JFK said America was going to go to the moon, none of the things we needed to get to the moon at that point existed. But we tried and we did it.” The Green New Deal, he added, “touches everything — it’s basically a massive system upgrade for the economy.”

Next week in San Diego there are rallies slated in front of the offices of the four San Diego CongressCritters who have yet to speak up on the Green New Deal, organized by San Diego 350, with support from the nascent local chapter of the Sunrise Movement. They be asking for  an endorsement of a Green New Deal and commitment “to a just and equitable transition to a world free from fossil fuels, support green jobs, and reject fossil fuel money.”

Representative Mike Levin, representing the 49th Congressional District has already spoken in favor of the plan.

Monday, February 4

9am - Rally outside the offices of Rep. Susan Davis, 2700 Adams Avenue (RSVP) San Diego

11am - Rally outside the offices of Rep. Juan Vargas, 333 F Street, (RSVP) Chula Vista

6pm - Meeting with East County Progressive Democratic Club, Testo Pepesto Restaurant, 221 East Main (RSVP) El Cajon. Focused on the Green New Deal with speakers Karl Aldinger from Sunrise Movement and Maleeka Marsden from Climate Action Campaign on ways that we can work to mitigate climate change.

Thursday, February 7

9am - Rally outside the offices of  Rep, Scott Peters, 4350 Executive Drive (RSVP) Near UTC

11am- Rally outside the offices of Duncan Hunter, 1611 N. Magnolia Avenue (RSVP) El Cajon

Thursday, February 14

5:30pm - Vista public library, 700 Eucalyptus Avenue, hosted by North County Climate Change Alliance. Learn about the Sunrise Movement's story and about their efforts to push climate policy forward with increased urgency.  Discuss the original historical New Deal & the current Green New Deal as envisioned by Sunrise, and compare and contrast it with other climate policy at the national level. The speaker is Karl Aldinger, software engineer, energy wonk, and climate activist.  He recently became a volunteer Organizer with Sunrise Movement, co-founding the San Diego Hub of Sunrise.  

Top photo credit: Hundreds gather in San Francisco with the youth led Sunrise Movement to call on House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to support the formation of a Select Committee to advance a Green New Deal to address Climate Change. (Photo CC-licensed by Peg Hunter)

Today's good news...

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