Data for Progress

Posts in Green New Deal

The conversation around the Green New Deal has evolved since we last looked into it six weeks ago. Since then there have been refinements, Jay Inslee entered the 2020 field as an explicit climate change candidate, and we’ve found clear support for a range of Green New Deal policies. At the same time, the right has been attempting to use the Green New Deal as a cudgel against everything but climate change. This led to one of the strangest speeches on the Senate floor in a while.

We have reason to expect then that voters might have new thoughts on the Green New Deal, so in a survey with YouGov Blue we asked voters to describe it in their own words. The results show a lot of consistency among Democrats, but that Republicans and Fox News viewers are beginning to pick up on the new right-wing party line that has been hammered home since the plan’s rollout. Spoiler alert: there are lots of cows.

Green New DealGuest UserApril 16, 2019Climate

Transit and a Green New Deal

To avoid the worst effects of a warming planet, Americans can’t count on electric cars to clean up all of our transportation emissions. We also need better transit in our cities.

Models consistently show that electrifying the motor vehicle fleet will be necessary but not sufficient to achieve targets like net zero emissions by 2050. Only if we shift some travel from cars to transit can we decarbonize the transportation sector rapidly enough to fend off a rise in global temperatures greater than 1.5C.

The centrality of transit to effective climate policy aligns well with the goals of the Green New Deal, the ambitious framework to draw down American greenhouse gas emissions while advancing racial justice and economic fairness. Better transit will not only curb driving, it will reduce barriers to employment for low-income Americans and keep household transportation costs more manageable.

Green New DealGuest UserMarch 28, 2019Climate, Infrastructure, Economy

Six Graphs Show The Green New Deal Is A Winner

The political economy is lining up behind a Green New Deal, but support among Democrats and Republicans in the Senate seems to be lagging.

When U.S. Senator Ed Markey from Massachusetts introduced a resolution in the Senate calling for the creation of a Green New Deal in early February, it had 12 Democratic cosponsors, including Markey. In a month’s time, it still has...12 cosponsors. Opinion-makers will say that the seeminging untenable and tangential components of the resolution are keeping other Democrats away--the general commitments to universal healthcare, affordable housing, and economic security. Yet these goals are just that: aspirations of what the Federal government should aim to achieve for the country, not specific policy prescriptions that chain a Senator to vote they might regret in the future.

What is conveyed more concretely in the Green New Deal resolution is the large mobilization of federal resources to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels and toward clean, renewable, and carbon-free energy and create millions of new jobs in the process. This transition is not some “green pipe dream”; it’s actually underway and quite far along in some states.

Green New DealGuest UserMarch 7, 2019Climate

That "Green Dream, or Whatever They Call It"

The Green New Deal is likely one of the most talked about progressive political programs in a long time. The explosions of conversation about it on Twitter is clear, and with the introduction of Senator Markey and Representative Occasio-Cortez’s resolution there is now a clear focus on specific goals and plans. Recent Data for Progress / YouGov Blue polling has shown broad support for the resolution with 43 percent of Americans in support and 38 percent opposed, even when voters are told it will require tax hikes.

To dig deeper into why people are supporting or opposing the Green New Deal we asked Civis Analytics to survey 4,380 Americans and asked them if they support, oppose or are undecided about the Green New Deal and then followed up to ask why they had that position. To understand the responses we analyzed the results looking at what words were more common among supporters versus those who opposed plan. We again used the probabilistic model described here where each word was given a probability of being used for each group and then we look at the differences between the two groups.

Green New DealGuest UserFebruary 26, 2019Climate

Congressional Support for a Green New Deal

The most recent report from the IPCC states that we have about 12 years to halve greenhouse gas emissions to avoid devastating environmental and economic effects of the climate crisis. The IPCC’s conclusions suggest that we need an massive mobilization of resources to decarbonize our economy and build resilient communities, which is apparently considered more politically radical than the alternative of environmental destruction and large-scale human suffering.

Solutions such as a Green New Deal are gaining prominence however, and activists are leading the way. A Green New Deal is not necessarily a fixed set of policies (see our comprehensive policy blueprint), but in broad terms Green New Deal supporters hold the viewpoint that direct public investment in communities, infrastructure, and jobs programs should be the primary tool in the fight against climate change. A Green New Deal also must recognize that the costs of climate change will fall disproportionately on vulnerable communities and seek solutions that place the costs and benefits of decarbonization and resilience equitably.

Green New DealGuest UserDecember 11, 2018Climate, Infrastructure, Justice, Economy

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