Graphic by Karina Wu ‘23
by Meryl Phair ’21
Environmental Editor
Calls from protesters to defund and abolish police departments have recently ignited a national uprising. Dissenters of current law enforcement establishments have amplified the need to reevaluate governmental allocation of financial resources. Defunding the police relates directly to the Green New Deal in that both propose taking money out of institutions and infrastructures harmful to communities and instead reinvesting into what enables communities to thrive.
The Green New Deal is a proposal package that outlines sweeping economic plans to mitigate the worsening effects of climate change. The proposal was first introduced during the 2016 presidential election by Green Party candidate Jill Stein. It has since been revised and was reintroduced in 2019 by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, gathering support from environmentalists as well as garnering criticism for the massive changes to society it would entail.
The proposal demands the federal government divest the United States from fossil fuels in order to achieve massive limits on greenhouse gas emissions needed to combat climate change and meet the ambitious goals outlined by the Paris Agreement. The Green New Deal proposes achieving 100 percent clean energy by 2030; guaranteeing high-paying jobs in clean energy industries; and ensuring that clean air, clean water and healthy food are basic human rights.
“The Green New Deal will convert the old, gray economy into a new, sustainable economy that is environmentally sound, economically viable and socially responsible,” the Green Party platform website reads.
Along with fiscal adjustments, the Green New Deal includes policies that would work to dismantle societal issues like economic inequality and racial injustice. By eliminating expenditures into fossil fuel companies, resources would be allocated into the development of low-income communities and communities of color with the ultimate goal of ending all forms of oppression in the United States.
Calls to defund police departments are formed on similar structures of instating massive changes to society through a different investment of financial resources. Instead of funding police departments, activists are calling for budgets to be placed into community development programs and infrastructure, particularly in marginalized communities where the majority of policing and police brutality currently takes place.
The U.S. currently spends about $100 billion annually on policing, but how that money is actually spent is not widely known or documented. By using that money to invest in education, health care, affordable housing and other social services and programming, communities that have long suffered from societal inequities will be given a chance to rebuild and thrive. They will also be given an equal opportunity in combating the impacts of climate change, as communities with fewer resources are less prepared to manage climate disasters.
As the linkages between the environmental movement and racial inequality are more widely discussed, addressing defunding the police in terms of the wider economic and social reconstruction proposed by the Green New Deal has become useful for organizations like the Sunrise Movement to explain environmental racism.
On June 11, the Sunrise Movement hosted an educational training on the topic over Zoom titled “Defunding the Police: What, Why, and How it Relates to the Green New Deal.” The training walked through this relationship, delving into how a disregard for Black lives and dignity is directly connected to climate concerns. The training also walked through the history of policing in America, highlighting how policing has inherently racist roots. Stressing the need for making communities work, leaders of the training emphasized the need to accept the possibility of functional societies without policing.
“We need a government that is for the people,” noted Emma Sullivan ’22, a Sunrise South Hadley organizer who attended the training. “We need safe streets and neighborhoods where we stand for each other! We need real freedom for all people in America!”
Environmental activists and those who advocate for social and racial justice are calling side by side for a government that puts money into communities and the planet rather than corporations and profit.