A reporter is interviewing a candidate for office about the Green New Deal. The candidate offers some support, or makes a slightly positive remark. Then the question is, “But do you think these goals are achievable?” Gotcha. And we’re in a race for which reporter can be the most skeptical, and which candidate can be the most “realistic,” i.e. negative.
We have to move past this. We have to have goals. We have to think big. Media have to stop creating conflicts to feast on, and our representatives have to have the courage to say, “Yes. We can achieve this if we all work together. And if we don’t set big goals we will make no progress at all.” Senator Feinstein missed a recent opportunity to make more positive statements (see my February 26 2019 letter in the LA Times ). And Senator Klobuchar in her first Town Hall meeting on CNN worked too hard to sound “realistic” in contrast to what she called the “aspirational” goals of the Green New Deal. Embrace the goals, Senator, they are good goals.
We have to get rid of either-or thinking too that makes a false choice between instituting a carbon tax, or passing a giant bill for green jobs and investment in renewable energy. We have to do it all. Work on what we can get done right now, and still have the big goals and visions for the future.