I am a university professor & researcher specializing in the links between the environment, violence, and security. I endorse @AOC/@SenMarkey's #GreenNewDeal as realistic, necessary, and perhaps the most important policy proposal this country has seen in its history. Here’s why:
Decades of research from academia, civil society, and militaries around the world—including foremost the U.S. military—have developed a robust case about the multiplying problems, instabilities, and crises that are already resulting due to #climatechange.
Virtually all of the major problems contemporary security studies are multiplied and exacerbated by the effects of climate change: warmer temperatures are linked to drought, world food prices, worsening poverty, political instability, conflict, mass migration, and so much more.
Experts point to the war in Yemen and in Syria as early manifestations of how these factors collide, throwing settings that were already vulnerable and unstable into large-scale humanitarian crises. These are examples of what is to come in many more sites and in greater numbers.
Indeed, the humanitarian crises spilling out of Syria and Yemen—impacting many other geographic areas as a result—are almost certainly going to be replicated in numerous other places *even if* states around the world take bold steps in the crucial process of mitigation.
Projections are far worse if these issues are not confronted. The question is not between action or inaction, it is about how far we need to go, in as short a time as possible, to reduce some of this impending chaos from an all-out collapse of human societies and infrastructure.
Half-steps are not an option. The only serious lines of disagreement regard appropriate responses to these problems. For example, one line of thinking says: do we further militarize our borders and private access to food and water?
This would ensure that the wealthier segments of humanity can escape some immediate effects of these multiplying problems, but even they will be harmed by the collapse of economies in poorer parts of the world, with which rich countries are interdependent through trade & finance.
Furthermore, not everyone within rich countries’ militarized borders would be safe even in the short term: already there are many people suffering from exposure to pollution, food insecurity, health complications, and other issues directly linked to unsustainable resource use.
In addition to its human cost, the strategy of militarizing rich countries and treating them as “lifeboats” for the affluent might also be more expensive and less effective than the alternatives. Another proposal is to radically alter the way we consume energy and resources (…)
(…) especially in rich countries, and to respond to this effort in ways that synergistically help to mitigate some of the other social problems that are going to be worsened by climate change, (e.g., poverty, racial and gender inequities, economic stagnation, insecurity, etc.).
We can confront these linked issues by coordinating efforts to transform our relationship to nature with programs aimed at addressing exorbitant inequality, creating jobs, and improving access to public services, including healthcare and education, exactly as the #GND proposes.
This is by far the best way to address these interrelated problems: with a bold and far-reaching, yet at the same time realistic and attainable pathway to transform outdated systems and social problems into a more sustainable, equitable, and prosperous future for life on Earth.
This investment will generate jobs and economic security with immense benefits for working class, black and non-black people of color, and indigenous people across the country with immediate effects—not to mention its longterm chances at improving the protection of life on Earth.
Whether one’s concerns are #humanitarianism or #NationalsSecurity, this proposal addresses both in crucial, indispensable ways. A transition to fully #RenewableEnergy resources as quickly as possible is the bare minimum that we can do, and the proposal includes this requirement.
This is not only viable or necessary, but also an overwhelmingly popular proposal, most of all among younger generations—understandably, those who will be most affected by its benefits or the uncertainty caused in its absence. I endorse the #GreenNewDeal and so should you. #Peace
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