Climate One At The Commonwealth Club

The climate conversation in Washington has changed enough that Democrats and Republicans are talking climate deals. A lot of that change can be attributed to the Green New Deal, a Democratic resolution introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey. “What we're doing with the Green New Deal is we’re putting together an army that won't just be a resolution, it's a revolution,” boasts Markey, who has served over 40 years in Congress and co-authored the last big legislative push for national climate policy a decade ago. Markey says that he and AOC “share a passion to create a movement which is going to change the relationship between the American people and the fossil fuel industry.” That relationship is also targeted in the Green Real Deal, a market-based alternative to the Green New Deal put forward by Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida. “Fossil fuels are not our future. They just aren’t,” proclaims Gaetz, very much out of step with GOP orthodoxy in general and the current administration