The Green New Deal is a policy proposal that exhorts the U.S. to confront the issues of environmental stewardship, economic equality, and social justice at the scale and speed that our ecological crisis demands.
Among the projects that the Green New Deal proposes are those designed to help the U.S. achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Implementation of these projects will also help move the nation from a system of ecologically extractive and destructive agriculture to one that is both sustainable and regenerative.
Another focus of the Green New Deal, ignored for too long in American political discourse, is the historic oppression of indigenous communities. The land rights of Indigenous people are deeply linked to the health and vitality of the planet’s ecosystm.
When the World Wildlife Fund listed the top 200 areas of biodiversity in the world it found 95% were located on Indigenous lands.While only 11% of the planet’s forests are currently under the legal title of Indigenous people, the lands they now inhabit contain roughly 80% of the earth’s biodiversity.
