BLOG 102020: The Green New Deal: Where did Green New Deal Come From? Part 2

The Green New Deal: Where did Green New Deal Come From?
Part 2

This blog will fill you in on its origins! Note that I'm NOT taking a position on the GND or the earlier blogs on socialism. You can read the information yourself and decide your position.

Just as most Americans are busy living their lives, my business clients were busy running their businesses and just wanted a basic understanding of various issues. Since I'm always sending them info on business in the form of short "briefs," they asked for some concise but clear explanations on some of the front-and-center issues in the upcoming election.

Providing the facts (i.e. the Senate Resolution and the basic components) would enable them to have more confidence on November 3 (and at cocktail/dinner parties). If they were interested in a particular issue, they could pursue additional knowledge on their own.

So, that being said...

Where did the GND come from?

In 2007, New York Times columnist and author Tom Friedman called for a "Green New Deal" to deal with the environment and energy. (You can read Friedman's (lengthy) article here.) He writes, "I want to rename it geostrategic, geoeconomic, capitalistic and patriotic. I want to do that because I think that living, working, designing, manufacturing, and projecting America in a green way can be the basis of a new unifying political movement for the 21st century."

In the seventh part of the article he asserts, "Ditto for our country, which is why we need a Green New Deal — one in which government's role is not funding projects, as in the original New Deal, but seeding basic research, providing loan guarantees where needed and setting standards, taxes, and incentives that will spawn 1,000 G.E. Transportations for all kinds of clean power."

Notice he advocates a "unifying political movement," in contrast to what actually is happening today. People are all over the map.

In 2008, candidate Barak Obama added a Green New Deal to his platform but abandoned it later during his presidency. (Presidents abandon policies when there's little support for them. Why die on THAT hill? is the attitude.) Also, in that same year, a UK group developed its own GND.

In 2015, the Leap Manifesto (attached below) was created in Canada by a group of social movement activists, First Nations, trade unions, refugee activists, anti-poverty activists, and environmentalists. Compare it to the Senate Resolution. (Note too that the Senate resolution cites the IPCC report... I'll send more on this body later.)

The Leap Manifesto was crafted by Naomi Klein and her husband, documentary filmmaker Avi Lewis (son of Canada’s former NDP leader Stephen Lewis). Klein is a Canadian author, social activist, capitalism critic, filmmaker, and 3-year appointee to the Gloria Steinem Chair in Media, Culture, and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University (NJ).

So, to sum up...

• The GND was an idea first mentioned by NYT writer Tom Friedman, referencing FDR's New Deal efforts, as a way to incentivize Americans to deal with energy and the environment 
• Barack Obama made it a Democratic Party platform in 2008 but later abandoned it
• The Canadians drafted the Leap Manifesto (asserting that a "leap" was necessary because things were so awful)
• The American Senate Democrats created a resolution that it was the duty of the Federal government to create a Green New Deal. 

As always, I welcome your comments.

Jim Castiglia, Founder 
Business Street Fighter Consulting, LLC
919-263-1256
http://www.BSF.Consulting