Talking Points / Briefing for Green Party candidates


One of the purposes of EcoAction is to assist Green Party candidates in their electoral efforts.

Below we have pulled together information about issues EcoAction has worked on - Climate Change; Rights of Nature; Agriculture; Rights of Nature and Biodiversity; Solid Waste; Opposing garbage incineration and nuclear power. We are available to answer questions and help with research.

There is an Ecological Sustainability section of the GP national platform that goes into far greater detail. There are several downloads available on the Green New Deal in the GP store.

Summary of EcoAction Solutions for Green Party candidates

  1. Climate and Energy Issues

- For local government actions, see Roadmap to Sustainability
- Push for the adoption of stronger climate laws, policies, emission reduction, and renewable energy goals.
- Make Polluters Pay; have governments sue fossil fuel companies for damages (article)
- Increase government funding for climate action.
- Invest in Environmental Justice; support initiatives from environmental justice and frontline communities. (See NYC EJ Agenda)
- Enact a local Green New Deal.
- Create projects that promote energy decentralization (e.g., microgrids).
- Promote geothermal, including district geothermal (e.g., subsidies for heat pumps).
- Stop fossil fuel projects, false climate solutions.
- Advocate for government sustainable procurement policies.
- Support the siting of renewable energy projects while protecting farmland.
- Support public power and democratic control of energy (worker / cooperatives) (build public renewables).
- Call for public pension funds to divest from fossil fuels; have governments stop doing business with banks that finance fossil fuel projects (see Stop the Money Pipeline).
- Cap and clean up abandoned gas wells, pipeline leaks, and other sources of fossil fuels pollution.
- Develop a local climate Plan.

  1. Solid Waste and Plastic

- Oppose Single Use Plastics; promote plastic bag ban; straws and utensils on request (BeyondPlastics.org).
- At state level, propose packaging reduction laws, more support for recycling.
- Push for improvement in local solid waste programs - recycling, composting, Pay As You Throw, See Six Local Actions, ReUse Centers, Promote Zero Waste, create Materials Recovery Facilities.
- Bigger, Better Bottle Bill.

  1. Rights of Nature

- Pass local laws (GP helped Toledo give legal rights to Lake Erie though the courts struck it down).
- Community Tool Kit

4 Agriculture

- Support the creation of Food Policy Councils.
- Support Community Supported Agriculture.
- Promote regenerative agriculture, Agroecology. permaculture
- Support community gardens.
- Propose ways to preserve local farms, promote organic and sustainability.
- Promote the buying of local foods (e.g., in schools and other institutions.
- Restrict the use of fossil fuels (pesticide, fertilizers).
- Promote plant based diets.
- Support initiatives for government institutions (schools, hospitals, nursing homes) to buy local and adopt healthy diets.
- Enact policies to reduce food waste. Estimates of the amount of emissions from food waste vary from 6 to 16%.

Climate Action

Here is a link to the national Green Party platform on climate .

The Green Party for called for an EcoSocialist Green New Deal in 2010, combined a 10-year transition to zero emissions and 100% renewable energy with a comprehensive Economic Bill of Rights (guaranteed living wage job and income for all, universal single payer health care, housing, free public college, housing for all) It includes a Just Transition to protect workers, consumers and communities and a commitment to environmental justice. Below is some information comparing the GP GND with the far weaker proposal later issued by Cong. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Sen. Markey.

The EcoAction committee has endorsed a series of Executive Orders that the President should issue to treat climate as an emergency and to move forward on climate action without the need for additional Congressional approval (see www.climatepresident.org). GP presidential candidates since at least 2012 have pledged to take such executive action on day one. The GP views the declaration of a climate emergency as not just a press opportunity but a commitment to act and marshal all of the nation’s resources, much as FDR did after Pearl Harbor.

The Green Education and Legal Fund has an introductory handbook on Climate Change and Advocacy. It can be viewed for free (and downloaded) at http://gelfny.org/putting-out-the-planetary-fire/

What Can Green Party candidates call for on climate action

The Green Party in the US first began calling for a  Green New Deal (GND) in 2010, a few years after the European Greens issued a similar call. The Green platform supports other measures such as an immediate halt of new fossil fuels; a ban on fracking; support for regenerative agriculture (to put carbon back into the soil) and other nature-based solutions.

The Greens support increased funding for environmental justice and Just Transition (ensuring that the needs of workers and communities presently dependent on fossil fuels are adequately met). While the latter two issues have been adopted by many democrats and most climate groups, their actual proposals (e.g., 40% of climate funding should go to disadvantaged communities) are so full of exceptions and loopholes that to date they have not been effective. Related to a Just Transition is requiring strong labor standards in the clean energy build out.

