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Writer's pictureColleen LaVigne: Opinion

Climate Crisis and the Green New Deal - Our TL/DR for the panel at the Sanders Institute


Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org and founding fellow at the Sanders Institute, moderated the Climate Crisis and Green New Deal panel at the first ever Sanders Institute Gathering last week. Here is a quick paragraph on each of the speakers as well as the video of the full panel.


McKibben led the panel with opening remarks that emphasize how quickly we must move and how great the challenge is, "The science has become so inescapable... We are in a position of extraordinary danger facing the biggest crisis that humans have ever faced... this is a timed test, really the first timed test that humans have faced as a civilization, and the time is actually extraordinarily short."


Naomi Klein, who recently wrote a great article about the Green New Deal and it's importance, said "The IPCC report tells us we have a terrifying 12 years to reduce our fossil fuel use by 45%... and by mid century we need to be off carbon completely, so that means we need to have started, yesterday." She continued to promote the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez plan for a Select Committee on a Green New Deal as the best option to ensure we take the actions required now. Join our campaign to support the Green New Deal. Join our conference call for action in solidarity with the Sunrise Movement's day of DC action on Dec. 10.


Matt Nelson, Executive Director, Presente.org, talked about the challenges of migration as the climate crisis destroys peoples resources. "Yes we have to talk about migration, but we also have to understand that New Deals are formed when there is social movement, when there is people power. They are stopped or halted when there is a nexus of corporate domination, white supremacy." Join the ACLU fight to cut DHS's budget and prevent legal asylum seekers from being unlawfully detained or attacked.


Dr. Abdul El-Sayed talks about what pollution in Detroit does to public health. He does an amazing job drawing personal connections to real world environmental issues while pointing out how the GND will help serve the health and welfare of the poor and sick. Check out his section of the video if you are going to listen to any of this, starts around the 22 minute mark.


Dr. Stephanie Kelton is a professor of economics who explains why we must shift to an economy that incentives green growth. She wrote an amazing article about why We can afford the Green New Deal. We CAN transform the economy before it's too late. We have to end the scarcity narrative when it comes to saving the world.


 

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