To the Editor:
Re “Is Nancy Pelosi a Climate Skeptic?” (column, Feb. 16):
Bret Stephens presents us with a fake binary choice. Either we gear up to fight climate change as if it were an alien invasion, placing capitalism in jeopardy, or we treat it as a “real but manageable problem” like global poverty, worthy of patient resolution. He urges us to make our peace with patient resolution.
The Green New Deal’s authors are doing us a favor by refusing to sugarcoat the need for fundamental change in the way we run our lives and fuel our economy. President Trump’s defiant embrace of fossil fuels is an insult to common sense and global decency, but even President Barack Obama’s policy reforms left gas-guzzling cars on our roads, leaky homes throughout our towns and cities, and industries with their energy-wasteful operations unchecked.
We have lost too much time pretending that climate change can be dealt with gradually, if at all. The Green New Deal rightly demands that we rise to the urgency of this challenge.
Philip Warburg
Newton, Mass.
The writer is a nonresident senior fellow at Boston University’s Institute for Sustainable Energy.
To the Editor:
Re “How the Left Embraced Elitism,” by David Brooks (column, Feb. 12):
To suggest that a Green New Deal will evolve into a colossal government-owned enterprise controlling most aspects of our economy and run by bureaucrats housed in Pentagon-size offices is reactionary. This doesn’t even happen in China anymore.
A Green New Deal will be enabled by the government just as it has enabled every modern high-tech industry today: by funding (military technology, the space program), by direct purchases (supercomputers, semiconductors), by market subsidies (wind power, solar power, electric vehicles), by technology transfer out of government labs and programs (the internet, genomics, satellites), and the list goes on.
The government doesn’t build things; private industries do, and they reap the commercial benefit. There are thousands of start-up companies commercializing technologies in which the underlying research and development have been funded by the government, and there could be thousands more engaged in a Green New Deal if the government undertakes it.
John Fairborn
Newport Beach, Calif.
To the Editor:
Re “One Cheer for the Green New Deal” (column, Feb. 10):
Before Ross Douthat dismisses carbon taxes as falling “heavily on the working class,” he should study the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act just introduced in Congress, to almost no fanfare.
It will reduce emissions more than the Paris agreement or President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan; it requires no big government spending; and it already has generated bipartisan support.
The critical difference between this legislation and other carbon tax proposals is that all fees collected would be returned directly to American households each month. Most of the working class will actually come out ahead if this legislation passes.
It’s a Green New Deal right under our noses!
Laura Schumacher
San Diego
To the Editor:
Ross Douthat’s patronizing take on the ambitions of the Green New Deal misses the most critical point: Scientists agree that humanity has a very short window in which to transform our systems of generating and using energy.
The alternative is stronger, more frequent hurricanes, droughts, floods, famines and wildfires, costing lives and livelihoods on a global scale.
If this doesn’t call for great ambition, what does?
Sarah Richardson
New York
Source: Read Full Article
Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | Is the Green New Deal a Good Deal?
Opinion | Is the Green New Deal a Good Deal?
To the Editor:
Re “Is Nancy Pelosi a Climate Skeptic?” (column, Feb. 16):
Bret Stephens presents us with a fake binary choice. Either we gear up to fight climate change as if it were an alien invasion, placing capitalism in jeopardy, or we treat it as a “real but manageable problem” like global poverty, worthy of patient resolution. He urges us to make our peace with patient resolution.
The Green New Deal’s authors are doing us a favor by refusing to sugarcoat the need for fundamental change in the way we run our lives and fuel our economy. President Trump’s defiant embrace of fossil fuels is an insult to common sense and global decency, but even President Barack Obama’s policy reforms left gas-guzzling cars on our roads, leaky homes throughout our towns and cities, and industries with their energy-wasteful operations unchecked.
We have lost too much time pretending that climate change can be dealt with gradually, if at all. The Green New Deal rightly demands that we rise to the urgency of this challenge.
Philip Warburg
Newton, Mass.
The writer is a nonresident senior fellow at Boston University’s Institute for Sustainable Energy.
To the Editor:
Re “How the Left Embraced Elitism,” by David Brooks (column, Feb. 12):
To suggest that a Green New Deal will evolve into a colossal government-owned enterprise controlling most aspects of our economy and run by bureaucrats housed in Pentagon-size offices is reactionary. This doesn’t even happen in China anymore.
A Green New Deal will be enabled by the government just as it has enabled every modern high-tech industry today: by funding (military technology, the space program), by direct purchases (supercomputers, semiconductors), by market subsidies (wind power, solar power, electric vehicles), by technology transfer out of government labs and programs (the internet, genomics, satellites), and the list goes on.
The government doesn’t build things; private industries do, and they reap the commercial benefit. There are thousands of start-up companies commercializing technologies in which the underlying research and development have been funded by the government, and there could be thousands more engaged in a Green New Deal if the government undertakes it.
John Fairborn
Newport Beach, Calif.
To the Editor:
Re “One Cheer for the Green New Deal” (column, Feb. 10):
Before Ross Douthat dismisses carbon taxes as falling “heavily on the working class,” he should study the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act just introduced in Congress, to almost no fanfare.
It will reduce emissions more than the Paris agreement or President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan; it requires no big government spending; and it already has generated bipartisan support.
The critical difference between this legislation and other carbon tax proposals is that all fees collected would be returned directly to American households each month. Most of the working class will actually come out ahead if this legislation passes.
It’s a Green New Deal right under our noses!
Laura Schumacher
San Diego
To the Editor:
Ross Douthat’s patronizing take on the ambitions of the Green New Deal misses the most critical point: Scientists agree that humanity has a very short window in which to transform our systems of generating and using energy.
The alternative is stronger, more frequent hurricanes, droughts, floods, famines and wildfires, costing lives and livelihoods on a global scale.
If this doesn’t call for great ambition, what does?
Sarah Richardson
New York
Source: Read Full Article