Re: apolitical/"What the hell is going on with Global Waming
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 8:40 pm
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez published her outline of the Green New Deal online today. After reading it, I think it needs quite a bit of work if she wants it to have a snowball's chance of passing in the Senate, let alone the House. Concerns I see with it:
1. Insanely ambitious. Wanting net-zero carbon emissions by 2030 is simply not going to happen in this country. It will probably take that much time just to set up high-speed rail and convert everything to green energy, let alone implementing and enforcing it. (The most ambitious estimate prior to this was that net-zero carbon emissions would be feasible by 2050)
2. Ignores the elephant in the room that is urban sprawl. There's a mountain of evidence showing that urban sprawl contributes to increase car and bus (and now Uber. Sidebar - NYDOT and CADOT both released reports this week showing that ride sharing has actually led to MORE cars on the road and a 40% YOY decrease in public transportation) use, so unless you tackle that issue (and convince urban planners to make expansion more rail friendly) people will still need cars and buses. And this is without mentioning the elephant in the sky that is airplanes.
3. Tacks on a slew of initiatives that could easily be described as "socialist" by the GOP. One of the lines that's already making the rounds in conservative news and on the Hill is "economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work." (emphasis added by everyone right of center) The fact that a majority of the outline's language falls into social welfare and benefits is also making the rounds, so this is being labeled as sort of "wolf in sheep's clothing" whereby AOC is proposing an environmentalist overhaul as a facade for sweeping socialist reform. Again, this is not going to sit well with the GOP-controlled Senate and will make it insanely easy for them to not vote on it (even some of the neoliberals still sitting in the Senate will be turned off by it). To be blunt - just based on the outline alone it's dead in the Senate water.
4. Pelosi has been championing environmental reform for years and she has already made it explicitly clear that she is not going to let anyone else get in her way. An editorial on CNN pointed out that while AOC is a sensation with the general population, in Congress she's still a greenie and Pelosi could not give less of a fuck about how many Twitter followers she has and how popular she is with the youth.
I like almost everything about the New Green Deal and AOC's positions (my only personal gripe is the timeline - 11 years is simply not possible). However, AOC has still only been a Rep for a hair over a month and doesn't know how things work in DC. I don't think that's registered or was even a blip on her radar thanks to the insane amount of media attention she's received since last summer, and it's clear all that attention has gone to hear head. She needs to pump the breaks a little and learn the ropes - both in legislation and in terms of making allies/not stepping on toes - otherwise her tenure will be cut extremely short.
1. Insanely ambitious. Wanting net-zero carbon emissions by 2030 is simply not going to happen in this country. It will probably take that much time just to set up high-speed rail and convert everything to green energy, let alone implementing and enforcing it. (The most ambitious estimate prior to this was that net-zero carbon emissions would be feasible by 2050)
2. Ignores the elephant in the room that is urban sprawl. There's a mountain of evidence showing that urban sprawl contributes to increase car and bus (and now Uber. Sidebar - NYDOT and CADOT both released reports this week showing that ride sharing has actually led to MORE cars on the road and a 40% YOY decrease in public transportation) use, so unless you tackle that issue (and convince urban planners to make expansion more rail friendly) people will still need cars and buses. And this is without mentioning the elephant in the sky that is airplanes.
3. Tacks on a slew of initiatives that could easily be described as "socialist" by the GOP. One of the lines that's already making the rounds in conservative news and on the Hill is "economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work." (emphasis added by everyone right of center) The fact that a majority of the outline's language falls into social welfare and benefits is also making the rounds, so this is being labeled as sort of "wolf in sheep's clothing" whereby AOC is proposing an environmentalist overhaul as a facade for sweeping socialist reform. Again, this is not going to sit well with the GOP-controlled Senate and will make it insanely easy for them to not vote on it (even some of the neoliberals still sitting in the Senate will be turned off by it). To be blunt - just based on the outline alone it's dead in the Senate water.
4. Pelosi has been championing environmental reform for years and she has already made it explicitly clear that she is not going to let anyone else get in her way. An editorial on CNN pointed out that while AOC is a sensation with the general population, in Congress she's still a greenie and Pelosi could not give less of a fuck about how many Twitter followers she has and how popular she is with the youth.
I like almost everything about the New Green Deal and AOC's positions (my only personal gripe is the timeline - 11 years is simply not possible). However, AOC has still only been a Rep for a hair over a month and doesn't know how things work in DC. I don't think that's registered or was even a blip on her radar thanks to the insane amount of media attention she's received since last summer, and it's clear all that attention has gone to hear head. She needs to pump the breaks a little and learn the ropes - both in legislation and in terms of making allies/not stepping on toes - otherwise her tenure will be cut extremely short.
Messin' with animal diseases's scary. 