Two of the biggest sources of emissions in the US are transportation and buildings (heat and cooling in particular). While the Greens support quickly ending the sale and use of vehicles that use fossil fuels, even more critical is the expansion of mass transit and promotion of other car-free alternatives (e.g., bicycling and walking). NYC recently required all new buildings to be gas free by 2024, something many cities are also doing. NYS adopted a similar measure with a slightly slower timeframe Funding is needed to help buildings become carbon free (better insulation, energy efficiency, use of solar, geothermal / heat pumps).

Here is a roadmap to what local governments have done on climate. The City of Ithaca has a Green New Deal to raise $100 million to finance the decarbonization of all the buildings in the city (including private).

Key points to make on why strong climate action is needed immediately:

  1. The window to avoid climate collapse is rapidly running out. We need to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees C. The target has already been routinely exceeded in the last year. Two years ago, the UN Secretary General declared a Code Red for the Planet due to slow action by governments. At last year’s COP he declared that the Gates to Hell have been opened due to government inaction.
  2. Many scientists are puzzled by the rapid global warming and increase in extreme weather, which is happening faster than many of their models. It is hard for them to remain optimistic that our political leaders are up to the task; instead, they feel hopelessness and despair. One scientist says “she expects the world to heat by a catastrophic 3C this century, soaring past the internationally agreed 1.5C target and delivering enormous suffering to billions of people. This is her optimistic view.”
  3. Democrats such as Harris, Biden and Obama have largely followed an all of the above energy strategy. While they have been willing to provide some funding to renewable energy such as with the Inflation Reduction Act, it has been far less than needed and it has been coupled with major subsidies for false climate solutions such as carbon capture and sequestration, hydrogen, nuclear, biomass. Harris has bragged that under Biden, the US has become the largest producer and exporter of gas, and the largest producer of oil. (Walz is no leader on climate change – GP)
  4. Biden had promised to end drilling for fossil fuels on public lands if elected. He did the opposite, giving out more permits than ever before, though he argues that some of that was already in the approval process.. Harris has been highlighting that she no longer opposes fracking.
  5. To fund the transition to a green economy, the Greens would cut the military budget by 50 to 75%; tax the wealthy; and Make Polluters Pay (e.g., a robust carbon tax / fee and dividend)
  6. The safe limit of carbon in the atmosphere is 350 parts per million. We are over 420 and rising.
  7. Climate action is healthy. The World Health Organization estimates about 7 million people worldwide annually are killed by air pollution, about half of that from fossil fuel plants. The annual health care costs in the US from burning fossil fuels is $2,500 per person.
  8. Fourteen years after establishing the framework of planetary boundaries, researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Center in Sweden found that six of the nine boundaries –  including biodiversity, climate change, land and freshwater impacts, biogeochemical cycles, and synthetic chemicals and substances such as microplastics – are already past their safe limit, placing the Earth “well outside of the safe operating space for humanity.”
  9. Renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuels and create jobs. One of the biggest challenges in the clean energy transition is training enough workers.
  10. We need a different world, one where the well-being of the many (the 99%) is put ahead of the greed and wealth of the 1%.

How do the Greens differ from even progressive Democrats like AOC on the GND?

  1. The Greens call for an immediate halt to new fossil fuel infrastructure and fracking;
    Greens support a 50 to 75% cut in the military budget to pay for the GND.
  2. The Greens support a 10 year timeline to zero emissions, not 30 years (2050). And the Green Party supports real zero, not net zero.
  3. The ecosocialist approach features extensive public ownership and planning, particularly in the energy, transportation, and manufacturing sectors, in order to achieve its goals in a decade.
  4. The Greens are explicitly anti-nuclear;
  5. The leadership of the Democratic Party are heavily invested in corporate boondoggles such as carbon capture and sequestration, biomass, hydrogen and others that are heavily funded in the Inflation Reduction Act. 

Prof Mark Jacobson of Stanford is probably the nation’s expert on how we can quickly move to 100% renewable energy. He points out that for the last 3 months, California received 100% of its electricity from renewable energy for at least a portion of the day (i.e., when the sun is out)

Geothermal is an increasingly promising technology. Mainly used for heating and cooling, but Texas (the nation’s leader in renewable energy, including wind) also uses it heavily for electricity. Geothermal is being increasingly used for district heating (HVAC for multiple buildings at once)

Conservation and energy efficiency remains the most cost-effective way to produce energy.

