Green New Deal Documents, Articles, Videos, Organizations and Upcoming Actions
Guide to avoiding asbestos!
Asbestos is a dangerous mineral that was extensively used in just about everything from building construction to children's toys up until several decades ago. There are many products that still contain asbestos today. Knowing which products can contain asbestos and the time periods of when they were used is important for everyone's health and safety. That's why we made an asbestos products guide. Check it out:
Asbestos Products - lanierlawfirm.com/mesothelioma/asbestos-exposure/products/
See two resolutions passed by UUA General Assemblies that guide UU Congregations and the UUA itself in the work to provide the legislation and practices to provide healthcare, jobs, infrastructure, environmental practices and research to ameliorate climate change and right the structures of inequality in order to bring all people and the environment through this climate crisis. Click here.
David Korten's Club of Rome (Ecocivilization talk).. It has color photos and is 21 pages
UUJEC's annual meeting keynote speech by Rev. Dr. Adam Robersmith
"Each, Every, and All: Universalism and the Green New Deal" centering our faith as we deal with climate change.
Flamingo Theology, an Earth Day service by board member, Rev. Robert Murphy
"Sauntering and Secession: A Transcendentalist Response to the Climate Crisis" a 2023 sermon from a founding UUJEC board member, Rev. Dr. Lucy Hitchcock.
Documents
* Veterans target US Military's Outsized Impact on Climate Change
With no mention of military emissions at COP26, a coalition is mobilizing to force the Pentagon to disclose and reduce its enormous carbon footprint. Read more
* Farm Worker Justice
We in Oregon are seeking to pass legislation to require overtime pay for farmworkers. There are only a few states with this requirement which I find astounding. Here is a booklet that describes the issue and is very helpful in providing info to help in lobbying in your states too. Hopefully other states have this on their dockets. It is definitely a BIPOC issue and a basic economic justice issue and increasingly a climate justice issue as the weather makes farmwork even move dangerous while overtime for farmworkers remains a requirement. Next it should be a reparations issue.
- Faith Principles for a Green New Deal
Interfaith Power & Light – a member of the WISC Energy and Ecology Working Group – has drafted a letter outlining “The Green New Deal Faith Principles,” which is now open for organizational signatures. You can read the document here.
This letter does not endorse the Green New Deal resolution, but is using this as an opportunity to make sure that legislators include the faith community’s perspective as they draft legislation to reach the goals laid out in the Green New Deal resolution
* The Green New Deal is Affordable.
Scientific American makes the case that the time is right for the Green New Deal. The United States is facing four interconnected crises: the COVID-19 pandemic, a looming economic recession, extreme inequality and a climate emergency. Click here for the story.
* To make the transition to renewable energy, we have to get the financial sector out of fossil fuels. It may take government buyouts to wind down the fossil fuel business and government subsidies to ramp up renewable energy--subsidies now going to fossil fuels. Click here for more information.
- UUs and Disaster: who we are and contact information for help, click here.
- Resolution in House of Representatives and Senate: “Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal,” updated version to read.
- EPA's Overview of Greenhouse gases, seen here.
- EPA's Sources of Greenhouse gases, seen here.
- EPA's Global Greehouse Gas Emissions data, seen here.
- The full text of the proposal to create a Green New Deal Committee submitted to HR: Proposed bill
- United Nations Sustainable Development Goals .
- We're Headed For a Class-Based 'Climate Apartheid', Warns Chilling New UN Report.
- www.PeopleNow.org "This website link outlines and describes plans to help implement the UN Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs see above) and the Green New Deal (GND). Inputs from everyone are welcomed." Below are two examples: UN SDG Target 13.2.1 & Target Action Plan #25: Reverse global warming and mitigate its adverse effects in particular harsh climate change link and UN SDG Targets 1.1 and 1.2 and TAP #41 Eradicate all poverty. Ensure everyone has a basic living income, basic assets including a decent dwelling and savings and all the needs and necessities for a decent life and becomes self-sufficient link We are looking to learn more about the organization. The idea of a location to consolidate plans is a good one. but who is doing so? See what you think.
