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The Green New Deal is nothing more than a parody of the original New Deal that radically transformed our nation for the greater cause. The GND has become more than a partisan issue; it has become a worldwide issue, something the bill will not properly address in relation to global climate change.

That’s not to say that people on both sides of the aisle are entirely for or against the bill, but those who are cognizant of the current economic landscape point out that the United States cannot afford such radical change in such a short amount of time.

One of the key points in the bill is the retrofit of virtually every building in the U.S. to comply with their requirements of a green structure, which according to a report by Bloomberg, could cost the average American household over $600,000 to modernize their house.

Considering the average married American’s household income is estimated to be about $100,000 annually, according to the Census Bureau. That staggering number of upwards of half a million dollars could be off-putting to those who are not entirely sold on the policy.

“The credit, climate and oil crunches are all individually serious issues, but in combination, their impact could be catastrophic for our economy, and for our way of life,” said Tony Juniper, former head of the environmental group Friends of the Earth said in a Reuters article.

Another point in the document is to decrease unemployment and poverty by offering jobs related to the environmental sector, which will establish more renewable energy and also retrofit existing buildings to the green standard set.

But the hard truth is that the majority of those unemployed are innately unqualified to fill the positions needed in the building, managing, and maintaining a large infrastructure of scale using the latest technology and practices to ensure the quality needed to achieve a green country.

Hiring and training such people will surely take months, if not years, for them to be deployed in the green workforce with the basic skills needed to operate; time that cannot be wasted in the fight against climate change.

Compared to the original New Deal of the 1930s, unemployed people were commonly used as basic carpenters and handymen, using skills that any able-bodied person could acquire. Today, the advent of highly advanced technology and the stipulation of companies requiring Bachelor’s degrees for entry-level jobs, and these types of occupations will require more than just nailing wood together to fix our climate.

The New Deal was a response to the Great Depression, a period in which the entire world was plunged into economic stagnation and chaos with almost no prospect of a better future. Now with the effects of the Great Recession overdue to the response of the Obama administration, what purpose does the GND serve in a relatively stable economy?

To say that people do not support the cause of living environmentally conscious lives would be false, but it could be said that the planned resolutions to these issues are out of touch with the average citizen and that makes it infeasible.

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