In 2019, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats, announced the Green New Deal as a significant policy issue. As reported in the New York Times, House Resolution 109, a non-binding agreement, "calls on the federal government to wean the United States from fossil fuels and curb planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions across the economy. It also aims to guarantee new high-paying jobs in clean energy industries."
In April 2021, The Red Nation released The Red Deal, arguing that the cause of climate disaster cannot be the solution. In this case, one of the primary causes of the climate crisis and the destruction of mother Earth is the rapacious logic of extractive capitalism, an economic, political, social, and cultural perspective that the earth, minerals, animals, and water, should be dominated, monetized, and sold to the highest bidder.
"One-part visionary platform, one-part practical toolkit, The Red Deal is a platform that encompasses everyone, including non-Indigenous comrades and relatives who live on Indigenous land. We—Indigenous, Black and people of color, women and trans folks, migrants, and working people—did not create this disaster, but we have inherited it. We have barely a decade to turn back the tide of climate disaster. It is time to reclaim the life and destiny that has been stolen from us and rise up together to confront this challenge and build a world where all life can thrive. Only mass movements can do what the moment demands. Politicians may or may not follow—it is up to them—but we will design, build, and lead this movement with or without them."
"The Red Nation is a coalition of Native and non-Native activists, educators, students, and community organizers advocating Native liberation that formed to address the marginalization and invisibility of Native struggles within mainstream social justice organizing, and to foreground the targeted destruction and violence towards Native life and land."
Several media outlets have covered the Red Deal, including Teen Vogue and Jacobin. You can listen to an interview on Democracy Now with two members of The Red Nation who are also authors of the manifesto.
Check out the Heritage Foundation article for a contrasting perspective that allows for a more nuanced discussion with folks who do not believe climate change is real, human-made, or a threat and look to capitalism to save us.
