In A Radical Green Political Theory, the philosopher Alan Carter cites John Dryzek in arguing that “many of the apparent environmental improvements are, in fact, instances of re-locating the problem elsewhere.” That is to say, “there are numerous examples where seeming

environmental solutions have actually turned out to be cases of spatial, media and temporal displacements,” which could have serious negative side effects.

As it is popularly conceived of right now, I think this is applicable to the so-called “Green New Deal.” That is to

say, it commits the same mistake of merely being a reformist, technics-oriented, response to the environmental threat, which is something Murray Bookchin warned against.

For one thing, there is no guarantee that a “Green New Deal” would not simply be overturned by some

future administration, much like the “New Deal” reforms were. And this would occur after serious (likely detrimental) revisions to the “Green New Deal” in the process of it being adopted, having gone through the challenges of established socio-economic forces in the

United States. But it even goes beyond all of that.

The popular “Green New Deal” still commits itself to market growth, which is sharply tied to environmental footprint. Studies have shown that the supposed benefits of a purely technics-oriented approach to the environmental

threat would simply be canceled out by the commitment to market growth. And merely asking the market to stop growing would be like asking a human to stop breathing.

At its most rudimentary levels, I also don’t think the “Green New Deal” would bring forth any necessary

social revolution in its broadest sense. A purely technics-oriented approach would not restructure a ecological sensibility where none had existed—that is simply a thing that can not occur from the top-down. We might have coated capitalist industry “green,” but we wouldn’t

know how to live—indeed, think—ecologically ourselves.

That is the most minute way of responding to the environmental threat: the need to think ecologically. Humans have the knowledge available to do that—the crucial question is whether we are rational enough apply ourselves

to that knowledge and revolutionize that ways we interrelate to each other.