As The New World burns into Old World ruins, climate chaos warps the safely contoured psychic borders between the dystopian films we watch inside versus the reality of scorched skies and deadly plagues outside. To build a world worth living for, we must find a way to transform our economies, build resilient communities of zero-carbon housing for all and keep fossil fuels in the ground – all while racing against the terrifying ten-year window of opportunity still left to avoid a catastrophic, civilization-ending bio-collapse. But after decades of fumbles and false starts in the environmental movement, a new dawn might be rising. Just one month after the IPCC’s alarming 2018 report, The Sunrise Movement and AOC stormed Nancy Pelosi’s office, demanding bold action to secure good jobs and a livable future. Just months later, AOC and Ed Markey would go on to introduce resolutions for The Green New Deal in the US Congress. Two years after the viral media success of the Sunrise sit-in, the movement’s co-founders have put out a big, thick book called Winning the Green New Deal: Why We Must, How We Can. This volume arrives amid a wave of recent books from writers, activists, and scholars raising urgent calls for a Green New Deal. This anthology presents a collection of endorsements from famous thinkers and organizers of the broader Left who make up the voices of its 16 chapters; so, in accord with that project, we offer this episode as an additional chapter of endorsement; one too radical for its publisher, Simon & Schuster, to find “fit for print.” So while this book’s target audience is presumably those liberals who are merely Green-New-Deal-Curious, we hope it will serve to expand the massive choir needed to sing a collective chorus for eco-socialism and the end of capitalism. In order to progress towards a just, utopian horizon, we must burn down old myths, heal our cities, and build a world where our collective responsibility to provide each other with the material means for a dignified life is the basis of a new social contract. The world we deserve is one that’s as happy & wild as a child’s mind in playful abandon.
Mentioned In This Episode:
About This Episode’s Cover Image: Peeking through open spaces between clouds, a neighborhood exposes itself to the sky like the scarred side of a burnt tree. It could be a photograph of the Dresden bombings, or perhaps the cratered remains of Hiroshima. What world is this? Where are we now? This haunting photo used for our episode cover was collected from a roving drone flickering above the remainder-pile of the once thriving town of Phoenix, OR. The Governor of Oregon, Kate Brown, distressingly announced: “This must be the greatest loss of human lives and property due to wildfire in our state’s history.” But know this: every city has two other cities inside of them: the haves living alongside the have-nots. In Phoenix, the mobile homes of the poor and working class burned in far greater numbers than the homes of the highly financed. Climate chaos not only exposes our cruel and absurdly tragic domination of nature, it also mirrors the domination that exists between us: house to house, city to city, nation to nation. It’s just that now these fires operate like science fiction: making what’s usually ignored and assumed now strange & otherworldly, and in doing so, these fires reveal a deeper burning truth.
Paul P. Murphy in CNN: “Satellite Images Show Phoenix and Talent, Oregon, Have Been Nearly Wiped Out by Wildfire”
The Buffalo News: “New Aerial Photos Capture Devastation of West Coast Wildfires”
Winning the Green New Deal: Why We Must, How We Can. Edited by Varshini Prakash and Guido Girgenti of The Sunrise Movement. Published in 2020 by Simon & Schuster.
October 8, 2018 – The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report tells us that we need to roughly halve global carbon emissions by 2030 to have a decent chance at keeping warming below 1.5° Celsius—the limit that scientists and activists agree we should aim for to prevent global climate catastrophe. For the official report, you can head to the IPCC website.Stephen Leahy in The National Geographic: Climate Change Impacts Worse Than Expected, Global Report Warns
Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court Nomination
“Captain Capitalism” Kai Ryssdal on NPR’s Marketplace - talked about the IPCC Report for 3 Seconds; Just as Well, NPR’s General Coverage on October 8th Downplayed the Enormous and Terrifying Implications of the Doomslaying Report: as Seen with Christopher Joyce: “Climate Report Warns Of Extreme Weather, Displacement Of Millions Without Action.”
Brandon Spektor in Live Science: “Global Carbon Emissions Dropped an Unprecedented 17% During the Coronavirus Lockdown — and It Changes Nothing”
On November 13, 2018, Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats, along with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, organized a sit-in with over 250 youth climate activists to occupy House Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi's office, with 51 being arrested by Capitol Police; This is richly explored in Ryan Grim and Briahna Gray’s Excellent Article for The Intercept: “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Joins Environmental Activists in Protest at Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Office.”
NBC News: Inside The Sunrise Movement: How Climate Activists Put The Green New Deal On The MapEmliy Witt in The New Yorker: “The Optimistic Activists for The Green New Deal: Inside the Singing Youth-Led Singing Sunrise Movement”
Generation Green New Deal Podcast - Download or Play Here
Howie Hawkins: A Wikipedia Biography
Murray Bookchin: A Wikipedia BiographyBrian Morris in TRISE: “The Legacy of Murray Bookchin”Damien White in Jacobin: “Murray Bookchin’s New Life”Alexander C. Kaufman in Grist: “What’s the ‘Green New Deal’? The Surprising Origins Behind a Progressive Rallying Cry.”
The Green Party: The Origins of the Green New Deal
The Green Party’s 2020 Presidential Candidate: Howie Hawkins
A Green New Deal was the Central Issue of Jill Stein's 2012 & 2016 Green Party Presidential Campaigns. It was mocked and derided, but it weirdly doesn’t seem to get the same “pie in the sky” remarks now that it has been pushed into mainstream Demcratic Party conversations.
David Wallace-Wells writing in Winning the Green New Deal:
“More than half of all the carbon exhaled into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels has been emitted in just the past three decades.”
