Green New Deal

[steve]

Just wondering what people think of the Green New Deal?

Interesting critique of it from the December Transition Newsletter.

Is it a useful initiative or a hopeless waste of time?

[chris]

Is it a useful initiative or a hopeless waste of time?

Well, at the moment it's a pipe dream -- it isn't happening.

If it were to happen I expect that the government would be mostly keen to the saving capitalism aspect of it rather than anything else.

The discussions about it at the Transition Cities conference were interesting, lots of people seem to think it's a good idea but that it's a minimum programme -- a step in the right direction but one that would need to be followed up with a whole load more...

Richard Heinberg wrote about it again a few days ago, this is the Executive Summary:

Museletter: Memo to the President-elect on Energy Realism and the Green New Deal

Our continued national dependence on fossil fuels is creating a crippling vulnerability to both long-term fuel scarcity and catastrophic climate change.

The current economic crisis requires substantial national policy shifts and enormous new government injections of capital into the economy. This provides an opportunity for a project whose scope would otherwise be inconceivable: a large-scale, coordinated energy transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy.

This project must happen immediately; indeed, it may already be too late. We have already left behind the era of cheap and plentiful fossil fuels, with a permanent decline of global oil production likely underway within three years. Moreover, the latest research tells us we have less than eight years to bring carbon emissions under control if we hope to avoid catastrophic climate change. Lacking this larger frame of understanding and action, a mere shift away from foreign oil dependence will fail to meet the challenge at hand.

The energy transition must not be limited to building wind turbines and solar panels. It must include the thorough redesign of our economic and societal infrastructure, which today is utterly dependent on cheap fossil fuels. It must address not only our transportation system and our electricity grid, but also our food system and our building stock.

Our 21st century nation’s dependence on 20th century fossil fuels is the greatest threat we face, far more so than the current financial crisis. A coordinated, comprehensive transition to an economy that is no longer dependent on hydrocarbon fuels and no longer emits climate-changing levels of carbon—a Post Carbon Energy Transition—will be the Obama Administration’s greatest opportunity to lead the nation on a path toward sustainable prosperity.

http://globalpublicmedia.com/memo_to_th ... dent_elect

[chris]

Richard Heinberg wrote about it again a few days ago

http://globalpublicmedia.com/memo_to_th ... dent_elect

And here is a interview with Richard Heinberg about his Energy Realism and the Green New Deal article:

2008 has been a remarkable year. About a year ago James Hansen of NASA gave a presentation at the American Geophysical Union meetings in San Francisco that showed how greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere were already too high. Energy and other commodity prices rose and then fell spectacularly. Recently the International Energy Agency released a report that said fossil fuel production will not meet future demand without massive, and perhaps unrealistic, levels of investment. Now we are in the midst of epic convulsions in the financial system, and have just elected a new U.S. President.

The global crises of 2008 all relate to growth in debt, pollution and consumption reaching their limits, but will the incoming Obama administration recognize the new reality? This show discusses "Energy Realism and the Green New Deal" with Richard Heinberg of The Post Carbon Institute. Hear what message Post Carbon Institute is presenting to the incoming U.S. President.

http://globalpublicmedia.com/reality_re ... n_new_deal

[chris]

And for a UK perspective, Climate Radio did a show on the Green New Deal:

The 300-350 Show: The New Green Deal

First Broadcast: 20 August 2008

Could we be heading towards economic meltdown in the face of the triple challenges of the credit crunch, climate crunch and energy crunch? A new group calling itself The Green New Deal has put forward a policy package that aims to address this triple crunch. Their inaugural report looks at how the UK and US recovered from the Great Depression of the 1930s and also draws important lessons from Britain Wolrd War II experience, oil-crunched Cuba in the 1990s as well as nef's work on well-being.

We spoke to Andrew Simms, policy director of the new economics foundation and one of the report's authors.

The report can be downloaded from http://www.neweconomics.org/

Other members of the Green New Deal team currently include The Guardian newspaper economics editor Larry Elliott, former head of the Jubilee 2000 debt relief campaign Ann Pettifor, former directors of Friends of the Earth Tony Juniper and Charles Secrett, Chairman of Solar Century Jeremy Leggett and Caroline Lucas MEP.

"The 300-350 Show" is the new name for "The Two Degrees Show". The new name comes from what is now believed to the safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This finding is based on the work of James Hansen and his team in a paper titled "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim." http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126

"The 300-350 Show" takes its name from what is now believed to the safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This finding is based on the work of James Hansen and his team in a paper titled "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim." http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126

The Green New Deal – Download .mp3 (27.01 MB) http://coinet.org.uk/content/download/8 ... 28_bit.mp3

http://coinet.org.uk/discussion/climate_radio/tngd

[chris]

Saturday February 28 2009, 9.00 – 5.30

St Mary’s Conference Centre, Bramall Lane, Sheffield S2 4QZ

Organised by Sheffield Campaign Against Climate Change

What are green jobs? How can we create new green jobs? How can we help grow existing green community enterprises and businesses? How can we involve trade unions? How we grow more local food and create effective transport and marketing systems? How we can re-invest in our local green economy? How can we use the new Sustainable Communities Act? How can we use the new Local Transport Act to provide a regulated system that serves us? What policies should we demand of our local councils and regeneration agencies? How can we involve faith based communities?

A conference with keynote speakers, workshops and exhibitions.

Keynote speakers include

Colin Hines, Green New Deal Group/New Economics Foundation, Greenpeace International

Larry Elliott, Green New Deal Group, Economics Editor of the Guardian, (tbc)

Dr.Fazlun Khalid, Director Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Ecological Sciences (IFEES)

Miriam Kennet, Green Economics Institute

Karen Leach Localise West Midlands

Julia Gash, of Bag It Don't Bin It and organiser of the First Eco Business Summit in February 2008

Cllr Andrew Cooper, Kirklees Council - responsibility for innovative insulation schemes

For more details: info@sheffieldgreennewdeal.org.uk

http://www.sheffieldgreennewdeal.org.uk/

[chris]

From the Post Carbon Institute, submitted by Richard Heinberg on January 10, 2009 :

The Real New Deal

Energy Scarcity and the Path to Energy, Economic, and Environmental Recovery

Submitted by Richard Heinberg on January 10, 2009

Post Carbon's proposal for the Obama Administration's response to economic, environmental, and energy challenges.

• Executive Summary
• Part 1 - Overview: Need & Scope
• Part 2 - The Problem
• Part 3 - What Governments Are Saying
• Part 4 - The Solution
• Part 5 - Requirements for Energy Transition
• Part 6 - Conclusion

Download the full pdf (650k)