So, over the past few days, I've studied 7 climate change plans. Joe Biden's original build back better plan, the inflation reduction act that ended up passing, Pete Buttigieg's plan, Bernie Sander's plan, Elizabeth Warren's plan, Andrew Yang's plan, and Howie Hawkins plan, and I think I've made a decision on which ones I like best.
The articles were mostly just my initial reactions to them, and as you can tell, I may have some biases. In some cases, these biases corrected themselves as I got a general idea of what the spectrum of opinions are, but in other cases, they intensified.
Before we get started, I want to once again address the elephant in the room: what the target is. We often here that 2030 is the point of no return for climate change, and that if we don't get it under control by then, we're DOOMED, DOOMED I tell you. This kind of rhetoric spooked me so much it was one of the reasons I dropped Yang and backed Bernie in 2020, thinking the green new deal was necessary for the future.
But, having a more educated opinion, I kind of see this rhetoric as misleading and alarmist. Leftists really pushed the idea that we need a massive mobilization of resources NOW and solve the problem completely by 2030, often pushing climate plans that are in the ballpark of 10-20x more expensive than other more moderate candidates in the process, and honestly, after researching the issue more, I'm not convinced by this rhetoric after all. Let's actually law down the law of the land on what these standards actually mean. According to the IPCC, which is where most get this date, we need to get our emissions halved by 2030, and we need to be net zero by 2050.
Technically, all of the plans except MAYBE the inflation reduction act meets this standard, although the inflation reduction act comes close, reducing emissions by 40% by 2030. And, I'm going to be honest. I know the left loves to romanticize the green new deal, because they tend to romanticize the 1930s and mass mobilizations of money to create jobs, and see the solution to America's problems as a massive public works program, but I am not big on this. I am not a jobist. I am an anti work indepentarian, who believes that jobs are a means to an end, not an end in itself. If we NEED to create that many jobs to solve climate change and save the planet, so be it, but if we can solve the problem and meet the goal with an order of magnitude less money and resources, I'd rather do that.
Don't get me wrong, I believe we NEED to fix this. This is very important for the future of the planet, and the species, but we should not buy into alarmist rhetoric to buy a vision that quite frankly competes with and is mutually exclusive with my own. If we go a full green new deal, it may make UBI, or Medicare for all functionally unaffordable. And yes, I know Hawkins has a "UBI" plan on top of the green new deal, but it's basically an NIT plan that likely will be severely underfunded unless he forces people to work in his jobs program. We all know where his priority is, and he is just paying lipservice to UBI. While I gave his UBI as passing grade, it could quickly lose points and fail if I were to find out that he does indeed plan to not make it universal and force people into the work force. It's really in a precarious spot and I don't trust it.
If we want a true, fully funded UBI, it's gonna cost more than his entire green new deal. And that means we would need to go more moderate on the green new deal, or healthcare, or both. And since climate is merely my 4th priority, not my first, it's quite clear where I'm putting my effort.
The fact is, as long as the sausage is made, and the stuff that needs to be done gets done, I don't really care that much here. I just want the easiest way to the desired result. And more moderate plans seem to still meet the desired guidelines of achieving 1.5C of warming or less, so I will pursue those.
That said, Bernie's, Warren's, and Hawkins' plans are out for me.
As far as the four remaining ones....honestly, I liked Yang's and Biden's the best. I know I give Biden a lot of crap as president, but he basically took Bernie's plan and made it workable. He had the same overall goals as Bernie, but he was able to reduce costs by nearly 90% and still meet the goals. While I don't agree with every priority of his since he still went the green new deal direction, meaning he had some pork and fixation with job creation in it, it's a solid, well rounded plan.
But for me, Yang's really took my heart. Honestly, I wish Yang would have stuck to his original 2020 platform. He had so many good ideas in it, and his climate change was very much aligned with my goals. Of the "moderate" 2050 proposals, it actually seemed to be the most progressive, costing a full 40% more than Biden's plan, and it covered all of the bases. And while it did create jobs do, it seemed to do it more in line with the whole "these jobs need to be done" sort of way. He also had a lot of creative and innovative solutions other candidates didn't have, and a lot more focus on mitigating circumstances rather than just being like "everything will be fine". He's right, we're warming now, climate plans are about damage control somewhat. We're about limiting the damage, and that's what Yang is trying to do. Mitigate future damage, but also prepare the country for current problems that will only get worse before they get better. I admit, some of his ideas seem a little too science fictiony like space mirrors to reflect sunlight back into space, but hey, the dude's trying.
As far as the others. Buttigieg's plan wasn't BAD, but it did seem a bit weaker and more lacking than Biden or Yang's plan, and seemed more blah to me. It met the standards, but it felt the weakest of the 6.
And then we get to the inflation reduction act that actually passed. I'm almost tempted to say "wow, this is worthless!". it isn't really. Even this is supposed to reduce emissions by 40% by 2030, but really. We got the bare minimum of the bare minimum with this one. The sheer dollar amount is roughly 1/5 of Biden's original plan. Which was 1/10 of what Bernie's green new deal was. I guess I should thank Bernie moving the issue as left as he did because otherwise we wouldn't have gotten anything at all, but getting 2% of what we originally set out to get is insulting. Build Back Better was a solid framework. It was probably my second favorite of the plans. But getting it reduced to just a few tax credits here and there felt almost insulting.
Clearly, there is still work to do, and we're going to need to pass a real climate plan in the future to actually meet the 2050 standard. I really wish we could've had Biden's original plan, or even better president Yang passing his plan along side a UBI. But, you know what they say, the opposite of progress is congress.
But seriously, screw Manchin and Sinema. This falls almost completely on them, on top of the GOP and their normal inaction. The planet is burning and they're playing politics. I'm not going to do the gatekeepy left thing I sometimes do and say we need to go all the way to Bernie's Green new Deal. But BBB WAS the compromise. And it was a darned good one. We only got 1/5 of THAT. It's insulting. I don't blame Biden here. He tried. But Joe Manchin, yeah screw that guy.
Anyway. At least I know where I truly stand, and I feel like I researched the issue to the point that I can have a solid position on it. Build Back Better was based, Yang's plan was even better, but can settle for BBB. The left's calls for a green new deal? Yeah, no, I'm going full centrist wing of the party on this one. We don't really NEED a green new deal and given this is the left's preferred alternative to a UBI...yeah no. Hard pass. Again, I don't romanticize massive jobs programs. I just wanna do what we need to do to solve the problem and move on. I feel far more at home working on UBI and healthcare policy than this. But it does need to be done and I support a progressive program that does what we need to do.
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