“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
That that quality has been lost is the unavoidable takeaway from three weeks of debate over the Green New Deal introduced in Congress by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Sen. Edward J. Markey. The GND is not a proposed law, but a non-binding resolution calling for a top-to-bottom restructuring of U.S. social, economic and environmental policy. It is, in other words, a list of goals.
Granted, they are very big goals, including: supplying all of America's power needs through clean, renewable and zero-emission energy sources and retrofitting every building in the country for maximum energy efficiency within 10 years; providing universal access to higher education and health care; ending the oppression of people of color, the poor and other marginalized populations; guaranteeing a job with paid vacation and a livable wage to every American.