Sunrise Movement Wrote a Book!
Today, an exclusive look! Next week, an interview w/ the Editors...
Today, America is engulfed by crises and pain.
Late last night, Hurricane Laura made landfall as a Category 4 storm, with 150MPH winds, near Cameron, Louisiana—15 years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf. This as smoke from fires still burning uncontrolled in California and Colorado fills the air, and our lungs, from coast to coast—and the traumatic images of Jacob Blake being shot SEVEN times in the back by police, in front of his young children, linger in our minds and our hearts—which no longer feel capable of holding all the suffering in this world.
We watch the senseless murders of Black Americans at the hands of police continue unabated, while more than 1,000 people die every single day from an uncontrolled pandemic.
Today, we crossed a painful, utterly incomprehensible, milestone. By the time you read these words, 180,000 people in the United States will have died from COVID-19. We don’t need to contextualize or compare those numbers to the death-toll of a war to know that each and every single one of those one-hundred-and-eighty-thousand-plus individuals had a life worth living to the fullest. We mourn them all.
We know the horrible reality that we’re living in right now means that many more thousands will die. And we also know that it didn’t have to be this way. That’s what hurts the most.
That’s what hurts the most about the climate crisis too. It doesn’t have to be this way.
There IS another way, a new day on the horizon…We, the people, must march forward into our fears and our pain, together, united in our cause and purpose for JUSTICE.
The march toward justice is a lot safer when you are not walking alone, a lot easier when you follow in the footsteps of courageous leaders…
We at #GenGND are inspired every single day by the courageous activism of the global youth climate movement. It’s why we do what we do—to try and help amplify their stories and their message. They are our leaders.
So, can we PLEASE give you some much-needed inspiration from the youth climate movement this week??
Yes, there’s actually SOME INSPIRING NEWS in the world of the #GreenNewDeal and, as it often does, it comes from our friends at the Sunrise Movement.
THEY WROTE A POWERFUL, DESPERATELY-NEEDED, MUST-READ BOOK ABOUT HOW TO MAKE THE GREEN NEW DEAL REAL.
It’s called “WINNING A GREEN NEW DEAL” & you can (MUST) BUY IT ANYWHERE books are sold—except please, not Amazon!
The book was edited by the incomparable Guido Girgenti & Varshini Prakash—& it contains words written by SO MANY of our favorite climate-writers…In fact, we spoke to A LOT of them for our film & podcast! Including: Naomi Klein, Rhiana Gunn-Wright, David Wallace-Wells, Kate Aronoff, Julian Brave-Noisecat, Waleed Shahid, Alexandra Rojas, Jeremy Ornstein, Guido, Varsh, & Bill McKibben.
…AND, Lucky for you, we’ll be speaking to the two of them (Varsh & Guido) in another edition of #GenGND **interview-exclusives** coming in September, so—please stay tuned for that!
In the meantime, they were kind enough to share the CONCLUSION of their incredible book with us—to share with you, our beloved #GenGND #GreenNewDealmakers!
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Reading this conclusion will not ‘spoil’ anything, nor does it absolve you from your obligation to buy this book in support of Sunrise & the movement for a Green New Deal. We will be personally hurt if you don’t buy at least one copy of this book for yourself (& perhaps one copy for your friends and family too!)…We know times are hard, but we truly believe there’s not a more important book on the market to support—and we think you’ll feel the same after reading these words…)
EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT FROM SUNRISE MOVEMENT’S NEW BOOK
“WINNING THE GREEN NEW DEAL”
“When I was a kid, I set out to repair the harm being done to our planet. 14 year old Varshini believed recycling could save the world so I joined my school recycling club. It didn’t seem to add up, so I got involved with social movements, joining with hundreds and thousands more to demand change with a united voice. But the changes we won weren’t the changes we needed to prevent a full-blown crisis. We realized we had to erode the economic power of the fossil fuel industry, build the might of our movements, and take the fight into the political arena. I grew up with a strong distaste for politics, wanting nothing to do with it. But once I came to terms with the enormity of the crisis before us, I understood. For humankind to survive, we needed nothing less than a once-in-a-century upheaval of our political, social and economic institutions.
So here you are, with a book about climate change, social movements, social justice, economics and politics. In trying to figure out one, you have to look at the whole.
If I’m being truthful, we still haven’t figured it out. Movement forces have made leaps and bounds in the 2010s, but the opposition is still in power, and we’re still on the outside. But there are a few things I’m sure of, lessons that I’m glad to be able to lift up through the incredible contributors to this book.
