In the United States, this kind of organization would be part of an effort to create millions of jobs through initiatives that would be financed with federal funds but locally controlled by community organizations. A 50-percent cut in arms spending would help finance this. And Stein has other ideas. “Stay tuned,” she said. “We are still developing the how-to. We are focused on the broad outlines.” Of all of Stein’s ideas, the most intriguing is the Green New Deal, modeled on Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. “There would be a wide variety of jobs,” she said. “We’d declare a state of emergency, a climate emergency and an economic emergency. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, we declared a state of emergency, and we transformed the economy.” Stein has a plan. “Our aim will be to transform the economy into clean energy by 2030, 15 years to transform our energy supply,“ she said. Along with this, she said, would come a “healthy sustainable food supply; an energy efficient transportation system, which includes safe walking and biking paths, a major health transformation. This pays for itself when you include massive improvements in public health.” It would take a lot of labor to build and maintain this green infrastructure, both in the public and private sectors. Government and new green companies would provide jobs. Job seekers would find vacancies posted at their local employment offices. Financing would come from the government, much of it from Stein’s 50-percent reduction in arms spending. Her ideas are supported by a study by Stanford University professor Mark Z. Jacobson; University of California, Berkeley, researcher Mark Delucchi; and other scientists. Their study is published in the online edition of Energy and Environmental Sciences. They advocate a complete shift to renewables—hydroelectric, wind, solar, geothermal and even the tides. It would, they say, combat climate change, eliminate air pollution deaths, create jobs and stabilize energy prices. Washington state, they noted, is well on its way to converting to renewable energy sources, as is California. Traditionalists write this off as dreaming, as do the oil and coal industries. But as I watched a solar-powered plane fly over San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge on a round-the-world flight recently and see electric cars on the road, green energy looks more like the future than a dream. Jill Stein’s presidential campaign is making such a future part of the 2016 campaign debate. Your support matters…

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#2016 election#economics#green party#infrastructure#jill stein#td-original#usa