by David Martin Davies, originally aired 14 January 2025 on Texas Public Radio’s The Source, accessible here: https://www.tpr.org/podcast/the-source/2025-01-13/a-people-powered-green-new-deal
A visionary program for national renewal, the Green New Deal aims to protect the earth’s climate while creating good jobs, reducing injustice, and eliminating poverty.
Its core principle is to use the necessity for climate protection as a basis for realizing full employment and social justice. Jeremy Brecher goes beyond the national headlines and introduces readers to the community, municipal, county, state, tribal, and industry efforts advancing the Green New Deal across the United States.
Jeremy Brecher discusses how such programs from below do the valuable work of building constituencies and providing proofs of concept for new ideas and initiatives. Block by block, these activities have come together to form a Green New Deal built on a strong foundation of small-scale movements and grassroots energy.
A call for hope and a better tomorrow, The Green New Deal from Below offers a blueprint for reconstructing society on new principles to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Guest:
Jeremy Brecher is the author of The Green New Deal from Below: How Ordinary People Are Building a Just and Climate-Safe Economy (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2024). He is the author of more than a dozen books on labor and social movements, including Strike! and Common Preservation in a Time of Mutual Destruction, the winner of five regional Emmy awards for his documentary movie work, and a long-time contributor to the Nation. He is co-founder and senior advisor for the Labor Network for Sustainability.