We Can Do This: A Case for a Green New Deal

So I’m steeped in all things climate science for a book proposal I’m working on with the lovely @bemoretree. So here I sit with a dish called Fork the Patriarchy and this aspirational read. I’m only a couple of chapters in, but my biggest take away so far is that we do not lack the technology or capability to transition to a green society with zero emissions. We simply lack imagination and vision and we’re allowing pragmatism to weigh down our natural human ingenuity. We may not be able to invent a machine that can suck carbon out of the atmosphere. But we most certainly can construct a clean energy infrastructure digitally monitored and powered by the abundant solar and wind sources. We simply need to break through the despondency and start believing as a society that we can do this. We are not hopelessly dependent on fossil fuels. In fact, this dependence will be our downfall if we refuse to change. Let’s give ourselves a break and dismiss the voice within that keeps whispering, “You can’t do this and you can’t do that.” Let’s stop dismissing new visions as unrealistic. We are entering an era in which the very notion of realism is unrealistic and incapable of taking on the mission ahead.