How Joe Biden's Plan Could Be a Transformative Step to Addressing the Climate Crisis

[Nevilledog]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/joe-biden-climate-plan-green-new-deal-1041741/


It’s hard to bend your mind around how much is at stake in the climate crisis, much less what to do about it. But this much is clear: It’s time — way past time — to go fast, and go big. Joe Biden’s $2 trillion climate proposal, despite its shortcomings and campaign hype, gets that essential point.

If Biden is elected, there will be a lot of tough questions asked about how to make his plan a reality, especially at a time when the economy appears to be headed for the worst collapse since the Great Depression. But for now, it’s enough to say that Biden’s proposal, released in July, is by far the most ambitious climate agenda ever put forward by a presidential nominee. To experienced climate warriors the plan might look like a grab bag of old and new ideas, but its subtext is apparent: Dealing with the climate crisis is not just about eliminating carbon pollution, but reimagining every aspect of our world, including designing ways to protect the most vulnerable from the brutal impacts of heat, disease, fire, and rising waters.

Biden’s willingness to make climate a central issue in his campaign is no surprise to anyone who has followed his career. “Biden is no Johnny-come-lately to climate,” says Dan Dudek, a vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund, who has been part of climate negotiations for more than 30 years. But during the primaries, Biden’s climate plan was weak sauce, overshadowed by the far more aggressive proposals of Jay Inslee, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders. To Biden’s credit, he retooled his plan after becoming the presumptive nominee to include more ambitious goals and to emphasize racial- and environmental-justice issues. “Biden’s agenda is a tribute to the rising political power of climate activists like the Sunrise Movement and other progressive activists championing the Green New Deal,” says Maria Urbina, national political director at Indivisible, a grassroots advocacy group.

Some highlights of the plan include:

a carbon-free electric power grid by 2035

providing cities with a population of 100,000 or more with zero-emissions public transportation like light rail, electric buses, and infrastructure for bicyclists

creating 1 million new jobs in the U.S. auto industry by incentivizing the switch from internal-combustion engines to electric-powered vehicles

upgrading 4 million buildings and weatherizing 2 million homes for energy efficiency
pledging that disadvantaged communities would receive 40 percent of the overall benefits of spending on clean-energy and infrastructure upgrades

Creating a Civilian Climate Corp, similar to the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, that would employ legions of people on public-works projects, such as restoring wetlands

Funding a new Advanced Research Projects Agency on climate, to be called ARPA-C, to develop transformative clean energy tech

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[SheltieLover]

1. Exactly!

Repukes have enabled chump in fking so much up, Joe will need to be like a modern day FDR.

Climate & ingrastructure WPA-type program sorely needed!

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

2. K&R