Who Would Support A Green New Deal?

I love, love, love the idea of a Green New Deal. I haven't been this loved up since I first discovered Game of Thrones. It's not a new idea - Colin Hines convened the Green New Deal Group back in 2007, for example - but it is an idea whose time has come.

Who has a reason to buy into it? Ultimately, everyone does, but I'm going to make a non-exhaustive list of groups whom I expect to get behind this in the short-term. It's after midnight here and this is just from the top of my head, so I won't hurt your head by giving you too much to read.

On the employment side

The unemployed - anyone who's unemployed or under-employed and wants a job or more working hours would clearly feel the benefits immediately as a national job guarantee program is the backbone of the Green New Deal. I've blogged about an MMT-style national job guarantee multiple times and the economics adds up. It's also fairly easy to understand.

Anyone who cares about mental health - long-term unemployment has strong links to mental health issues, including suicide. The Australian & New Zealand Mental Health Association published an article I wrote in which I said that the government can and should create jobs when the private sector can't afford to (or won't).

The union movement - they should be the primary advocates for this as it gives them leverage in negotiations if their members can walk out of one job and straight into another.

Politicians - this ought to be a no-brainer if ever there was one! Whomever implements this in your country is going to win every election for the rest of their career, unless they do something outrageous (though the bar for that has been set extremely high, lately). Europe? Is anyone there?

Small/medium sized businesses - if money goes into the hands of people who've been unemployed, it means that more money is available to be spent on the kinds of things that small businesses provide. Eventually, everyone wins, thanks to trickle-up economics.

Students - that first full-time job after graduating is the toughest one to get (until you hit 50 and realise the massive bias against your age group). In parts of Australia, which is still considered to be a wealthy country, around 25% of young working-age people are unemployed. If you want to protect your future, make noise now!

On the climate change side

NGOs ought to be making this their top priority. And not just the environmental NGOs - anyone who deals with human rights, health, poverty... there's enormous scope for coalition building.

Farmers - the benefits for farmers are too numerous to go into here. However, just to give you an example, imagine that trees that like endo-michorrysal fungi get planted nearby to a farm that's growing crops that also like endo-michorrysal fungi. For those of you who aren't into things like permaculture, it's enough to know that this would result in a soil-food web that would increase of nutrients that are available to the crops (so long as the farmers don't use fungicides).

On the energy security side

Capitalists - we're on the brink of another global recession, even though we haven't finished with the last one. When it happens, investors will become bearish... except for green investors. The financial services sector knows that greenies will always invest in their cause, regardless of what else is happening, and there's a large, growing pool of money available. A Green New Deal would require spending on renewable energy technologies, so manufacturers in that area would become the darlings of people who don't like to work for a living.

NGOs - I know that I already mentioned them under climate change, but when countries like the United States have energy security, they're far, far less likely to start wars in order to secure access to oil. Anyone who advocates peace should be screaming from the rooftops for a Green New Deal.

It's just after 3am here, so I think I'll call it quits. You'll probably be able to come up with a much longer list.