The Green New Deal Hits Its First Major Snag
Not long ago, I found myself in the south of Greenland, in a tidy cottage at the edge of a fjord, in the company of four scientists. We were talking about sea-level rise when one of the younger scientists asked whether I could settle a debate: Should we keep developing nuclear power? He thought we should. I said that I didn’t have a strong opinion, but it seemed like a good way to produce electricity without emitting greenhouse gases. A lot of economists seemed to think it would be essential to fighting climate change.
The most senior scientist in the room, who had spent his life studying the fragility of Earth’s climate, cut in. You can’t be serious, he said. We’d learn to deal with climate change in time. But nuclear power made nuclear waste—and that was the worst, most poisonous stuff on the planet.
I thought of that moment this week, as the behind-the-scenes battle over the, reviving progressive dreams of a muscular federal climate policy that also improves the lives of workers.