EcoAction drafted a series of climate news releases within the last 3 years for the national party on the need for climate action. (On EcoAction webpage;

Sept. 13. 2023 - https://www.gp.org/gp_endorses_march_to_end_fossil_fuels  - “It is time for the U.S. to say no to fossil fuels. Despite his campaign pledge, Biden has issued more permits to extract fossil fuels on public lands than Trump or any other prior president. The Democrats and Republicans continue to put the profits and campaign donations of the fossil fuel industry ahead of the need to save life on the planet, making the U.S. the largest oil and gas producer on the planet

May 1, 2023 - https://www.gp.org/gp_urges_aoc_to_embrace_its_initial_green_new_deal   -The Green Party of the United States (GP) leaders said that the reintroduction of the Green New Deal (GND) resolution by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Markey was unfortunately yet another step away from the initial vision of the Green Party, whose candidates were the first ones to campaign nationally for a GND in 2010.The GP proposal is for 100% clean energy and zero emissions on a ten-year timeline (initially by 2020, now by within a decade) while the AOC-Markey resolution delays until 2050.

Nov. 23, 2022 - https://www.gp.org/greens_slam_biden_administration - The EcoAction Committee of the Green Party of the U.S. criticized the Biden administration as the United States once again impeded climate action at the recently concluded COP27 in Egypt

AUG 03, 2022 - https://www.gp.org/2022_inflation_reduction_act_capitalizes_on_a_world_in_crisis – The Green Party of the United States warned today that the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act allows corporations to capitalize on a world in crisis by expanding massive new oil and gas leasing in disproportionately impacted Indigenous, Black and People of Color communities. We need bold action targeted at a just transition, and environmental justice, and to immediately halt fossil fuel projects to address the climate emergency by 2030.

April 7, 2022 - Green Party on IPCC Report: US Must Halt Fossil Fuel Emissions, Enact a Green New Deal

January 18, 2022 - Biden Must Issue Executive Orders on Climate, Halt Fossil Fuels

October 26, 2021 – Shortcomings of Biden’s Build Back Better – Green Party Calls Dems' Surrender to Fossil Fuel Lobby a Global Disaster - The Green Party, which began calling for a Green New Deal in 2010, has advocated for $2.7 trillion in annual funding in solutions for the climate crisis while eliminating the false climate solutions promoted by the Democrats such as carbon capture technology, biomass and nuclear.

August 10, 2021 - More than 100 climate and community groups recently signed a letter to President Biden and Senator Schumer urging them to support $4.1 trillion, annually for ten years, on an ecosocialist Green New Deal. - Green Party Calls on Senator Schumer to Dramatically Increase Economic Stimulus Above $3.5 Trillion

Climate and Agriculture.

Agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. While federal agencies estimate that agriculture contributes around 11% of emissions, others estimate the numbers are two to three times higher. One issue is that the US imports a fair amount of food from other countries, starting with livestock with their high greenhouse gas emissions.  (EcoAction webinar on agriculture)

Our food system is also under threat from climate change and extreme weather, at both the level of production and distribution. The lack of access to healthy, affordable food for many is already a major domestic and global problem. Only recently has the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) begun to highlight the role of agriculture in the climate crisis, including the recommendation to move to a more plant-based diet. This has become a focal point of attacks by opponents of climate action, who warn Americans that climate activists want to prohibit the sale of hamburgers at McDonalds. 

Other agriculture issues:

GP Platform: Convert our food producing systems to small-scale organic, regenerative agriculture (agroecology) systems to restore soil health, sequester carbon, foster biodiversity, discourage the currently unsustainable level of meat consumption, and secure robust ecosystem services for a sustainable future.

- Support the creation of Food Policy Councils.
- Support Community Supported Agriculture.
- Promote regenerative agriculture. Agroecology. permaculture
- Support community gardens.
- Propose ways to preserve local farms, promote organic and sustainability.
- Promote the buying of local foods (e.g., in schools and other institutions.
- Restrict the use of fossil fuels (pesticide, fertilizers).
- Promote plant based diets.
- Support initiatives for government institutions (schools, hospitals, nursing homes) to buy local and adopt healthy diets.
- Enact policies to reduce food waste. Estimates of the amount of emissions from food waste vary from 6 to 16%.

Carbon Fee and Dividend  (Chapter on Carbon Pricing)

Most economists believe that charging those who use fossil fuels for the damage they cause (IMF estimates about $5 trillion a year) is the most effective way to speed up the transition to 100% clean emissions.

