The Political Economy of Saving the Planet
Ratings6
Average rating3.8
Can capitalism survive climate change? Can humanity?
The environmental crisis under way is unique in human history. It is a true existential crisis. Those alive today will decide the fate of humanity. Meanwhile, the leaders of the most powerful state in human history are dedicating themselves with passion to destroying the prospects for organized human life. At the same time, there is a solution at hand, which is the Green New Deal. Putting meat on the bones of the Green New Deal starts with a single simple idea: we have to absolutely stop burning fossil fuels to produce energy within the next 30 years at most; and we have to do this in a way that also supports rising living standards and expanding opportunities for working people and the poor throughout the world. This version of a Green New Deal program is, in fact, entirely realistic in terms of its purely economic and technical features. The real question is whether it is politically feasible. Chomsky and Pollin examine how we can build the political force to make a global Green New Deal a reality.
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Robert Pollin (economist, and consultant/designer of many Green New Deal projects for countries/organizations) and Noam Chomsky in conversation, outlining a blueprint for a Global Green New Deal. They dig into the politics, policies and the financial side of things, in additional to forecasting the effects of climate change on our planet and societies.
It's good to see actual numbers, printed in black and white. And to realize that what they're proposing is only a fraction of the amount of public money that was spent to bail out the banks after the 2008 crash. I also quite liked the structure. Each of them could have written this book in essay form, but the ping pong interview dynamic, and the conversational tone made it more approachable.
They talk of a ‘global' GND, but obviously there's still a huge focus on the US.
Of the many climate-crisis books out there, this is a more proactive, down-to-business one.