Hi GreenNewDealMakers,
This week’s newsletter finds us at a loss.
We’re exhausted.
Our work at #GenGND, on the podcast and the film, is what has given us hope, meaning—and most importantly (selfishly) solace in this dark time. But this week, the last few weeks now, staying focused on the work has been painfully difficult—and a lot less comforting.
The news-cycles move faster than the rising COVID death tolls, ever-multiplying hurricanes, and constantly raging wildfires—never enough time to properly mourn the dead, or protect the living…Just enough to glaze over the ways in which our Republic, and our institutions, may crumble under their own weight in the coming weeks.
As ‘Climate People’ we’re very attuned to feeling the pain of the world in deep ways. We’ve learned how to compartmentalize it, how to use it as fuel for our fire. This moment, and the magnitude, feels different. It is different. We have no more compartments left. Our hearts, our minds, runneth over.
There’s nothing left to do but fight. And so we will.
May our tears merge into a roaring river, and may that river become a force so powerful that it meets the rising sea & forever turns the tide.
Onwards.
What exactly are we fighting for, you ask?
We’re fighting for our right to build the society of ALL of our dreams.
That’s what the Green New Deal is.
It’s about taking the power of imagination away from the Billionaires who have designed our world to fill their every dream—Now it’s our TURN to use OUR power.
WE THE PEOPLE MAKE OUR REALITY, but we have to imagine it first.
Listen to our friend, the BRILLIANT Creative Director of Sunrise Movement, Alex O’Keefe tell it like only he can on this week’s podcast episode, where we’re taking an in-depth look at how young people from disparate backgrounds have ended up leading the movement for a Green New Deal.
In addition to Alex, we’ve got stories from Sunrise Executive Director Varshini Prakash, our podcast-host/film-director Sam Eilertsen, and three of the young people who confronted Senator Dianne Feinstein in this viral video you may remember.
(Feinstein has been in the news again this week, this time for refusing to consider abolishing the Filibuster as a means to ‘pack the courts’ in a potential Biden administration.)
PLEASE LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE To #GenGND NOW
And also check out our short-video for the episode featuring ‘AOK’:
We’re also fighting for the next generation.
For the brave young people who speak truth to power.
Fighting for their right to dream big, to live without fear of failure.
Fighting so that young people won’t have to live their whole lives with the burden of a burning planet—questioning how their ancestors could have ever been so foolish.
That’s what we fight for.
Will you join us?
PLEASE LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE TO #GenGND
Then, maybe go join your local Sunrise Movement Hub? They seem pretty chill…
Here’s Our Green New Reading (& Listening) List this week…
Read about how a conservative Supreme Court could roll back the precedent that allows the federal government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions: The Energy 202: Landmark Supreme Court climate ruling more vulnerable than ever with Ginsburg's death, By Dino Grandoni in The Washington Post
Check out this vitally important breakdown of the power of the youth climate movement heading into this monumental election: 2020 REALLY BELONGS TO US: How the Youth Climate Movement Plans to Save the Planet In November, By Brian Kahn in EARTHER
The Second Episode of Our Critical Frequency Sibling-Pod INHERITED, also dropped this week—and it continues to give us ALL the feels…This week they recount Hurricane Sandy—and the long-lasting, far-reaching, impacts the storm had on families.
Democratic Donors Push Biden for a Cabinet Free of Fossil Fuel Connections, By Lisa Friedman & Thomas Kaplan in The New York Times
Our copy of the new feminist-climate-anthology ALL WE CAN SAVE is in the mail—but that hasn’t stopped us from indulging in the excerpts that have been floating around the internet on publication week…
Why We Need More Women Leading The Fight For The Planet, By Katherine K. Wilkinson & Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
Wakanda Doesn't Have Suburbs': How Movies Like Black Panther Could Help Us Save the Planet, By Kendra Pierre-Louis
Congratulations to the Editors & the AMAZING collection of contributing authors! We’re particularly excited to read the words of our Pod-Mother Amy Westervelt, and her HOT-TAKE Co-Host Mary Heglar, as well as our #GenGND pals Varshini Prakash, Naomi Klein, & Rhiana Gunn-Wright!!
Nate Birnbaum wrote this #GenGND newsletter, which was edited by Sam Eilertsen.