The Green Party platform states: Enact a Fee & Dividend system on fossil fuels to enable the free market to include the environmental costs of their extraction and use.

Note that the platform does not specify the level of the dividend. The Citizens Climate Lobby has traditional advocates for a 100% dividend, both to offset the regressive nature of any energy tax and to build public support (they have adopted a weaker position in NY). Polls however show that using at least some of the revenue to support building renewables leads to greater support for a carbon tax, especially among republicans.

A carbon fee (or tax) is different from cap and trade, which is more widely condemned for being subject to Wall Street speculation and allows polluters to continue to pollute – particularly in low-income and communities of color – in exchange for investing in actions elsewhere (e.g., tree planting) to reduce emissions (in practice, that has often failed). (Why EJ groups oppose carbon offsets)

Along this line is the idea of Making Polluters Pay. Several states are looking at a Climate Superfund Act to make the largest polluters pay for the damage they cause. Thus, in NY, the 30 largest greenhouse gas emitters would have to pay $3 billion a year. Since this will mainly impact multi-state and multinational companies, they can’t raise their prices in NY and if they did, they would be at a competitive disadvantage. Vermont recently enacted the law. NYS also surprisingly did so in the waning hours of the state legislative session but it is unlikely that the Democratic Governor will sign (it was a Republican Governor in Vermont). A federal Make Polluters Pay Climate Fund bill was just introduced.

Oppose Nuclear power.

The Green Party remains opposed to nuclear power. However, there is an increased push for a “new generation” of nukes (with the same old problems)

New nuclear power plants would take too long to build to assist in cutting emissions in the time frame needed.

From Platform - End the use of nuclear power. Nuclear energy is massively polluting, dangerous, financially risky, expensive and slow to implement. Our money is better spent on wind, solar, geothermal, conservation and small-scale hydroelectric.

Avoid False Climate Solutions

From Platform - Stop "dirty clean energy." Many of the "solutions" offered in climate legislation aren't real solutions. Biomass incineration (trees, crops, construction debris and certain types of waste), landfill gas and many types of biofuels will dump massive quantities of toxic pollutants into the air and water, and some of these energy sources produce more greenhouse gas emissions than coal. Natural gas is primarily methane, which is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. Consequently, when pipeline leakage is considered, the clean-burning characteristics of natural gas can be lost, resulting in a fuel with climate impacts as bad as coal. Biomass and biofuels will also increase deforestation, contributing to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

An overview of false climate solutions.

Stop Single Use Plastics

The Green Party of NY has supported successful initiatives to ban the use of plastic bags at many retail stores (initially passed at local level, then at state level), and to require things such as plastic straws and utensils at restaurants and take out places to only be provided on demand (since disabled individuals may need straws). The Green Party has supported a ban on styrofoam containers.

The fossil fuel industry is rapidly shifting its focus to plastic production. Plastic is on track to outpace coal's greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. by 2030. They are a major source of litter and pollution everywhere. For every three pounds of fish in the ocean, there is now one pound of plastic.

BeyondPlastics.org has good background information on single use plastics. Includes a link to false solutions to plastics and recycling. For various reasons recycling of plastics is not feasible: only 5 to 6% of plastics are recycled in the US). Plastics are difficult to recycle because the products usually contain many different materials and contaminants which would have to be separated and removed before being remanufactured.

One issue that has popped up in many states in proposed Extended Producer Responsibility laws. The concept is very good – make those who produce waste responsible for its ultimate disposal, including costs. However, it is the waste industry which has developed model legislation that is greenwashing while giving waste producers like Coke and Pepsi to be in charge of the new regulations. Many groups have supported their proposals because it would provide some funding to support municipal recycling programs.

 EPR needs to include strong goals focused first on short timelines to achieve a significant reduction in the amount of waste generated. Background on EPR from Beyond Plastics.  This includes setting a short term goals to reduce packaging (e.g, 50% in 10 years; banning chemical recycling; and prohibiting various toxins in packaging). The promotion of chemical recycling, also known as advanced recycling, is largely rebranding for incineration. You can read more about this greenwashing at Beyond Plastic

The Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act is best federal legislation to make meaningful reductions in the amount of plastic pollution the U.S.