First: The climate crisis is worse than you think, and the Green New Deal is the common-sense solution. Feeble price signals or individual initiative will never get the job done. Now is the time for bold federal action -- a guaranteed job for every person, to power the transition to renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and low-carbon transit. The federal government can directly coordinate industrial activity while punishing corporations that shirk their responsibilities, just as it would in a wartime scenario.
Second: Our aim must be governing power. Not just the presidency, not just Congress, not just statehouses and city halls across the country, but all of the above, plus an independent social movement to keep pushing the envelope and hold officials accountable. Power is the ability to act, and only with true governing power can we enact a Green New Deal.
Third: The more success we have as movements, the more those with money and power will attempt to stop us. They'll use every tool they have to divide our ranks and pit us against each other, because we're weaker apart than we are together. The greatest fault lines among us are race and class. When we decide that what unites us is more than what divides, and we make powerful efforts to include one another, with integrity and true solidarity across differences, we take away the most effective weapon of the fossil fuel billionaires and the Donald Trumps of the world: divide and conquer. We have to build a multiracial, cross-class movement. It's the only way.
These are the things I know. But there’s more that I don’t know. I want you to pick up where I’ve left off and race forward from here. Take this movement and run with it. Take these policies and craft better ones. Learn from both success and failure to build more powerful campaigns.
The waters of our lives are choppier by the day, and the horizon full of storms. As we race to submit the final draft of this book, the COVID-19 coronavirus is claiming lives by the thousands, sending people into social isolation to slow the virus spread, and making a mockery of mine and everybody else’s 2020 plans.
For this page, I had drafted a call for a massive youth uprising later this year, millions in the streets, to deliver an unmistakable mandate for the Green New Deal. That plan is now called into question, to say the least. While our theory of change -- people power and political power -- holds true, the details of how we get there are all under evaluation.
In the coronavirus pandemic, we see laid bare the absolute necessity of competent government in times of crisis. We see the difference between a government using industrial policy to organize the production of ventilators, or not doing so. The difference is measured in lives saved or lost. The same will be true -- no, is already true -- for climate change.
The pandemic demonstrates our fundamental interdependence. Looking out my window on Sumner Street, I see people dropping off food for neighbors under quarantine. I think of the nurses and doctors risking their lives daily, without question, for people they have never met. And I’m aware of the literal billions across the world who are making the strange sacrifice of staying away from others. At least for the moment, this is a time of unprecedented global cooperation. Maybe we can learn a few lessons to take with us after the outbreak is over.
As we were finishing the proofread of this book, we witnessed an uprising for black lives across America following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless other black Americans. In the backlash to these historic mobilizations, we also saw disturbing, unjust violence wielded by police, armed with weapons of war and funded with billions of dollars of public money. In their violence we see an America where justice and a livable future are not possible, where cries for freedom can be silenced by agents of the state and by a greedy few who cling to power and privilege on the basis of race.
But we’ve also seen an unprecedented demonstration of popular power and resistance. As protests spread across the nation, Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed George Floyd, was charged with second-degree murder, and a veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council vowed to dismantle their Police Department and establish a new system of public safety. Again, just as history taught us, we are seeing if movements bring masses of people into intense, sustained action, we can win. These victories are the direct result of black communities engaging in collective struggle for decades.
These victories also affirm that a different future is possible. We are told so many things cannot be done. But we see billions invested into prisons, police, and weaponry -- we see how government-constructed institutions of mass incarceration can rob communities of life and livelihood for decades. We know the question is not whether our country has the power to transform our society and our economy. The question is how we will wield the immense powers and resources of government, and whose lives our laws serve and protect.”
Excerpt By Varshini Prakash
Co-Founder & Executive Director, Sunrise Movement
YA…WHAT DID WE TELL YOU??
JUST BUY THE DAMN BOOK, OK?
OH YEA…ONE LAST THING!
WE MADE A NEW #GenGND VIDEO W/ THE STAR OF LAST WEEK’S NEWSLETTER—SUNRISE CREATIVE DIRECTOR, ALEX O’KEEFE (THE MAKER OF THE #GreenNewDealmaker)…Check it out!
Nate Birnbaum is the editor-in-chief of the #GenGND newsletter and this edition was written by Nate Birnbaum with editing by Sam Eilertsen.