originally published June 2025 on HNET, Humanities and Social Sciences Online, accessible here: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=61733
Jeremy Brecher. The Green New Deal from Below: How Ordinary People Are Building a Just and Climate-Safe Economy. University of Illinois Press, 2024. Illustrations, charts. 214 pp. $14.95 (e-book), ISBN 978-0-252-04745-9; $110.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-252-04618-6; $21.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-252-08827-8.
Reviewed by Caleb Pennington (University of Iowa)
Published on H-Environment (June, 2025)
Commissioned by Daniella McCahey (Texas Tech University)
The purpose of this text is to introduce the Green New Deal (GND) from below. Jeremy Brecher argues that many of the goals outlined in the proposed federal GND legislation are already being pursued independently by a wide range of state and non-state actors. Although these groups and individuals are not formally organized, they are united by a shared understanding of the urgent need for climate action alongside the goals of full employment and social justice. This decentralized movement is particularly significant in a political environment where pro-industry and conservative forces have successfully used their power to stall national GND initiatives. One result of this opposition was the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022, which ultimately stripped away many of the GND’s regulatory and funding components in favor of neoliberal strategies and substantial investments in untested technological solutions.
While Brecher acknowledges that the ultimate goals of zero-emissions energy, social justice, and economic uplift likely require massive federal investment and national policy, he remains hopeful that foundational work can begin at the local level. This hopefulness is perhaps the book’s most powerful contribution, echoing the origins of the GND itself, which emerged from widespread frustration and despair over the climate crisis. Many of the solutions Brecher outlines are so intuitive that the barriers to implementing them should be minimal. For instance, the concept of “negawatts”—energy saved through efficiency rather than produced—not only is cost-effective but also requires no new technology (p. 87). The GND also emphasizes the need for jobs that pay living wages, ideally unionized, which would guarantee protections and fair compensation. Programs in all fifty states reflect these principles to varying degrees and could be strengthened by practical regulations, such as requiring companies to provide advance notice before plant closures. Given the relatively low cost and clear benefits of many of these initiatives, the book offers a rare sense of optimism to those discouraged by federal gridlock.
That optimism, however, should be tempered by the reality that the same pro-business forces obstructing federal GND legislation are likely to turn their attention toward grassroots initiatives as well. In Iowa, for example, the conservative state government passed legislation requiring state review of local ordinances regarding topsoil conditions and surface stormwater runoff, specifically targeting reforms in progressive cities like Iowa City and Des Moines.[1] Brecher concedes that these local programs alone cannot achieve the scale of change needed to meet global targets like the Paris Agreement’s goal of reducing fossil fuel production by 6 percent annually. In reality, fossil fuel consumption has increased by 2 percent annually (p. 95). One area where Brecher’s optimism feels especially unfounded is in transportation. He suggests that transit-oriented development can be part of the GND from below but does not fully grapple with the complex legal restrictions on local governments regarding interstate transportation—or the massive cultural shift required to move Americans away from cars and toward greener alternatives.
This points to the broader shortcoming of the book: Most of the programs Brecher highlights are concentrated in progressive states and cities. Efforts are thriving in places like Boston, Seattle, and California, but what about communities like Gary, Indiana, or Montgomery, Alabama? This disparity becomes particularly problematic when considering Brecher’s arguments around union labor. The strongest green-labor coalitions are emerging in states with favorable labor laws, where unions are not forced to spend their resources simply fighting for survival. In right-to-work states, similar alliances are much harder to form.
Even in progressive areas, some initiatives described in the book align suspiciously well with the neoliberal frameworks that Brecher critiques. A prime example is the case study of the partnership between Martha’s Vineyard and the offshore wind company Vineyard Wind. Brecher fails to critically assess how similar government grants to private clean energy companies have often resulted in wasted funds with little accountability. Are these truly examples of GND principles in action, or are they instances of progressive ideals being co-opted by the vagaries of the market?
Despite these criticisms, The Green New Deal from Below remains a useful guide for politically engaged readers seeking to implement or support similar efforts in their own communities. Many of the examples Brecher includes are feasible at the local, nonprofit, or individual level, and the book provides practical resources for replicating them. Brecher also outlines a broader roadmap for expanding these efforts, encouraging collaboration between cities and states on larger projects and suggesting that local successes could eventually inspire national policy. He invokes Justice Louis Brandeis’s famous idea of states as “laboratories of democracy” to argue that experimentation at the local level can lay the groundwork for broader change (p. 40). While Brecher briefly mentions how small worker strikes have brought attention to the need for a GND, future work in this space could delve deeper into the potential role of a general strike as a tool to pressure the federal government into action. Ultimately, The Green New Deal from Below presents a hopeful but incomplete vision—one that highlights inspiring grassroots progress but sometimes glosses over the immense structural and political challenges still to come.
Note
[1]. Eric Woolson, “New Iowa Law Prompts City Ordinance Updates,” Stormwater Solutions, April 11, 2025.