Save the Airplanes!

The conservatives have been having a blast ripping apart the green new deal. As far as I can see, the actual bill doesn't really do anything but set out goals, which is a baby step. It has one defect, which is a failure to define some of its absolutist-sounding language. If you want to do something to the maximum extent technologically possible, it doesn't leave much room for other considerations. I guess one could argue that the abandonment of buildings to nature is in some way more efficient than occupying them, heating them, lighting them, and spending energy to keep them upright. This could be corrected by adding one sentence toward the beginning. Technically that should not be needed because there are rules of construction intended to avoid reading legislation in absurd and counterproductive ways.

(This does not go for participants in the Democratic debates who say they want to reduce fossil fuel use to zero. Which of these has a plan for converting our military vehicles to biodiesel?)

My view of the Deal, if it were followed up with specific requirements to reach its goals, is that it would do the exact opposite of what the right slams it for. Rather than legislating that no one could have a car or use a plane, or heat a home in winter, the idea of the Deal is to save these things. Because the sooner we start democratically deciding on a fair plan for saving the world, the less likely it will be that the plan arrives in the form of an emergency decree some years down the road. We should be all getting together to decide what climate-destabilizing activities are the most important to us, and how to preserve and regulate them, rather than waking up one morning with our socks full of saltwater and martial law having been declared.