 Welcome to Teens on Topic. I'm your host Emma Arnson, and today I'm joined by Grace Hoppe, Owen Carr, Yissa Shake. And today we have a little bit of a controversial topic, as pretty much always. We are talking about the Green New Deal, but before we get into it, let's see what the Davis adults have to say about it. I am standing out here, and I have a couple of friends who are Native American who have gone in to speak. And they have a letter here, which I would like to read, that talks about the impact of this on Native communities. Okay, we ask you to sign to the Green New Deal. It's important for the future of Mother Earth and our future generations that we deal with this important climate emergency so that the burden does not fall entirely on our children's children. Our ancestors taught us to think of everything in terms of how it will affect the next seven generations. Solutions such as the carbon tax and dividend will help to curb pollution by imposing taxes on polluters. We can use this tax money to provide green jobs and sustainable solutions to help heal the planet and begin mitigating the damage we humans have already caused. Our future children should not have to bear the cost of the terrifying and damaging effects of climate change exacerbated by our reliance on fossil fuels. And this is a very fine example of things going on all over the world, and that is that the wealthy developed countries have really created this crisis. And the people who are living in poverty all over the world are the ones who are going to be the most impacted. I think that it's going to be a lengthy process, and I'm projecting that it may be in the future because we are not going to give up. Even if the current Congress rejects it, we will probably still be fighting for it after that. Great. Thank you so much. That was very interesting seeing someone who's so passionate about a topic, even though it was not specifically what she said, I could tell obviously that she was one in favor of it and two that she really cared about the topic, but before we talk about what she said, Issa, do you want to explain what the Green New Deal is exactly? Yeah, so the Green New Deal is a resolution in both the Senate and the House introduced by freshman superstar, super famous Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York in Massachusetts under Ed Markey. It's been introduced in both houses. Basically, it outlines goals for Congress over the next 10 years, as is written in the resolution, to fight climate change as well as other things. It's all under the guise of climate justice, economic justice, social justice, everything that this new class, not the entirety of the class, but a portion of the new class of Congress has won elections on being really progressive. And so it's a non-binding resolution. It doesn't do anything. It's not going to create anything. But according to frequently asked questions document released by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's office, there are five goals that are expanded upon in the resolution. One is net zero greenhouse gas emissions. This is all over the next 10 years, which is kind of crazy. Net zero greenhouse gas emissions. Number one, number two, creating millions of highway jobs and ensuring prosperity and economic security for all. Number three, investing in infrastructure and industry to sustainably meet the challenges of the 21st century. Number four, clean air and water, climate and community resiliency, healthy food. Number five, promoting justice and equality by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression by frontline vulnerable communities. So you see it goes from climate all the way to themes that are found in the social justice movement. Like preventing oppression. Like, I don't know. This kind of confuses me just because it goes from, hey, let's do something to help stop climate change or whatever. And then it's like, oh, okay, now in the same thing to stop climate change, let's also stop oppression, you know, just because while we're at it. Like, also we talked about this a little bit. It's the thing about a resolution, a non-binding like thing that they're doing, just makes, in my opinion, makes no sense. It's like, okay, Congress, why waste your time just doing something, hey, just because why not? Well, you could use your time to actually vote on a law that would make a difference for the country. I think one thing is people might want them to take a stance and have their views on a subject put out so that individual supporting them or individuals opposing them could have something to say, like, you support this, whether it's good or bad, possibly. But couldn't that just be done like on a personal level instead of the whole entirety of Congress doing it? I agree. There's probably different ways for them to handle it and put more positive movement towards an issue. So if they did want to do more steps towards fixing climate change, if that's something they believe in, I do think that there's a different way to do that than having a resolution that's not going to do anything. I think the resolution could be helpful. I mean, I don't know any specifics on how it would be helpful and to be fair, I don't know a lot about the Green New Deal. But I think that just having a stance of, like, hey, this is a serious issue that we need to address, I think it's important to have, especially when certain members that are heading the United States might have an opinion that is slightly against it. I think when there is a thing that comes out that we're like, yeah, we believe in climate change, we think it's wrong. We think that there should be something done about it that I think that could be helpful, especially when people are like, oh, okay, the United States is doing it and might persuade other countries. I agree. I think opening