The Green New Deal will never work

Well, call me a tired old watchdog, or fuddy-duddy fact finder—I do not assess policies through the lens of the charismatic and compelling Ocasio-Cortez, who has become the perfect distillation of the Trumpian, big swing, mega-MAGA hashtag, nonconstrained by literalism, post–reality-to-accuracy politics age. I tend to judge ideas by considering the opinions of experts who know more than I do. And when it comes to the Green New Deal, almost none of these people think that the United States can achieve its goal of 100 percent renewable energy by 2030.

Pointing this out, however, is passé, or anti-progressive, or nay-saying. Guilty—I am in fact literally saying nay. And if you polled the leading experts or polled even the leading edge of renewable energy optimistic experts, they would admit that it is not possible to get to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. The Union of Concerned Scientists hope we can get to 80 percent by 2050. Stanford professor Mark Z. Jacobson, co-founder of the Solutions Project and 100.org—the 100 percent clean, renewable energy movement—has estimated that his goal cannot be achieved by 2030 but holds out hope for 2050. By comparison, the U.S.’s energy use is currently only 18 percent renewable.