The health and economic crisis that is the coronavirus COVID-19 is just a glimpse of what the coming Climate Crisis looks like. As devastating as this crisis is it affords economies around the world a recovery investment opportunity in the future if they are forward looking enough to take it.
So in the United States should economic recovery investments that are surely coming go to airlines, oil companies, meat producers or other carbon heavy industries? If no. Then where?
“... Transportation analyst Alon Levy estimates that for about €60 billion,Germany could build a comprehensive high-speed rail network that would better connect all its major cities and make domestic air travel obsolete. …” Source: Coronavirus’s threat to the global economy — and what to do about it, by Matthew Yglesias. (https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2020/3/9/21167391/coronavirus-economy-stimulus-recession?fbclid=IwAR29Kn78elTwBiJSHQhy3yH-L1ccr2AUONPxTXUlRxzFgzfxy1CF4kleHQM)
What if in the United States the billions of tax and deficit spending dollars that our government is going to allocate to meet this healthcare and economic crisis go to financing and implementing the Green New Deal?
Green New Deal offers all we need as a guide book for a COVID-19 national recovery strategy: (excerpt)
“... Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that - (1) it is the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal (A) to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers; (B) to create millions of good, high-wage jobs and ensure prosperity and economic security for all people of the United States; (C) to invest in the infrastructure and industry of the United States to sustainably meet the challenges of the 21st century; (D) to secure for all people of the United States for generations to come - (i) clean air and water; (ii) climate and community resiliency: (iii) healthy food; (iv) access to nature; and (v) a sustainable environment; and (E) to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth … (O) providing all people of the United States with - (i) high-quality health care; ...” As stated in H.Res.109 - Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal. 116th Congress (2019-2020) Source: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-resolution/109/text
You can effect how our government meets this crisis by speaking out, how you spend your money and how you vote. What will it be? To build a new future or prop up a house of cards that climate change will just blow away?
Bernard Re, Jr.
North Canaan, CT
So in the United States should economic recovery investments that are surely coming go to airlines, oil companies, meat producers or other carbon heavy industries? If no. Then where?
“... Transportation analyst Alon Levy estimates that for about €60 billion,Germany could build a comprehensive high-speed rail network that would better connect all its major cities and make domestic air travel obsolete. …” Source: Coronavirus’s threat to the global economy — and what to do about it, by Matthew Yglesias. (https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2020/3/9/21167391/coronavirus-economy-stimulus-recession?fbclid=IwAR29Kn78elTwBiJSHQhy3yH-L1ccr2AUONPxTXUlRxzFgzfxy1CF4kleHQM)
What if in the United States the billions of tax and deficit spending dollars that our government is going to allocate to meet this healthcare and economic crisis go to financing and implementing the Green New Deal?
Green New Deal offers all we need as a guide book for a COVID-19 national recovery strategy: (excerpt)
“... Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that - (1) it is the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal (A) to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers; (B) to create millions of good, high-wage jobs and ensure prosperity and economic security for all people of the United States; (C) to invest in the infrastructure and industry of the United States to sustainably meet the challenges of the 21st century; (D) to secure for all people of the United States for generations to come - (i) clean air and water; (ii) climate and community resiliency: (iii) healthy food; (iv) access to nature; and (v) a sustainable environment; and (E) to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth … (O) providing all people of the United States with - (i) high-quality health care; ...” As stated in H.Res.109 - Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal. 116th Congress (2019-2020) Source: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-resolution/109/text
You can effect how our government meets this crisis by speaking out, how you spend your money and how you vote. What will it be? To build a new future or prop up a house of cards that climate change will just blow away?
Bernard Re, Jr.
North Canaan, CT
This Stimulus Bill Will Not Save the Economy From Collapse
ReplyDeleteBy Robert Kuttner
March 22, 2020
The need for a Green New Deal can rendezvous with the imperative of anti-depression public investment. Much of this sweeping proposal is on the drawing boards and has not been done for lack of funding. Some of it will take some advance planning. The time to start is now.
All of this will add up to several trillion dollars. But do the arithmetic. Total output in 2019 was about $21.4 trillion. If G.D.P. falls by 20 percent — less than the 30 percent that it fell between 1929 and 1933 — that’s an annual loss of over $4 trillion of economic activity. This time, with government deliberately shutting down commerce, it could well fall faster. Only a World War II-scale response can make up that difference.
Where will government get the money? At a time when inflation is close to zero and the government can borrow for 30 years at less than 2 percent, this is precisely the moment to borrow to underwrite a recovery that also modernizes the economy.
The worst thing Congress and the Trump administration could do would be to chase a collapsing economy downward, with aid packages that are too modest at each step of the way, as Herbert Hoover did. We need to get ahead of this collapse now, and we have a superb model in the World War II mobilization.
Robert Kuttner is a co-editor of The American Prospect, a professor at Brandeis University’s Heller School and the author, most recently, of “The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy.”
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"The International Energy Agency, or IEA, has warned the virus will weaken global investments in clean energy and industry efforts to reduce emissions, and has called on governments to offer stimulus packages that consider climate change."
ReplyDeleteRead full article :
ENVIRONMENT
Air pollution falls as coronavirus slows travel, but scientists warn of longer-term threat to climate change progress
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/21/air-pollution-falls-as-coronavirus-slows-travel-but-it-forms-a-new-threat.html?fbclid=IwAR0wQq450c7B-bCb1nf2bOnmx2VqJuNk6yG2JbcGAmffEGT9Jkiv6gKbnPg
PUBLISHED SUN, MAR 22 2020 9:01 AM EDT
UPDATED SUN, MAR 22 2020 9:54 AM EDT
Emma Newburger
@EMMA_NEWBURGER