conversation and having stances is a good way to start anything. I think, sure, it's great to start a conversation with a stance. I think that this is 100% the wrong stance. The Green New Deal is radical as we outlined with the Five of Things. It's physically impossible to get to net zero emissions in 10 years. You see the leading proponent of the bill, Alexander Hazyokorto, saying at some convention that we only have 12 years left. So the lady in our video who was reading the letter said, we can't leave it up to our children's children. No, AOC is saying that we can't leave it up to ourselves in 12 years. So there's a lot of, I mean, she is a neophyte, right? This is all new. But the fact that this has gotten widespread acceptance from the Democratic Party without really setting out to do any of this stuff, to me, it's seen as a political move. But it also shows me the danger in what these guys are talking about because if you're looking at the FAQ, let me just back up and talk about the FAQ because there is some controversy around this. This document, which is right here, was released by the Office of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on their website and to National Public Radio. And people on Twitter had a great day reading through it because throughout the thing they talk about, at one point they say we won't be able to stop cows from farting that much in the next two years. And at one point it talks about guaranteeing prosperity for those unwilling, sorry, unable or unwilling to work. And so the Office of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came out with a variety of reasons as in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez kind of misled us in a tweet saying this was, people are putting out fake versions, which they were, but as jokes following this, she was trying to leave it like, oh, that's fake too. And then there was this thing about, oh, that was premature. We didn't mean to put it out. And then finally they were like, oh yeah, we put it out. But it was a mistake and we're going to change this. However, I do think it's important to look at that FAQ because when you look at the dry bill, despite its radicalness, it looks like a bill. So you're not going to understand how bonkers this idea is. And so if you're going to talk about solutions that are moving off of specifically carbon emissions, people have proposed carbon taxes, which that's a controversial proposal in itself. But they're saying, oh no, you can't, the FAQ says, no, you can't simply tax gas and it's not part of the resolution either. You can't just tax gas. You have to subsidize all these alternative markets, which we've seen when power subsidies have been a horrible waste of money for the federal government. Nuclear is not a part of the Green New Deal, despite the fact that nuclear energy is one of the most effective ways to create energy without emissions. And there's this whole talk that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been talking about since her primary against Joe Crowley about FDR and great things being done. And so you really see this as the messaging as sort of like a war, right? A war for the world, not ending in 12 years. The idea that we're in such a crisis is something that goes back to FDR, right? So FDR during World War II, that's when government has most expanded power, right, when people are willing. When you're in a state of war, the country goes together and we're willing to create these massive programs. And I think it's interesting how they're talking about the Eisenhower and the Freeway and FDR and the number of planes built during World War II and the New Deal, which is the name of the resolution as a reference to. But personally I think this is a horrible, horrible idea a radical one that totally, it talks about remodeling every building in the United States. How is the government going to force everybody to remodel their buildings? I think it's just a plot line in the timeline of the Democratic Party getting more and more radical in fighting individual rights and private property basically, right? Because she calls herself a Socialist a Democratic Socialist. But I don't know how you guys feel about this. Do you know what the party, like, you mentioned that they wanted to have, hey, everyone remodeled their buildings. What can the buildings be, like, remodeled to that would make it more, like, better for the environment? Right, so like eco-friendly, right? So you're going to have, I don't know, recycling bins. Like solar panels, I'm assuming. Yeah, solar panels, stuff like that. Again, this is not law at all. It's just stuff that's been put out there. I mean, that's not really, like, an actual, like, remodeling, though. Like, just adding a new, I guess, way of getting energy to the building. That's not, like, remodeling the building entirely. Like, hey, we should make this more aerodynamic or whatever. Well, I, like, I haven't read it, but from how it was explained to me is that, like, different aspects of the building will be changed. I kind of just assumed solar panels were an aspect of it, but I think it's also having to do with how, like, energy would be kept in the building. Like, make sure that, like, heat couldn't get out as easily. Just to, like, save energy on that sort of aspect. But I don't think, again, that's definitely a pretty radical idea of forcing every building in the United States. Yeah, I think what the goal of this is really to, I mean, it's not a goal because it's not, like, a real action, but what it is is we're going to basically reorder the entirety of American society, right? Because we're going to take people out of jobs in, I mean, the resolution, the resolution talks about, the FAQ talks about having high speed, the resolution talks about having high speed rail throughout the nation, which, it makes a