3 tests the Green New Deal must pass to work

Energy systems change slowly, with heating oil still barged through river ice as one example. Yet there are signs of hope in a brash proposal for a “green new deal” on climate change.

This story was produced in partnership with the National Geographic Society.

As an array of recent surveys have shown, growing and increasingly bipartisan ranks of Americans want the government to act to limit human-driven climate change and help expand renewable energy sources like wind and solar.

But after three decades of incremental steps, with emissions of greenhouse gases rising again in the United States and around the world and impacts increasing, what new approaches can make a difference? How should they be paid for?

The climate conversation is now centered on a proposed “Green New Deal,” a massive federal push to cut emissions driving climate change and boost resilience and job prospects for America’s working class and poor communities.

The idea of a program on the scale

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