The Think Tank Struggling to Write the Green New Deal

[George II]

New Consensus, the group charged with fleshing out the plan, doesn’t aim to publish policy specifics until early next year.

Almost seven months have passed since the November day when a few hundred young people, associated with a new climate-activism group called the Sunrise Movement, crammed into Nancy Pelosi’s office. America’s youngest congresswoman-elect ever joined them. “This is not about me,” said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was effectively leading a protest on her first day on Capitol Hill. “This is about uplifting the voice and the message of the fact that we need a Green New Deal.”

Ocasio-Cortez is still a star. Presidential candidates are courting the Sunrise Movement’s favor. And the Green New Deal has transformed the climate fight both in the United States and around the world.

Yet it remains unclear what would actually be in a Green New Deal. While a handful of candidates have released their own attempts at a Green New Deal, the tight network of progressives most closely linked to the plan have offered little new detail. In particular, the think tank known as New Consensus—ostensibly in charge of turning the Green New Deal into real policy—has published almost nothing substantial about it.

“I think they’ve done a pretty good job of compiling the scope, the scale, and the goals of the Green New Deal,” Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez, told me. “I think we’re still in the process of getting people to imagine what we’re talking about.” But in the current informational vacuum, the plan’s supporters have sometimes faltered, allowing pundits, lobbyists, and other politicians to rush in and define the Green New Deal’s terms. “One reasonable summary of what has happened is that everybody except the people who say they are doing the Green New Deal are doing the Green New Deal,” said an activist who asked not to be named to avoid damaging relationships with New Consensus.

(much more....)

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/06/whats-green-new-deal-nobody-knows/591391/

[Wounded Bear]

1. Grand Proclamations are easy. The devil is in the details...

I applaud the raison detr'e for the Green New Deal, but making massive changes requires a lot of work and efforts to alleviate the pain and disruption to the economy.

It's kind of like the ACA. I support the effort, but realize that it isn't easy.

[George II]

2. I've been saying that for months, if not a year. There IS no "green new deal", there is....

....and "idea" called the "green new deal", but no plan, no details whatsoever.

While politicians are being harangued to do something immediately because "our future existence depends on it", those claiming to be doing something about it are dragging their feet themselves.

[marylandblue]

3. Their loss. Democratic nominees are defining it now, and their plan will too late to the party.

[LibFarmer]

4. Some people think that a president can dictatorially institute

any policy for their benefit and to the detriment of all other stakeholders.

Not much different from what people thought Trump could do.

In that way, the GND is very much like Trump's imaginary "wall"

In a democracy, one has to build a consensus and not ram policies down people's throat just because one thinks they are important.

[betsuni]

5. K&R

[Gothmog]

6. K&R

[Cary]

7. K&R

[lapucelle]

8. Some of The New Consensus's executive board seem to be involved with Justice Democrats.

https://newconsensus.com/people/

Desmond Drummer

Zack Exley was a senior advisor to Bernie Sander’s 2016 presidential campaign, and was a co-founder of Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats

[George II]

9. If that's the case, they should have been 110% prepared to write the "gnd". Awkward!!

[GulfCoast66]

10. The minute I read their proclamation, I knew it for what it was.

And attempt to use the excuse of climate change and the energy around it to support their real policy goals.

If they ever come out with specifics, which I doubt, those that were all in for it will be doing the fast back pedal.

Glad some candidates did not fall for it.

[George II]

11. Karma! Sunshine Movement, from their website:

"Last November, we challenged Democratic leadership with a simple question: What is your plan? That question shook the world."

Hey Sunshine Movement, "What is your plan?"

[dalton99a]

12. The plan will be ready after the methane has been gurgled out of the permafrost

[brer cat]

13. K&R