- The Equator Principles (EPs) are a framework used by nearly Equator 100 banks to manage social and environmental risks related to the financing of large infrastructure projects (think oil rigs, LNG plants, coal mines, large hydro dams, ports, airports, power plants etc.), so that these projects do not negatively impact on people and planet, especially to prevent climate disasters or abridgment of indigenous peoples' rights and welfare.
- Our Children's Trust, the organization behind Juliana v US, has put together a curriculum to help understand the children's lawsuit against our government. Click here to sign up for the curriculum.
Books
- Gretchen Bakke, The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future
- Michael Gerrard and John C. Dernbach, editors, Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States, Environmental Law Institute. This is an amazingly comprehensive tome on many, many methods with legal components to reverse climate change. 1000 pp plus. Pricey. Ask your library to stock it.
- Paul Hawken, editor, Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, 2017. A coalition of researcher, professionals and scientists has come together to provide a reference book to 100 solutions, from clean energy to the education of girls. It provides history, photos and a factual explanation of each method. Over the next decades each will be need to be fleshed out as research continues. Their website is: https://www.drawdown.org/ and contains links to videos, new information and their e-newsletter.
- Kristin Ohlson, The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil To Save the Planet.
- Mara Prentiss, Energy Revolution: The Physics and the Promise of Efficient Technology Covers renewables, by chapter, up to about 2016.
- Josh Tickell, Kiss the Ground: How the Food You Eat Can Reverse Climate Change, Heal Your Body & Ultimately Save Our World.
Articles
- Sustainable Swaps Eco-friendly Alternatives to Traditional Basketball Jerseys. Green Gear: Eco-Friendly Equipment Choices for Athletes and Teams
- Reimagining the Human by Eileen Crist in Science: Dec 14, 2018. The problem behind the ecological emergency is "the belief system of superiority and entitlement—or human supremacy." link
- An argument for degrowth, November 9,2021. Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-Heterodox Perspective on the Renewable Energy Transition. Click here.
- What 'Living in the Truth' Looks Like in the face of Climate Catastrophe, here, by Wes Stephenson in The Nation with commentary on Bill McKibben's new book, Falter: Has the Human Game Begun To Play Itself Out? A wake-up call not only for climate change urgency but for democracy as the only way through.
- Despite blowhards who insist the welfare makes people lazy, here's proof that depriving children of a decent living damages their lifelong potential. The title of the article, The Coronavirus Generation, is confusing because they aren't writing about the coronavirus, they're writing about the impact of joblessness and the effects of poverty--homelessness, food insecurity and disrupted lives.
- January 2019 - Bipartisan Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act reintroduced into new 116th Congress as HR 763. Click here for more details.
- "The Climate Change Adaptation Issue" Sierra, January/February 2019 (entire issue, not a link). There are articles on South Florida, Phoenix, inhabitants of Marshall Islands relocating to Arkansas with seachange….
Articles, updating global environmental conditions as climate change progresses
- Dahr Jamail, Truthout 4-29-19, The Last Time There Was This Much CO2, Trees Grew at the South Pole, link
Articles, mostly overviews and history
- Bill McKibben "130 Degrees" on Mark Lynas' "Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency." "So now we have some sense of what it’s like: a full-on global-scale crisis, one that disrupts everything. Normal life—shopping for food, holding a wedding, going to work, seeing your parents—shifts dramatically."
- Kate Aronoff, Dec. 5, 2018 in The Intercept, With a Green New Deal, Here’s What the World Could Look Like for the Next Generation.
Excellent coverage of the many areas to be studied and implemented. A curriculum, with a list of study discussion sessions could be devised. Examples are income inequality and job creation, the how-to switch to renewables, financing the transition with do’s and dont’s of the original New Deal, working the politics, international issues and the certainty of and need for planning for mass migration with climate change. Plus, what congregations can do now.
- Trump can disband his Science Panel, but since he's not king yet, the Panel can go on. NY state is hosting an expanded panel to insure that we have the best science available to deal with climate change.
Gives important critiques that must be answered, but should not kill the project.
Naomi Klein tells why we need Alexandria Ocasio Cortez's approach to the Green New Deal. She ties together the practical and the spiritual, posted February 13.
Quote from the article’s theme: “It comes down to money. Fossil-fuel executives and the politicians they bankroll have presented a false choice between a healthy economy and a healthy planet. They’ve successfully framed the debate in the language of austerity and sacrifice, of poverty and suffering.”
