OMNI
THE GREEN NEW DEAL, Books and Essays, October 24, 2019
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Misc. Recent Responses to the Climate Emergency
Recent Books on the Green New Deal
Naomi Klein, On Fire. 2019.
Jeremy Rifkin, The Green New Deal. 2019.
Topics
From the New Deal to the Green New Deal
Ocasio-Cortez
Jeremy Brecher, Jobs in the GND
Public Citizen’s Support for the GND
Google Search
CONTENTS
Misc. Recent Responses to the Climate Emergency
Climate change, if not addressed, will make vast portions of the globe practically uninhabitable, cost hundreds of millions of lives, and drive global economic collapse. Public Citizen.
RECENT BOOKS
THE GREEN NEW DEAL
Naomi Klein. On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal.
#1 international and New York Times bestselling author Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything, makes the case for a Green New Deal—explaining how bold climate action can be a blueprint for a just and thriving society.
For more than twenty years, Naomi Klein has been the foremost chronicler of the economic war waged on both people and planet—and an unapologetic champion of a sweeping environmental agenda with justice at its center. In lucid, elegant dispatches from the frontlines of contemporary natural disaster, she pens surging, indispensable essays for a wide public: prescient advisories and dire warnings of what future awaits us if we refuse to act, as well as hopeful glimpses of a far better future. On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal gathers for the first time more than a decade of her impassioned writing, and pairs it with new material on the staggeringly high stakes of our immediate political and economic choices.
These long-form essays show Klein at her most prophetic and philosophical, investigating the climate crisis not only as a profound political challenge but as a spiritual and imaginative one, as well. Delving into topics ranging from the clash between ecological time and our culture of “perpetual now,” to the soaring history of humans changing and evolving rapidly in the face of grave threats, to rising white supremacy and fortressed borders as a form of “climate barbarism,” this is a rousing call to action for a planet on the brink.
With reports spanning from the ghostly Great Barrier Reef, to the annual smoke-choked skies of the Pacific Northwest, to post-hurricane Puerto Rico, to a Vatican attempting an unprecedented “ecological conversion,” Klein makes the case that we will rise to the existential challenge of climate change only if we are willing to transform the systems that produced this crisis.
An expansive, far-ranging exploration that sees the battle for a greener world as indistinguishable from the fight for our lives, On Fire captures the burning urgency of the climate crisis, as well as the fiery energy of a rising political movement demanding a catalytic Green New Deal.
For more than twenty years, Naomi Klein has been the foremost chronicler of the economic war waged on both people and planet—and an unapologetic champion of a sweeping environmental agenda with justice at its center. In lucid, elegant dispatches from the frontlines of contemporary natural disaster, she pens surging, indispensable essays for a wide public: prescient advisories and dire warnings of what future awaits us if we refuse to act, as well as hopeful glimpses of a far better future. On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal gathers for the first time more than a decade of her impassioned writing, and pairs it with new material on the staggeringly high stakes of our immediate political and economic choices.
These long-form essays show Klein at her most prophetic and philosophical, investigating the climate crisis not only as a profound political challenge but as a spiritual and imaginative one, as well. Delving into topics ranging from the clash between ecological time and our culture of “perpetual now,” to the soaring history of humans changing and evolving rapidly in the face of grave threats, to rising white supremacy and fortressed borders as a form of “climate barbarism,” this is a rousing call to action for a planet on the brink.
With reports spanning from the ghostly Great Barrier Reef, to the annual smoke-choked skies of the Pacific Northwest, to post-hurricane Puerto Rico, to a Vatican attempting an unprecedented “ecological conversion,” Klein makes the case that we will rise to the existential challenge of climate change only if we are willing to transform the systems that produced this crisis.
An expansive, far-ranging exploration that sees the battle for a greener world as indistinguishable from the fight for our lives, On Fire captures the burning urgency of the climate crisis, as well as the fiery energy of a rising political movement demanding a catalytic Green New Deal.
Excerpt
About The Author
Product Details
Raves and Reviews
Resources and Downloads
Jeremy Rifkin. Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth
St. Martin's Press/Macmillan, 2019.
$14.99
St. Martin's Press
An urgent plan to confront climate change, transform the American economy, and create a green post-fossil fuel culture.
A new vision for America’s future is quickly gaining momentum. Facing a global emergency, a younger generation is spearheading a national conversation around a Green New Deal and setting the agenda for a bold political movement with the potential to revolutionize society. Millennials, the largest voting bloc in the country, are now leading on the issue of climate change.