lot of sense, right, to have high speed rail going through Wyoming. Sorry, sarcasm. It's really not something that works. We see in California, days after this FAQ is released, that even from Bakers, even from Bakers Field to Los Angeles, it's hard to have high speed rail. And so we're going to move people out of these things. We're going to have tons and tons of federal spending. We're going to give them new jobs, remodeling houses, and turning the entire place green. And the idea that this is the crisis of our day, it makes sense if you really believe that, but Democrats have had power in the last 10 years. I mean, since the 1980s, I've been told that the world is ending in 30 years and 20 years. And yet, whenever Democrats have had majorities, they've done nothing, right? In 2010, Ed Markey, who's the sponsor of this in the Senate, did a sort of a cap and trade effort. And that's, a lot of pollsters have attributed that as part of the widespread losses in the midterms. So this is not a politically savvy thing once you get to your general elections. This is pushed by a fringe in the Democratic Party, and it's becoming accepted by the mainstream in that party. But once you win your primary, or once you win a district in New York, it doesn't mean that you're going to be able to win larger swaths of the American public, which you're trying to persuade, right? You're not just trying to stick to your New York 14 bubble. The thing that confuses me about this really is, you mentioned that it's named after FDR's New Deal, which was put a bunch of organizations in place to help in a way control the economy while the Great Depression was happening. But this, I don't think it's right to have it named after that because it's not really doing anything. It's more of just like, hey, there's this issue and let's do something about it, but it's not actually doing anything about it. It's just outlining stuff that needs to be done. A much better idea would probably pick one thing, like as much coal as being used. I don't know the exact numbers or anything, like how much is being used. But monitor how much coal is being used in general, and try to find out a way to, I guess, cut down on the amount of that, and I guess focus on putting laws into that, like one issue at a time, instead of just going, well, the environment's changing. Let's change it all at once without it doing actually anything. Well, I think a couple points on that, right? So the FDR's New Deal, it was a bunch of laws, right? So I think what they're trying to do is they're going to outline this now and then within the next couple of years, within the next couple of terms, implement parts and parts of this. And then on your coal thing, I think the Obama administration really did a lot of that, right with the Clean Power Plan. They put a lot of coal mines out of jobs, coal miners out of jobs. And I think it's not great, we don't see great results on the government, does intrude into the market like this. Coal is already on its way out. It's not necessary for the government to go in and start taking away people's jobs, destroying communities in places like West Virginia, which are heavily reliant, Pennsylvania. I don't think it's necessary for government to get up on this hype. We want an election, so we're going to completely reorder society in places where we've never been to, right? We're going to just completely rearrange everything that happens in West Virginia sitting here from D.C. There's a lot of this sort of technocratic looking from above elitism, hidden in this, I think. Yeah, like when you mentioned like coal is already on its way out or whatever, the government is trying to control it more. That reminds me of like one specific organization in the New Deal, the AAA, the American something, I don't know. I actually know what's called the abbreviated to the AAA, and what it did is the government paid farmers to kind of, hey, don't plant crops. And so there's less crops, people will start paying more for them, so it'll boost the economy. And they were essentially trying to control supply and demand. And eventually that was like considered the biggest failure of the New Deal. Like, hey, this didn't work at all. It paid a bunch of people to not do anything, essentially. And it essentially rewarded people for not doing anything. And like controlling supply and demand, which was not the best idea. And that was one of the organizations that did fail. Yeah, I think that's definitely some of the things in the Green New Deal, right? So the FAQ asked about cap and trade, which is what Ed Markey pushed. It's somewhat market-based. It's somewhat supply and demand-based. And the resolution says, no, we're not going to do cap and trade because that assumes that the market, when we talk about the market, we're really talking about the people are going to do this by themselves. We need state, the resolution is basically the same. We need state interference into basically what people do with their lives to control this huge crisis, which I think is climate change is an issue. It's caused significantly by humans. But there's definitely, it's definitely being overblown by people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey, who I just want to plug here. Ed Markey, despite his, he's known for climate change and then for being an anti-roller coaster advocate. Let's just take everything he says with a grain of salt. Well, thank you all for being on the show with me today. I think we talked a lot of interesting things about the New Deal. I know it'll be interesting to see how the New Deal changes or how, or excuse me, the Green New Deal. How it, if it has any effect, if it passes. What's going to happen? So I'll keep my eyes out and maybe we'll have another episode on this. But tune in next time to watch another exciting episode of Teens on Topic.