Several graphs and explanation of why Democrats should support the GND link
- Bill McKibben op-ed from The Nation. It’s an historical review of carbon energy.
https://truthout.org/articles/recording-reveals-oil-industry-executives-laughing-at-trump-access/
Looking inside the fossil fuel industries interest in controlling/rescinding environmental regulations.
- Several articles on an important Montana Federal Court decision in case of protecting public lands in Wyoming from fossil fuel extraction because of environmental concerns. https://westernlaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/2018.03.23-Buffalo-Miles-City-Final-Order-revised.pdf
Sierra club article on case: https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2018/03/court-rejects-blm-plans-mine-10-billion-tons-coal-install-thousands-oil-and
The plan covers 15 million acres in the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming. The ruling on it is the latest to cite risks of fossil fuels and global warming. Subscribe here. A federal court has ruled against a U.S. Interior Department plan to open more than 15 million acres of public land and mineral rights to fossil fuel extraction, concluding that the government failed to adequately consider how the … Download a copy of the decision here.
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Economic Theories and Economic Inequality Issues in Climate Change Discussion
- Does the climate crisis threaten the end of big oil? The article, by Mark Hertsgaard in the Columbia Journalism Review, reveals the trend of divestment in fossil fuel companies. link Divestment, as a strategy, was effective in undermining Big Tobacco.
- The Nobel Prize for Climate Catastrophe by Jason Hickel in Foreign Policy. This article makes clear the fallacy (used by the current US administration) of using economic growth as more important for society than immediately changing course to minimize global warming. link
Heard on All Things Considered with Rebecca Hersher and Robert Benincasa
NPR research shows that disaster relief in places like San Antonio and New Jersey helps wealthier families who have good credit ratings with buyouts and disaster aid more than poorer families. After disasters inequality will increase exponentially. See print story here.
Green New Deal policies could empower communities on both sides of U.S. borders, and could expand the powers of poor nations to determine their own destinies. Or they could promote climate colonialism, a term that can mean different things to different people.
Why Unions Must Bargain Over Climate Change, by Nato Green, in Truthout, contains some excellent suggestions for changes in the near term. Speaks to worker issues with climate change. Link
Union Locals Build Support for the Green New Deal’s “Just Transition” by Candice Bernd, in Truthout, April 6, 2019 is hopeful that skeptical workers will see the advantages of supporting sustainable, renewable energy jobs in the face of climate change.
Link
The Economics/Financing of Green New Deal
A new study that is to the ‘left’ of the Green New Deal concludes only radical government-directed action will succeed: “We thus have to discard the prevalent market-oriented belief system, in which government intervention and non-market modes of coordination and decision-making are inferior to the market mechanism and will mostly fail to achieve what they intend to bring about.”
A study from 2011 by economist Ann Pettifor that argues it is feasible to finance a global green transition using tools similar to those used to deal with the Great Recession. “We are capable of shutting off the sun and the stars because they do not pay a dividend. London is one of the richest cities in the history of civilization, but it cannot “afford” the highest standards of achievement of which its own living citizens are capable, because they do not “pay.”
Cooperatives, B Corps, other better business alternatives of all kinds
https://www.ukessays.com/essays/commerce/corporate-governance-and-business-ethics-of-ikea-commerce-essay.php
Can the financial systems best kept secret help finance a green new deal?
Regenerative Agriculture And Planet Healthy Food
- "A Green New Deal must Prioritize Regenerative Agriculture" link
- Ellen Brown, The Key to Solving the Climate Crisis is beneath our feet. link
Excellent article in Truthout that worries that eliminating fossil fuels is too difficult and long term to be feasible in time but that regenerative agriculture can do the job of removing sufficient carbon from the atmosphere if we can overcome corporate controlled agriculture.
- Judith Schwartz in The Guardian: There's another story to tell about climate change and it starts with water. link
Plant Trees, Savor and Save Trees
- https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/richard-powers-overstory-great-smoky-mountains/https://www.bing.com/videos/search?