While the Green New Deal has become a lightning rod in the political sphere, there is a parallel movement emerging within the business community that will shake the very foundation of the global economy in coming years. Key sectors of the economy are fast-decoupling from fossil fuels in favor of ever cheaper solar and wind energies and the new business opportunities and employment that accompany them. New studies are sounding the alarm that trillions of dollars in stranded fossil fuel assets could create a carbon bubble likely to burst by 2028, causing the collapse of the fossil fuel civilization. The marketplace is speaking, and governments will need to adapt if they are to survive and prosper.
In The Green New Deal, New York Times bestselling author and renowned economic theorist Jeremy Rifkin delivers the political narrative and economic plan for the Green New Deal that we need at this critical moment in history. The concurrence of a stranded fossil fuel assets bubble and a green political vision opens up the possibility of a massive shift to a post-carbon ecological era, in time to prevent a temperature rise that will tip us over the edge into runaway climate change. With twenty-five years of experience implementing Green New Deal–style transitions for both the European Union and the People’s Republic of China, Rifkin offers his vision for how to transform the global economy and save life on Earth.
· Reviews
INTRODUCTION
We are facing a global emergency. Our scientists tell us that human-induced climate change brought on by the burning of fossil fuels has taken the human race and our fellow species into the sixth mass extinction...
We are facing a global emergency. Our scientists tell us that human-induced climate change brought on by the burning of fossil fuels has taken the human race and our fellow species into the sixth mass extinction...
REVIEWS
"[Jeremy Rifkin] is a principal architect of the European Union’s long-term economic vision, Smart Europe, and a key advisor to China's Third Industrial Revolution vision...The European Commission is calling for a climate-neutral Europe by 2050. His new book, The Green New Deal, is essentially an attempt to rouse the United States from its slumber within a collapsing 20th century fossil fuel era."—Forbes
“The futurist and prolific author is the kind of thinker popular among chief executives and the TED Talk crowd. So it’s not surprising that ‘The Green New Deal’ takes a stance quite different from that of typical Green New Deal supporters... he’s interested in building factories, farms, and vehicles in a fossil-free world, asserting that ‘the Green New Deal is all about infrastructure.’ He’s best at articulating the huge financial risk the oil, coal, and natural gas industries face from stranded assets - all the pipelines, ocean drilling platforms, ports, mining equipment and power plants that will soon be obsolete... there is an unmistakable sense that with disaster comes opportunity. Will we seize this moment to become a more just, more equitable, more resilient world.” —The New York Times Book Review
"[In The Green New Deal], economic theorist Jeremy Rifkin, whose work has inspired climate legislation in China and in various countries in the European Union (E.U.), is well positioned to advocate for this new political vision. In The Green New … More…
"[In The Green New Deal], economic theorist Jeremy Rifkin, whose work has inspired climate legislation in China and in various countries in the European Union (E.U.), is well positioned to advocate for this new political vision. In The Green New … More…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JEREMY RIFKIN, one of the most popular social thinkers of our time, is the bestselling author of 20 books including The Zero Marginal Cost Society, The Third Industrial Revolution, The Empathic Civilization, The European Dream, The Age of Access, The Hydrogen Economy, and The End of Work. His books have been translated into more than 35 languages. Rifkin is an advisor to the European Union, the People’s Republic of China, and heads of state around the world. He has taught at the Wharton School's Executive Education Program at the University of Pennsylvania since 1995 and is the president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, DC.
NoneFROM THE NEW DEAL TO THE GREEN NEW DEAL
What the New Deal can teach us about winning a Green New Deal: Part I. mronline.org (8-6-19).
The New Deal has recently become a touchstone for many progressive efforts, illustrated by Bernie Sanders’ recent embrace of its aims and accomplishments and the popularity of calls for a Green New Deal.
What the New Deal can teach us about winning a Green New Deal: Part II—Movement building. Mronline.org (8-16-19)
The multifaceted crisis we face today is significantly different from the crisis activists faced in the first years of the Great Depression. But there is no question that, much like then, we will need to build a powerful, mass-movement for change if we hope to harness state power to advance a Green New Deal.
What the New Deal can teach us about winning a Green New Deal: Part III—the First New Deal. Mronline.org (August 29-19).
If we hope to win a Green New Deal we will have to build a movement that is not only powerful enough to push the federal government to take on new responsibilities with new capacities, but also has the political maturity required to appreciate the contested nature of state policy and the vision necessary to […]
The Green New Deal aims to get us there—and remake the country in the process. It promises to give every American a job in that new ...
