Claiming that the planet needs “bold big climate action,” Democrats Senator Ed Markey from Massachusetts and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) from New York have reintroduced their fanciful left-wing wish list, the Green New Deal. The two made a joint announcement on Thursday.
Additionally, Markey and House Democrat Ro Khanna from California brought forth a companion “treatment plan” called the Green New Deal for Health, which will focus on “reimagining a health care system that is prepared and empowered to protect the health and well-being of our workers, our communities, and our planet.”
AOC touted the Inflation Reduction Act as a kind of first salvo in the climate war.
“First, we were called unrealistic. Then … when it came time for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, we started to fight,” the New York congresswoman said. “We said we are not going to take crumbs, and we’re not going to settle for that — we need bold big climate action, and we need it now. And that fight resulted in the largest piece of climate legislation in American history.”
“But there is still much, much more to do to make environmental justice the center of U.S. climate policy,” she added. “Today’s reintroduction marks the beginning of that process — of strengthening and broadening our coalition, and of laying the policy groundwork for the next fight.”
The reintroduction of the Green New Deal and the companion plan was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the release of the original Green New Deal in 2019.
Markey took credit for the climate action that has occurred since then, while asserting that the climate movement still has a long way to go.
“In the four years since we first introduced the Green New Deal, the tides of our movement have risen and lifted climate action to the top of the national agenda,” he boasted. “Thanks to the persistence of the Green New Deal movement, we succeeded in securing historic progress through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and now we have an obligation to honor the origins of that success — which sprung from the young people and workers who never once stopped organizing for their future — by putting those dollars to work to create dignified jobs, rectify generations of systemic injustice, and reverse climate damage.”
Despite the climate movement’s Malthusian hatred of people, Representative Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) claimed that the new plans were all about people and saving lives.
“Usually in this building, when we talk about cost, we talk about dollars and cents,” Frost said. “But the real cost is human life, people, communities, and so we’re here today to be their voice and work with them to build a livable future and to build a world that’s more than a livable future, it’s about a thriving, livable planet.”
The reintroduced Green New Deal is still estimated to cost nearly $93 trillion, and other than the new release date, appears to be largely the same as the previous version.
For instance, the document continues to claim that “human activity is the dominant cause of observed climate change over the past century,” and that “a changing climate is causing sea levels to rise and an increase in wildfires, severe storms, droughts, and other extreme weather events that threaten human life, healthy communities, and critical infrastructure.”
Never mind that actual deaths from so-called climate-related disasters are drastically down over the past century. Even the climate-hysteric World Meteorological Organization — a United Nations organization — admits that deaths from weather-related natural disasters are down by two-thirds over the past fifty years.
While there is no cost estimate yet on Markey and Khana’s Green New Deal for Health, the list of payouts is long and includes “$130 billion over five years for community health centers”; “$500 million over five years for strengthening community mental health to address the mental toll of extreme weather disasters and other stressors”; and “$150 million over five years to support community heat resilience programs.”
The health plan would also give money to hospitals and other healthcare facilities in order to create “green & resilient health care systems.”
You have to wonder why AOC and Markey didn’t reintroduce the Green New Deal sometime in the past several years when Democrats controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress. Is it because they know that the plans are unrealistic and unlikely to pass even the Democrat-controlled Senate, much less the House of Representatives?