- q=the+secret+life+of+trees&view=detail&mid=2FF57B479DF6259EFAA72FF57B479DF6259EFAA7&FORM=VIRE&PC=DCTS&cc=US&setlang=en-US&PC=DCTS&cvid=9b147aefa1a149b78b8cc45213cbea2e&qs=LS&nclid=A1B5E49B7D250FC70E59D863E07DB8AA&ts=1582069693042
Indigenous Rights, Language Loss and Green New Deal
Alternatives to GDP for measuring national well-being
Here are some of the alternatives that could be used. In general, most everyone, even hardcore economists, agrees that gdp is an inadequate measure, but trying to factor in other variables is tricky and controversial. Some of the most important elements are very subjective. From Allen Wasserman
- Genuine Progress Indicator. Developed in the mid 2000s, this is specifically designed to take account of environmental factors. For instance, conventional GDP measures count pollution twice, once for the initial polluting activity (mining, industry, agriculture, etc.) and again when the pollution is cleaned up.
- World Happiness Report. Has six key items: income, life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust, generosity. For 2018 Finland is #1, the US is #18.
- National Accounts. In the US, back in 1994 the Commerce Department was directed to come up with economic measures to take resource depletion and pollution into account as a supplement to other types of national accounts. Not surprisingly, the results alarmed coal and mineral interests and Congress in 1995 directed the Bureau of Economic Accounts to stop its work and subject it to outside review. In 1999 William Nordhaus, a Yale economics professor (who subsequently received a Nobel for his work on environmental economics) published his review, which strongly recommended that BEA continue working. As far as I know, the ban is still in effect.
Interactive Tool Kits
New tool to visualize how changes can impact our carbon footprint. This is a wonderful way to feel like we do have a way to make a difference.
Oil and Gas Tool Kit for Activists here. Read the supporting article here on oil and gas increased production in the US and suggested actions to reverse it before it is too late.
Community Power Interactive Tool Kit on how to affect energy consumption in your city, utility and neighborhood from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) which is a great organization and sends out newsletters on line.
Media on Green New Deal
Podcast of Sunrise Movement call to now thousands of supporters to spark action now, following roll out of the Green New Deal in Congress. Naomi Klein has a good section on it as well as young leaders, inspiring to see. Recording of the livestream can be found here.
The following videos are from Terry Lowman and Erv Klaus
- What we're up against, Democrats who take oil, gas and coal money and disinformation campaigns with Corporate power propaganda and this corporate skulduggery. Keep in mind that the Cato institute and Heartland institute are Koch and oil industry shills.
- Using capitalism to sell a new green deal, a TED talk. Terry's suspicious, if there's horse trading so that Wall Street gets involved, but at least we're getting political buy in across the spectrum.
- Dr. William Moomaw one of the 5 co-authors of the World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency explains the nature of the emergency, what we MUST be doing about it and the encouragement for *diversified forest management* instead of mono cropping single species that we intend to burn. Burning wood for biomass has a bigger carbon footprint than burning an equivalent amount of coal for energy! Here's a link to the original paper of which Dr. Moomaw speaks.
Humor Video
This is much more cute, than humorous. Basically, we adults in the room need to get cracking--no more fracking and cow farts aren't funny.
This video is so descriptive on how we have taken something billions of years old, the earth, and wreaked destruction in the blink of an eye--using spoken word art.
Videos on how to present climate change to audiences
Solutions
- Home Heating in the Green New Deal by Greg Stinson Slide presentation on heat pumps, splits, tax incentive to phase out oil furnaces, creating electrician jobs, refrigerant alternatives. Solutions for your house upgrade to reduce carbon use or building new homes.
- Podcast on localizing and improving technologyof electric grid and broadband to reduce cost and use timing of use to best benefit from renewable sources like wind and solar. Book recommended by above podcast is: Gretchen Bakke, The Grid, the Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future, 2016.
- Bill Gates is leading a Canadian group to pull CO2 out of the air and create fuel with it. They are able to sequester one ton per day--a miniscule amount considering concrete, between mining, manufacturing, transportation and the chemical processes create 1.5 tons of CO2 for every ton of concrete...and there are 10 billion tons of concrete poured every year in the US.
Organizations
Elders Climate Action. Conservative Elders Climate Action is building a non-partisan movement of elders committed to making our voices heard.
The Solutions Project, advocating for people of color and women in dealing with environmental justice and climate change.
350.org Founded by Bill McKibben, world-wide in scope.
