By Samantha Simmons
Image via Eco Gentleman
In years as chaotic as 2020, society tends to focus on issues that help the individual and less on matters concerning our planet as a whole.
For centuries, our earth has fallen victim to the exploitation of the fossil fuel industry and the extreme amounts of greenhouse gasses that have been produced to keep our society functioning. Fighting climate change requires a complex solution so many politicians choose to ignore climate change and fictionalize the term “global warming”. President Trump is evidently not concerned with the dilemma, telling the users of Twitter, "It's freezing and snowing in New York--we need global warming!"
Until we have leaders who choose to care about the future of our planet, climate change will continue to worsen—and the effects will cause disintegration of our ecosystems and daily way of life in the upcoming years.
What is Global Warming?
Global Warming is the gradual, steady increase on the earth's atmospheric temperature. The effects of global warming are serious, and once we reach a certain threshold of 1.5℃, they become irreversible. Global warming will end up costing trillions of dollars and in turn will negatively impact millions of lives unless we finally do something about the issue.
Climate change first hit the news 30 Years Ago, and prior to the Green New Deal, there has not yet been a resolution to take the problem on in the United States.
A group of American activists decided to take matters into their own hands, recruiting Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Edward J. Markey to help turn their plan for tackling climate change into a congressional resolution. This plan is just fourteen pages long and has mostly yet to be written.
We must understand that the deal is not a bill, nor is it a policy proposal. In fact, David Roberts, a reporter and writer notes that “it is not anything that you can make into law.” The truth is, this fourteen page resolution is simply just the “first step” in the forming of the New Green Deal itself.
The Green New Deal consists of two main ideas. The first objective asks the question, “What does America need to accomplish to solve the impending climate crisis?” The second portion of The New Green Deal addresses impending unemployment that the shift to separate resource industries will cause.
The Green New Deal tells Americans exactly what climatologists say: We must stop burning fossil fuels as much as “technologically feasible.” Clearly, this deal would cause the need to create and supply new industries, as well as the rebuilding of our economy. The Green New Deal would firmly shift industries that harm the environment, including the oil and coal industry. Auto industries would be flipped upside down as we try to make the move to electric vehicles. Essentially, undertaking The Green New Deal will essentially be a massive upheaval of our current economic and social policies over the next ten years, if put in place.
The second portion of the Green New Deal holds a set of valuable promises. Many are guaranteed to lose their jobs in the change of industries in order to battle global warming. The writers of the deal propose universal health care to those who have fallen victim to unemployment, as well as guaranteed job positions when new businesses arise.
There are obviously many questions left unanswered, but what The Green New Deal provides us with is priceless: a start. A start to take control of the problem, and fix our mistakes.
Written by writer Samantha Simmons