“Eighty-five percent of all fossil burning has happened since the end of World War II, meaning the story of the industrialized world’s kamikaze mission is the story of a single lifetime.” - according to data from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center
Johannes Friedrich in The World Resources Institute: “The History of Carbon Dioxide Emissions”
“Populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians have, on average, declined in size by 60 percent in just over 40 years.” - According to the 2018 Living Planet Report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Nora McGreevy in The Smithsonian: “Humans Wiped Out Two-Thirds of the World’s Wildlife in 50 Years”
A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal by Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos; Foreword by Naomi Klein - 2019 - from Verso Books (Part of the Jacobin Series)
The Future Is A Mixtape - Episode 030: A Green New Deal to Build The Golden Square
Rhiana Gunn-Wright on The Young Turks: "The Mastermind Behind The Green New Deal"
A Profile of Rhiana Gunn-Wright in Marie Claire: "The Architect Behind Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal Has a Plan to Save the Planet—and All of Us"
Elizabeth Warren’s YouTube Channel: "Rhiana Gunn-Wright, one of the architects of the Green New Deal, on why she supports Elizabeth Warren for president."
Introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on 02/07/2019: House Resolution 109 – ‘Recognizing the Duty of the Federal Government to Create a Green New Deal.’
Introduced by Senator Ed Markey on 02/07/2019: Senate Resolution 59 - ‘A resolution recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal.’
The Sunrise Principles for Organizing
Rachel M. Cohen and Ryan Grim in The Intercept: “Nearly Every Member of The Progressive Caucus Still Takes Corporate PAC Money”
Tina Nguyen in Vanity Fair: “Nancy Pelosi Isn’t Rushing to Endorse A.O.C.’s “Green Dream or Whatever They Call It”
Extinction Rebellion on Twitter - "Just to be clear we are not a socialist movement. We do not trust any single ideology, we trust the people, chosen by sortition (like jury service) to find the best future for us all through a #CitizensAssembly A banner saying ‘socialism or extinction’ does not represent us"
Extinction Rebellion follow up on Twitter - “...stating that we aren’t a socialist movement is not the same as saying we reject socialism.”
#TyskySour with Michael Walker and Aaron Bastani from Novara Media: Socialism Or Extinction
David Graeber Responding to the Twitter Post from Extinction Rebellion’s Account: “I don't know who writes these tweets but they should be fired. This is either awful PR or intentionally trying to alienate someone for internal political reasons. If you're non-ideological, doesn't that mean you're not socialist OR pro-capitalist? Why leave one of the two out?”
PBS: Groups During the American Civil Rights Movement
Robbie Jaeger on Medium: Shedding Light On The Sunrise Movement
Linsey McGoey in Jacobin: “The Philanthropy Hustle”
Zahra Moloo in Jacobin: “The Problems with Capitalist Philanthropy”
Patrick Stall in Jacobin: “Seize the Charities”
Erik Olin Wright’s Notion of Eroding Capitalism is Outlined in His Posthumous Book: How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century. Published by Verso Books in 2019.
A Fast & Fierce Array of Books Have Been Published on The Green New Deal in the Last Two Years:
Naomi Klein’s On Fire: The (Burning) Case for the Green New Deal. Published in 2019 by Simon & Schuster.
Ann Pettifor’s The Case for the Green New Deal. Published in 2019 by Verso Books.
Jeremy Rifkin’s The Green New Deal: Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth. Published in 2019 by St. Martin’s Press.
Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin: The Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal. Published in 2020 by Verso Books.
Updating Rosa Luxemburg's Old Adage Taken from The Junius Pamphlet: It's Ecsocialism or Barbarism or as she originally stated:
The Future Is A Mixtape - Episode 032: A Summer of The Poison Pyramid
Michael Moore Presents: Planet of the Humans (2020): Directed by Jeff Gibbs; released on the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day - to much fanfare, anger and debate.
Max Blumenthal in The Gray Zone: “Green Billionaires Behind the Professional Activist Network that Lead to the Suppression of the Planet of the Humans Documentary”
Cathy Cowan Becker in Noteworthy: “Michael Moore’s Environment Film a Slap in the Face on Earth Day”
Sunrise Movement - Influence Watch
Justice Democrats - Influence Watch
Karl Marx Relied on Engels’ Money, which Came from Family Wealth & Factory Labor: As Explored in NPR: “How 'Marx's General' Helped Lead The Revolution”
Friedrich Engels: A Wikipedia History
Karl Marx - His Poverty & the Life & Death of His Children: Yvonne Kapp in New Left Review: “Karl Marx’s Children”
Our Anarchist Ethics (and Hopefully Yours Too) Are Explored in Episode 021: The North Star of Human Decency
A "freedom budget" for all Americans; budgeting our resources, 1966-1975, to achieve "freedom from want." by A. Philip Randolph Institute.
David Graeber on LetMeLook’s YouTube’s Channel: "David Graeber - ARTIST TAXI DRIVER Curates. - CULTURE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND - Reloaded"
This Is Not A Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook - published in 2019 by Penguin Books.
“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”― Stephen Jay Gould in The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History
Recent Film About Our Cheapest Climate Restoration Path: Kiss The Ground (2020) - Streaming on Netflix.
The Giving Tree (1964) - Shel Silverstein’s Classic Children’s Picture Book
Shel Silverstein: A Wikipedia Biography
Joseph Thomas in Slate: “Executors or Executioners? Why Can’t My Biography of Shel Silverstein Quote the Works of Shel Silverstein? His Censorious Estate.”