Thread by @Noahpinion

OK, it's here! My sketch of an Alternative Green New Deal!!

Call it AGND.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

My Alternative Green New Deal has two main goals:

1. Actually doing the most we can to save the world from climate change

2. Increasing economic justice and equality in a way that definitely won't collapse our economy

First, climate change.

Reducing U.S. emissions is important, but if the rest of the world doesn't follow suit, we are BARBECUED. No two ways about it.

Therefore my AGND adds a lot of provisions for helping the rest of the world decarbonize.

First, we need a lot more focus on TECHNOLOGY.

Read this awesome thread to understand why:

https://twitter.com/ramez/status/1094132705988534272

The most important breakthroughs the world needs are carbon-free steel, carbon-free cement, and low-carbon agriculture.

To that end, my AGND would increase our green technology research budget by a factor of 100. That would make it similar to the NIH's budget.

Next, we need to scale up technologies that already exist - solar, batteries, etc. - and help private companies figure out how to make them more cheaply.

To do this, I borrow a page from the original GND. Subsidies and mandates.

Another thing on which the AGND and GND agree: Green infrastructure and retrofitting of buildings!

Remember, the point of pushing forward green technology is to spread it to the rest of the world, so poor countries can curb their own emissions without stopping their growth or impoverishing their people.

Here are some ways to do that!

In addition, for reducing domestic emissions, my AGND adds three things that the original GND lacked:
1. Density and land use incentives
2. Keeping nuclear plants going
3. A carbon tax and dividend

Now on to the mainly economic aspects of the AGND - the "New Deal" parts.

Like the original GND, my AGND would create lots of green jobs. The carbon dividend would also be payed out to poor people, to make the tax progressive instead of regressive...

Next, I'd add progressive priorities that aren't directly environmentally related but which will help our economy become both more just and more efficient: Government health care and cheaper college education.

The density incentives described earlier should include an affordable housing plan, similar to the one proposed by Elizabeth Warren:
theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

And although I omitted it from the Bloomberg post (which was getting a bit long), I would also like to include a plan for raising labor's share of corporate income - i.e. wages and employment - while supporting corporate productivity.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

Last but not least, my AGND includes one huge egalitarian policy that the GND does not: TAXES.

Raising taxes on the rich and well-off will mean we don't have to bet our entire economy on MMT being right.

Many people have said "If you want to criticize the Green New Deal, you need to come up with a better proposal."

Well, this is mine!

(end)

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…