The GND twin resolutions were unveiled yesterday. Already, some lawmakers and media outlets are calling the GND  “unrealistic” and “unaffordable,” despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Powerful corporations—especially the fossil fuel, agribusiness, chemical and pharmaceutical industries—want to kill the GND before it can get off the ground.

The only way the GND will fly, is if we build a powerful social movement to lift it up.

So far criticism of the GND has focused not on whether we need a GND to head off our climate crisis, but whether it’s possible to do what global scientists agree we must do to avoid catastrophe: reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by 45-percent within 12 years, and by 100-percent by 2050. Some critics don't think we can do it.

Those critics are right—if all we focus on is reducing emissions.

That’s why it’s critical, especially in this early stage, to get the word out that in addition to reducing emissions, we must draw down and sequester the carbon already in the atmosphere.

The Green New Deal (GND) has arrived! 

Now that we’ve passed the dangerous tipping point of 350 parts per million (ppm) carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (we’re at 410 ppm), we have to figure out a way to draw down that CO2—or we will continue to suffer the cascading impacts of global warming even after we’ve eliminated greenhouse gas emissions.

The safest and most effective way we have of doing this is to increase the carbon content of our soils in farmland, pasture land, forests, wetlands and coastal marine ecosystems. This can be done on working lands through regenerative organic agriculture techniques that increase fertility and control pests by replacing chemicals with management practices. These include holistic planned grazing, composting, no-till, cover cropping, diverse crop mixes and rotations, and the incorporation of crops that return nutrients and organic matter to the soil.

This is the piece of the puzzle that most climate activists and legislators are unaware of. That’s why it’s so important that this is included in the GND, and why we need to get Congress to support it!

We never thought we’d see the day when the climate movement joined with the movements for food and farming, and economic and social justice, to put forward a comprehensive solution to the climate crisis that calls for both halting fossil fuel emissions and drawing down excess carbon from the atmosphere.

But . . . this day is dawning under the banner of the #GreenNewDeal (GND). And this week is your opportunity to get involved.

We’re joining two allied calls to action and we hope you will, too.