“The petrochemical sector has promoted chemical recycling under many different guises including chemical conversion, molecular conversion and feedstock recycling. Today its preferred choice is advanced recycling ... .Chemical recycling aims to turn plastic waste back into its molecular building blocks, in contrast to mechanical recycling, which does not alter the chemical structure of the plastic. By far the most prevalent type of chemical recycling, pyrolysis is a process in which plastics are broken down into a range of basic hydrocarbons by heating in the absence of oxygen. The primary product is pyrolysis oil, which can be refined into fuels or further processed to create chemicals or plastic.

Other Solid Waste Issues

Greens support Zero Waste.  Our platform states: Adopt a national zero waste policy. The less we consume and throw away, the less we will need to produce and replace.

- push for improvement in local solid waste programs - recycling, composting, Pay As You Throw, See Six Local Actions, ReUse Centers, Promote Zero Waste, create Materials Recovery Facilities

- Bigger, Better Bottle Bill

Oppose Garbage Incineration

GP platform: End the use of incineration as a cleanup technology and ensure that "cleanups" don't simply relocate toxins to chemical waste dumps in poor communities of color.

Shut down existing waste incinerators, impose a moratorium on new waste incinerators, and phase out landfills. For all possible waste streams, we support the following strategies (in order of priority) as alternatives to incineration and landfills: (a) toxics use reduction; (b) source reduction, reuse, clean recycling or composting /digestion; or (c) neutralization, sterilization or detoxification methods where applicable.

Some background. Incineration is very expensive and often provides a financial penalty to recycling. It does not eliminate landfilling. It is the major source of heavy metals and other contaminants (e.g., dioxin) in the environment.

This also applies to hazardous waste incineration

Many government regulators support burning things as a better approach than landfills. The Green approach is to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle before landfill. Most government regulators skip the three Rs. And contrary to government regulators, burning things at high temperatures doesn’t make them magically disappear - the remaining ash is even more toxic, often escapes into the environment, and even the ash that is collected must be safely disposed of at a regulated site. And burning (chemistry 101) often produces new toxics. The industry likes to burn paper and plastic together since they have high BTU which increases the temperature and improves the efficiency of the burn process, but that produces dioxin, which was what was in Agent Orange in the Vietnam War.

Rights of Nature 
(EcoAction Webinar on Biodiversity and Rights of Nature, Oct 2023) 

From GP Platform:  We support the adoption of local, state, and federal laws which recognize the legal rights of natural communities and ecosystems - including wetlands, streams, rivers, aquifers, and other water systems - to exist, flourish, regenerate, naturally evolve, and be restored. We support the inclusion in those laws of the ability of people and communities to file legal actions in the name of the affected natural community or ecosystem, and for courts to require restoration of the natural community or ecosystem back to its pre-damaged state. 

Local governments can recognize the rights of ecosystems to flourish and evolve. For example, the 2017 law in Lafayette, Colorado recognizes that ecosystems have a right to a healthy climate.  Local governments can protect natural resources by applying precautions and restrictions to activities that could lead to the extinction of species or the destruction of ecosystems. Local governments can oppose extractive projects that could be destructive to an ecosystem. 

- Pass local laws (Toledo gave legal rights to Lake Erie though the courts struck it down).
- Community Tool Kit

Resources on EcoAction Issues 

Agriculture - NOFA-NY (Northeast Organic Farm Association) - https://nofany.org/

Earth Justice – Sustainable Food & Farming Program – Ashley Ingram presented - https://earthjustice.org/office/sustainable-food-farming

Center for Biological Diversity - https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/ - presenter, Tierra Curry, Saving Life on Earth Campaign Director and Senior Scientist

https://www.garn.org/ or the Youth Hub at https://www.garnyouth.org Biodiversity: Frederic Guarino of the Green Party of Canada and is a member of the Biodiversity Commission of the French Greens https://climateaction.works

Food and Water Watch – Jim Walsh, Policy Director, and Eric Weltman, NYS Organizer, have presented - https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/

Indigenous Environmental Network - https://www.ienearth.org/ - Tom BK Goldteeth presented – climate justice, rights of natureGlobal Greens – Frank Sheridan presented - https://globalgreens.org/ - COP

Beyond Plastic – Alexis Goldsmith, national organizer, has presented - https://www.beyondplastics.org/

Energy Justice Network – Mike Ewall Presented - http://www.energyjustice.net/ - Energy Justice is the grassroots energy agenda, supporting communities threatened by polluting energy and waste technologies. We advocate a clean energy, zero-emission, zero-waste future for all.

People vs. Fossil Fuels - https://peoplevsfossilfuels.org/

See also resources in Putting Out the Planetary Fire by Mark Dunlea (EcoAction Secretary)



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