Introduced in a congressional resolution by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D, Mass.), the Green New Deal offers a comprehensive response to the problem of global climate change. It has drawn a wide range of responses from both sides of the aisle, ranging from enthusiastic support to ridicule.

Let’s take a look at some of what the Green New Deal contains. Among its key goals are:

• Achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions;
  
• Creating millions of good, high-wage jobs, especially “green” and infrastructure jobs;
  
• Investing in the infrastructure and industry to meet the challenges of the 21st century;
  
• Securing clean air and water, healthy food, and a sustainable environment;
  
• Promoting justice and equity for indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, and other “frontline and vulnerable communities.”
  

Granted, at this point the Green New Deal is more a statement of principles than a detailed legislative program—a travel brochure rather than a road map. Specific laws will need to be enacted to reach its goals, and not all will necessarily be acted at once—if at all. Still, it’s hard to deny that climate change is a world-wide threat to health, agriculture, property values, political stability, economic growth—indeed, almost every area of human life. According to the recent United Nations report on climate, drastic and immediate action is needed to prevent radical changes by the year 2050—within the lifetime of many who are reading this.

As a program to combat global climate change, the Green New Deal faces the skepticism of those who deny climate change and the opposition of those who see the proposed solutions as attacking the fundamentals of capitalism. It also faces the more measured doubts of those who question whether its economic and social proposals have anything to do with its announced purpose of reversing a trend that threatens the very survival of the world as we know it. And, as noted, it remains a set of goals rather than a detailed legislative program. A lot remains to be worked out.

But to most of us, it is clear that action to preserve our environment is essential. How to do so without destroying key elements of our society and with as little economic damage as possible is the question. And by turning to economic and social issues, the Green New Deal tries to address those issues from the start. As with FDR’s original New Deal, which gave us Social Security and other protections we now all but take for granted, its effects are likely to be felt by a wide swath of society, for many years to come. On the Eastern Shore, rising water levels, the effects of extreme weather on agriculture and tourism, and the health consequences of a much hotter climate are all issues that need to be addressed. Will our area get the needed programs and funding to combat these threats? Or will they go elsewhere?

To understand whether the Green New Deal is going to help our area, it’s important to make sure it does what its proponents say it will do, and that we actually want what they are trying to accomplish—especially if, two years from now, we have a Democratic president and Congress who believe they have a mandate to make it the law of the land. Those of us who take the environment seriously, and who believe elections ought to have consequences, need to start thinking carefully about the Green New Deal, and doing our best to communicate our thoughts on it to our elected representatives. There’s a lot to lose if we don’t get it right.

The text of the Green New Deal resolution – H. Res. 109 – is available at https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-resolution/109/text .