In the Netflix movie “Don’t Look Up,” politicians chasing dollar signs tell voters to think about “jobs” and ignore all the evidence suggesting impending disaster because of their corporate-friendly decision-making. Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald tells us to not look up at the county’s nation-leading toxic air quality and lung disease rates while referring to clean air advocates as “extremists.”

TribLive
By Garrett Wassermann
January 11, 2022

When will Fitzgerald be honest with us that the climate emergency is accelerating, we’re seeing the signs globally including yet another abnormally warm December in Pittsburgh and that there are no jobs for anyone if human civilization cannot survive?

There need not be conflict between jobs and the planet; the real, original Green New Deal, part of the Green Party’s national platform since 2012, can make millions of good-paying, unionized green jobs, far more and better jobs than oil, gas and petrochemicals can ever promise and without the toxic, unhealthy, planet-destroying pollution, too. We can have an economy that works for us, not corporations, that takes care of every worker and family.

Our future lies with a decarbonized green economy; Fitzgerald, Democrats and Republicans need to figure this out before it is too late to stop a global catastrophe.

Garret Wassermann is a national steering committee co-chair of the Green Party of the United States.