Green New Deal can save planet

Re “Climate and Community Protection Act will make N.Y. a climate leader” (June 17) : It’s understandable that with the total abdication of responsibility on the issue of the climate crisis in the White House and the GOP-controlled Senate, people have turned to local and state efforts to try to do something about it.

But let’s be clear: they will be too little too late. The international scientific community (IPCC) has made that clear. A new NPR report surveying experts from MIT to Stanford confirms that going “zero carbon” state by state won’t slow climate change (June 18). The IPCC says we need action that’s “rapid, farreaching and unprecedented.” “Far-reaching” means at least national in scale. That’s not an option until 2020, but we’ll need national legislation ready to go in early 2021.

We now have a new and detailed version of the Green New Deal’s energy plan from Washington Gov. Inslee, who’s focusing his presidential campaign on climate change. It’s called the Evergreen Economy Plan—a 38-page model for a Green New Deal-style energy bill.

It shows that over 8 million high-wage, local, permanent (40year) green jobs with good benefits will be created—jobs that can’t be outsourced. Critically, the plan could more than pay for itself. Two-thirds of the cost of a rapid national transitioning to renewable energy—$600 billion annually for a decade—will be paid for by private investment (vox.com).

The rest of the money—$300 billion annually for a decade— can come from the fossil fuel industry which knowingly caused the climate crisis and lied about it for decades (Scientific American, Fortune, New York Times, insideclimatenews.org, greenpeace.org).

There’s already a bill in Congress that can make that happen: H.R. 763, “Carbon Dividends.” You can see howit works at citizensclimatelobby.org. The Congressional Budget Office scoring shows it would add $350 billion annually to the US economy. Canada’s done this successfully for a decade (The Guardian).

A 2018 MIT study found that a Carbon Dividends plan would be more efficient and more cost effective than state and local zero-carbon commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In 2020 we need to elect a president and members of Congress that understand the urgency of the climate crisis and will approve a Green New Deal/Evergreen energy plan immediately.

This will not only prevent climate disasters but have massive economic benefits. Renewable energy, with storage, is nowas cheap or cheaper than any fossil fuel (Lazard). Rapidly scaling up solar and wind will make them “essentially free” by 2030 (Financial Times, UBS, Aug. 2018).

But without Green New Dealscale emissions cuts nationally, starting in 2021, we’re risking future climate disasters that will be “catastrophic,” (National Academy of Sciences), costing our economy over $160 trillion (Forbes, April 2019).

“The Green New Deal is affordable; the cost of inaction is incalculable” —Forbes.

Lynn Goldfarb, Lancaster, Pa.