- Citizens Climate Lobby. Citizens' Climate Lobby creates the political will for a livable world. We empower individuals to experience breakthroughs by exercising their personal and political power.
- The Climate Mobilization. The Climate Emergency Movement is a network of people doing everything we can to prevent climate and ecological catastrophe. We ask our institutions and communities to respond to climate change and ecological destruction as an emergency. We demand the only response that makes sense: a massive, just mobilization of our cities and nation to protect humanity and the natural world.
- GreenFaith. Inspiring, educating, and mobilizing people of diverse religious backgrounds for environmental leadership.
- The Green Party, see Documents above for their Green New Deal
- Labor Network for Sustainability, the organized voice within the labor movement for policies that are ecologically sustainable while also advancing the movement for good jobs and a just transition for workers and communities hurt by the effects of climate change and by the transition to renewable energy.
- PowerShift. This is a bottom-up, grassroots hub for young climate activists.
- Sunrise Movement. An organization begun by young people to achieve the Green New Deal. The UUA and UUJEC have signed on as a sponsoring organization. See Actions below.
- Youth Climate Leaders. Our main goal is to empower a diverse group of young leaders from all over the world with leadership and entrepreneurial skills to be used right now to address climate change.
Actions
You can check out the nearest action to your zip code.
Feb 4, Transit Equity Day for Civil Rights and a Healthy Planet,
Click here for the Organizing Toolkit.
Download this Transit Equity Day poster, fill it out with a personal message, and take a photo to share via social media. Get on Board for Transit Equity Day! Register your activity here (even if you don’t know what it is yet).
- Sunrise Action Guide: Operation Green New Deal Blitz: A step-by-step guide to help you take action for the Green New Deal: We’re calling on all Senators and Representatives to make a choice: will they support the only resolution to meet the scale of the climate crisis? Or will they condemn the millions of young people in our generation to a future ravaged by wildfires, heatwaves, and hurricanes? It’s on us to move this resolution forward by turning up the heat on our members of Congress throughout February. Here’s our plan.
- Feb 6-10th MAKE OUR DEMAND CLEAR We’ll tweet, call, and email our Senators and Representatives relentlessly with our demand that they back Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez & Markey’s Joint Resolution for a Green New Deal now.
Apr 15 Extinction Rebellion Action: worldwide.
Transportation:
Here's some great resources on rail transportation:
-High Speed Rail: Fast Track to Sustainable Mobility
-Rail Plan - for entire US, and an example for a region (Chicago) as examples how to layout in simple graphics a rail system
-Sustainability & Rail
-Top 10 Reasons to Bring High Speed Rail to America
-Information about opponents, the denial campaigns, misinformation operation attacking rail, renewable energy and now the Green New Deal (good info to use to develop your own talking point answers to objections about the GND)
Also, the Green New Deal needs to add a note to encourage "compact, walkable, mixed-use communities at the rail stations". This delivers not only affordable housing and entire communities (no need for expensive cars), but also is far greener with everyone walking, riding bikes, and on clean electric trains. This didn't get much mention in the GND, but walkable communities can go a long way to reducing people's daily carbon footprint, so it should be in there.
A lot of people seem to have problems with all the social parts of the GND, but one great answer to this that could be in your talking points comes from the great visionary thinker Lester Brown (from Plan B 4.0): (GND could be substituted for Plan B)
You can download Brown's book here for free: http://www.earth-policy.org/images/uploads/book_files/pb4book.pdf
"Plan B is an integrated program with four interdependent goals. We are not, for example, likely to stabilize population unless we an also eradicate poverty. Conversely, we cannot restore the earth's natural systems without stabilizing population and climate, and we are not likely to stabilize climate unless we also stabilize population. Nor can we eradicate poverty without restoring the earth's natural systems."
The conclusion that you all correctly arrived at is its all connected and we're all in this together, and have to work together to solve it together for everyone. We can't leave anyone behind.
From Fossil Fuel Dot Org:
"When externalities are included, as in a 2015 study by the International Monetary Fund, the unpaid costs of fossil fuels are upward of $5.3 trillion annually – which works out to a staggering $10 million per minute." This is why a cost of $100 trillion shouldn't scare us. We're already spending that much on fossil fuels as we destroy our ability to live on the earth."