Rolling Stone USA - 04.2020

BUILDING

A GREEN

NEW DEAL

70 ROLLING STONE

T

HERE WAS, essentially, no Green New Deal before Alexandria

Ocasio-Cortez. It was just a slogan rolling around the mouths

of newspaper columnists and environmental activists until

the 30-year-old political phenom put her star power behind

it. Just a month after she was sworn in as the youngest con-

gresswoman in history, Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey

debuted a 14-page resolution outlining the principles she

hopes will form the foundation for a slew of climate legisla-

tion over the next decade. A jobs program to save the planet shouldn’t

be all that controversial, but skeptics along the political spectrum found

something to hate. The concept was ridiculed by Republicans even as

some attempted to co-opt it (Rep. Matt Gaetz’s Green Real Deal), and

deemed too audacious by liberal Democrats like House Speaker Nancy

Pelosi. But the Green New Deal’s ambition was always the point, and in

just one year, it has already dramatically changed the way Washington

talks about the climate crisis. In January, the House Committee on En-

ergy and Commerce released a plan committing to a 100 percent clean-

energy economy by 2050 — three times longer than the Green New

Deal’s 10-year timeline, but a quantum leap from the toothless regula-

tions that typified past policy conversations. Ocasio-Cortez sat down

with ROLLING STONE to reflect on her first year in office, her climate anx-

ieties, and her blueprint to fix what’s broken in our country.

PHOTOGRAPH BY

DANIEL DORSA

BY TESSA

STUART

The congresswoman

on her vision for a post-

fossil-fuel future and

an economy that works

for working people

CLIMATE CRISIS