The details will keep changing as we learn how best to decarbonize equ — Rhiana Gunn-Wright

"I have spent my life trying to rewrite systems of power, and policy is nothing if not a system for creating and distributing power. That is why, contrary to popular belief, the most important part of a policy proposal is not the details at least not at the beginning. Its the vision that the policy presents and the story it tells. The best policy proposals-that is, the proposals that move the most people to fight for them-present a clear narrative about what went wrong, why it went wrong, and how the government plans to fix it."

"When I asked my mom and grandma why Englewood looked like this, they told me about the government. About how the highway system had been built through Black neighborhoods, destroying communities that would never be rebuilt. About the citys housing authority razing public housing and scattering families in the name of "urban development," only for city officials to turn around and sell the prime real estate to developers on the cheap. About the city systematically underfunding Black schools and then shutting them down because of "underperformance." And thats just what happened to my neighborhood-not even what happened to my family."

"The ability to burn fossil fuels with no limit and no legal repercussions requires two things. First, fossil fuel industries and those who control them (or profit deeply from them) can concentrate enough wealth and political power to override the will of the people-who, by and large, want to stop climate change. Second, there are people and places that can be hurt, even killed, with little consequence."

"The Green New Deal is a new policy vision-one that will guide government and society through the biggest task in modern history: decarbonizing our global economy within the next ten to twenty years."

"Fossil fuel impunity requires intense concentrations of economic and political power among corporations and the wealthy who profit from them."

"The United States is a nation of scarcity, and increasingly so. Seventy-eight percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. As of 2018, about 40 percent of Americans could not afford an unexpected $400 expense without going into debt or having to sell off their possessions. About 25 percent of Americans skipped necessary medical care because they couldnt afford it. For most people in this country, we are not a nation of prosperity."