The Green New Deal, a scheme cooked up by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, and championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, imagines a future in which fossil fuel-generated energy has been abolished and the world runs on energy derived from solar, wind, and other renewables. The controversial proposal is estimated to cost some $93 trillion. Proponents, though, insist that the Green New Deal must be implemented to save the Earth from the ravages of climate change.
Carbon capture technology, currently being developed by the private sector, would seem to achieve some of the goals of the Green New Deal without the wholesale destruction of the fossil fuel economy. Nuclear power and even planting trees (lots of trees) have also been proposed as part of a more sensible solution. However, a recent development at MIT has made the Green New Deal obsolete even before it has been enacted.
