Sen. Edward Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced a non-binding resolution to American Congress in 2019. It was “The Green New Deal,” a plan to deal with climate change by limiting greenhouse gas emissions and move away from fossil fuels. Conservation and clean renewable energy were to be promoted.

Marky and Ocasio-Cortez reintroduced the resolution in 2023, along with an implementation guide.

According to the New York Times, the GND proposal had been “trumpeted by its supporters as the way to avoid planetary destruction, and vilified by opponents as a socialist plot to take away your ice cream.”

I have been reading Stan Cox’s 2020 book The Green New Deal and Beyond. In the Foreword, Noam Chomsky was blunt about “a true existential crisis.”

The threat of destruction of organized human life in any recognizable or tolerable form is entirely new. The environmental crisis underway is indeed unique in human history…j

Those alive today will decide the fate of humanity and the fate of the other species that we are now destroying at a rate not seen for over 65,000,000 years.

The world watches as we proceed toward a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. Israeli climatologist Baruch Rinkevich captures the general mood succinctly:

People don’t fully understand what we’re talking about here… They think about melting icebergs and polar bears who won’t have a home. They don’t understand that everything is expected to change. The air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, the landscapes we see, the oceans, the seasons, the daily routine, the quality of life. Our children will have to adapt or become extinct… We face a problem that cannot be ignored...

Oxford professor of physics Raymond Pierrehumbert opens his review of existing circumstances and options by writing, “With regard to the climate crisis, yes, it’s time to panic…We are in deep trouble.“

Stan Cox calls for the elimination of fossil fuels and limits to material consumption. He says governments, organizations, and individuals must make immediate changes to prevent catastrophic climate change. Cox is convincing when he argues that environmental protection should not be sacrificed to promote economic activity. The consequences are too severe.

We might not be at a crisis point if governments routinely applied the precautionary principle.. Its four central components:

• Take preventive action in the face of uncertainty,
• Shift the burden of proof to the proponents of an activity,
• Explore a wide range of alternatives to potentially harmful actions,
• Increase public participation in decision making.

In daily life, people often take precautions to reduce the possibility of harm. For example, we use car seat belts even though the risk of a crash-related injury is low. We do not speed through school zones because we think students are sitting in classrooms. We lock doors when leaving home even if burglaries are unknown in the neighbourhood.

By consensus, climate scientists believe that future restorative actions will be futile if policies followed today are insufficient. In our daily lives, we routinely limit or reduce potential harms. However, elected representatives choose not to apply the precautionary principle if they believe economic interests would be negatively affected.

Stan Cox is a prolific writer who contributes to TomDispatch. Check his work HERE.