PRESS RELEASE: We Endorse The Green New Deal
SoCoCAN!
Sonoma County Climate Activist Network Endorses The Green New Deal
467 Sebastopol Ave, Santa Rosa, CA 95401
sonomac...@gmail.com
Sonoma County Climate Activist Network Endorses The Green New Deal
Santa Rosa, California
The Sonoma County Climate Activist Network (SoCoCAN!) supports and endorses the Green New Deal (GND) Resolution introduced to the House of Representatives by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and co-introduced by Senator Ed Markey. This resolution calls on the federal government to act responsibly by addressing the systems that are causing catastrophic climate change and increasing income inequality and social injustice. These are direct threats to the safety and security of people everywhere. The GND calls for a national mobilization modeled on the 1930s New Deal that will create millions of good, well paying jobs by switching to renewable energy, repairing and building new infrastructure, remodeling existing structures and guaranteeing access to clean water, air and food. This will involve transforming industrial agriculture by supporting family farms with sustainable practices that improve soil health. Special attention is given to front-line communities and indigenous communities, ensuring that their health and rights are protected. The GND proposal would ensure that everyone in the United States has 1) high quality health care, 2) affordable housing, 3) economic security, and 4) access to clean water, clean air, healthy food and nature.
The resolution outlines goals. The task of turning these goals into policy and initiatives lies with a Committee on the Climate Crisis, which has no legislative authority alone, and already existing committees in Congress that are working on legislation to address these issues.
The GND Resolution is supported by the Sunrise Movement and the Justice Democrats who call on all members of Congress to support the GND and refuse to take fossil fuel donations if they want to be supported in 2020 elections.
Actions to support the Green New Deal include: 1) Education: Talk to your friends, neighbors and community groups about its importance. A great deal of fake news will be distributed. Know your facts and counter misinformation. Tell folks how the GND will impact and improve their lives. 2) Support the progressives in Congress and do not allow the Democratic establishment to take all the air out of this initiative. Their inaction over the past ten years on climate change is unconscionable. 3) Let the committees in Congress that are turning the GND into policy proposals know your concerns. Let them know if there are important (and doable) issues. They should be informed about the carbon sequestering potentials of regenerative agriculture and agroforestry. Clear-cutting or thinning forests on a large scale to generate biomass energy is unsustainable, destroys soils, and has the net effect of releasing otherwise sequestered carbon into the atmosphere. It is impossible to make up for such carbon emissions by replanting. We recommend a primarily plant based diet. We are also concerned about nuclear power being seen as an alternative to fossil fuels. Although it may not create greenhouse gas emissions, the problem of nuclear waste has not been solved; for example plutonium-239, used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons, has a half-life of 24,000 years. 3) Support the Sunrise Movement. They are impressive. Ask them what you can do to support their efforts. These are the millennials and they are fighting all out for their future. 4) Propose that your group sign on to the GND. 5) Support public banking as a means to help finance the infrastructure development proposed by the GND. 6) Follow events and stay updated. So much is hanging in the balance, particularly after the United Nations Intergovernmental Report that informed us all that we have only twelve years to make this shift if we want to avoid utter catastrophe.
Thank you for taking up the hopeful and essential Resolution.
Sonoma County Climate Activist Network
467 Sebastopol Ave, Santa Rosa, CA 95401
sonomac...@gmail.com
707-595-0320 (email preferred)