A Real Green New Deal Means Class Struggle

If we want a Green New Deal that can take on climate change, we need to challenge powerful business interests.

EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Moves To Repeal Clean Power Plan

A truck delivers coal to Pacificorp’s 1440 megawatt coal fired power plant on October 9, 2017 in Castle Dale, Utah.George Frey / Getty


On the morning of November 13, 2018, the Twitter account of the Sunrise Movement, a youth-based organization demanding a Green New Deal (GND), posted the following message:

BREAKING: we’ve begun a sit in inside @NancyPelosi’s office because @HouseDemocrats have failed our generation time and time again. They offer us a death sentence. We demand a #GreenNewDeal.

Joined by the Congresswoman-elect from New York’s 14th District, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the crowd of young activists occupying Pelosi’s office catapulted the idea of a Green New Deal into mainstream discussion. Unfortunately, just before Christmas, Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi brushed aside the proposal for a GND select committee and replaced it with a hollowed-out and toothless substitute.

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