JOBS
Jeremy Brecher. “Climate Jobs for All: Building Block for the Green New Deal.” Z Magazine (February 2019). 36-40.
During the terrible cold during February 2019, someone in NYC paid for hotel rooms for the homeless. It was an indelible gesture of sympathy for the vulnerable down and out, and given our present economic system, I urge all to imitate that generous humanitarian.
But let’s remember an alternative society in which charity—typically chancy, dependent upon time and place—is a default ethic. In imagining that alternative world, we become aware of the failure of our own society—both governmental and religious--, which has chosen an inevitably unequal economic system producing billionaires and homeless people.
Instead, we could have chosen, we can choose today, a society of full employment, as the Green New Deal (GND) movement proposes. The federal jobs guarantee, also known as “jobs for all,” resembles the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) of the 1930s and 40s. The GND would provide funds for local governments, non-profits, and other agencies serving the public to employ anyone who wants a job.
The importance of the idea is doubly beneficial because it could serve not only social justice in a society of a few rich and many poor, but also a national opposition to climate change, as Jeremy Brecher, for example, advocates in “Climate Jobs for All: Building Block for the Green New Deal,” Z Magazine (Feb. 2019). One of the organizations Brecher describes is Sunrise, whose “Climate Jobs Guarantee Policy Primer” includes jobs “for a just and rapid transition to a zero-carbon, climate-resilient economy.” Dick 2-3-19
Brecher’s essay in Z Magazine
Introduction
Recalling the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) a federal jobs guarantee campaign is developing under the youth climate movement Sunrise (“It’s Time for the Climate Movement to Embrace a Federal Jobs Guarantee.”) and other organizations. As part of that is the Climate Jobs Guarantee program (CJG) being developed by Bernie Sanders and other Democrats.
The Jobs Guarantee
Why a Climate Jobs Guarantee?
Meshing the Jobs Guarantee with Climate Jobs
See Brecher’s book,Climate Solidarity: Workers vs. Warming, available free download.
Introduction
Recalling the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) a federal jobs guarantee campaign is developing under the youth climate movement Sunrise (“It’s Time for the Climate Movement to Embrace a Federal Jobs Guarantee.”) and other organizations. As part of that is the Climate Jobs Guarantee program (CJG) being developed by Bernie Sanders and other Democrats.
The Jobs Guarantee
Why a Climate Jobs Guarantee?
Meshing the Jobs Guarantee with Climate Jobs
See Brecher’s book,Climate Solidarity: Workers vs. Warming, available free download.
a historic first for the climate![https://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/profile_mask2.png]()
| |||||||||||||||||||
Feb 8, 2019, 1:50 PM (1 day ago) |  | ||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
DICK’S COMMENT ON THE PC REPORT AND CALL TO ACTION
First, we must know the full scope of a problem if we are to imagine its solution. “Climate change, if not addressed, will make vast portions of the globe practically uninhabitable, cost hundreds of millions of lives, and drive global economic collapse.”
I welcome this call to action. So we have 15 years for 3 great achievements.
A comprehensive fossil free climate plan in 15 years?I With a massive effort we could do it. It helps to remember past problems and solutions. The atomic bomb in 3 years. WWII 6 years. Apollo Moon shot 12 years. The Marshall Plan 20 years.
Full employment? It wasn’t full employment, but the Civilian Conservation Corps or CCC employed about 300,000 in the forests 1933 to 1941. Its constructions are one of the joys of Arkansas’ parks. A hopeful sign for us is Ozark Electric’s article in Arkansas Living Feb. 2019 praising the program.
A fair transition? That’s the big one. Full employment will help. But we must imagine more if we are to bridge the rich/poor gap.
GOOGLE SEARCH for Further Study
Business Insider
Washington Post
Boston.com
Green New Deal Report — Data For Progress
Will the Green New Deal Work? Here's What the Research Says ...
https://psmag.com/.../will-the-green-new-deal-work-heres-what-the-research-says
The Green New Deal | Green Party of the United States
https://gpus.org/organizing-tools/the-green-new-deal/
END OMNI’S MAINLY POSITIVE GREEN NEW DEAL SURVEY., Oct. 24, 2019.
OMNI’s Climate Book Forum examines the diversity and controversies over solutions to the climate catastrophe. The Green New Dealers value solar, wind and other renewables. We have previously discussed two books favorable to nuclear power, presented by Gary Kahanak.: The Bright Future and Climate Gamble.