Friction over “Green New Deal” sparks climate change conversation

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, shown in January waving at the Women’s Unity Rally in Lower Manhattan, is driving the discussion of the Green New Deal. [AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File]

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, shown in January waving at the Women’s Unity Rally in Lower Manhattan, is driving the discussion of the Green New Deal. [AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File]

I’ve never been a fan of “zero waste” and “zero emissions” environmental goals. They seem more aspirational than real, provide fuel to the foes, and can seem so ambitious they cause people to tune out.

However, recent news related to the Green New Deal has forced me to rethink my position. Yes, this progressive concept to take on climate change once and for all has brought out the skeptics in full force. But new analytics from Brandwatch reveal this zero-emissions concept has sparked millions of conversations on social media. This suggests that people are not tuning out, and that, hopefully, there is time to turn this new conversation into advocacy for climate protection.

On Feb. 7, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, filed House Resolution 109, “Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal.” It called for a 10-year national mobilization to cut greenhouse gases, recognizing a need to reach “net-zero global emissions by 2050.” Republicans went for blood. They criticized Ocasio-Cortez for taking an Uber instead of the subway, and some critics on Twitter even questioned whether her nail polish was bad for the environment.

After all the related news coverage, I got to wondering: Just how much of an impact has the Green New Deal resolution had on social media discussions about climate change?

I called my colleague, digital communications expert Tim Weinheimer, and he agreed to pull a “social listening” report on Brandwatch Analytics. His report shows the Green New Deal was mentioned 4 million times by 821,000 unique “authors” on social media between Nov. 1 and April 1. Interestingly, 96 percent of the conversation has been on Twitter, and according to Weinheimer, “this is very high compared to many other general business interest topics.”

Just as interesting is that Brandwatch’s algorithms measuring the sentiment of social media discussions by word choice classified 88 percent of this conversation as neutral, 6 percent as positive and 6 percent as negative.

The Green New Deal is not a new concept. Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist and author Thomas Friedman is credited with introducing it in The New York Times in 2007, and the concept later became a plank of the Green Party platform.

After the 2018 midterm elections, a youth-driven organization called the Sunrise Movement conducted a sit-in outside the office of now-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to show support of the Green New Deal. Ocasio-Cortez, a newly elected House member, went to work, and by early February, she and 64 of her congressional colleagues filed the measure.

Despite the Sunrise sit-in last November, the social media discussion of the Green New Deal remained as flat as the bed of a pickup truck from last November until spiking dramatically on Feb. 7 when HR 109 was filed.

Weinheimer also pointed out that a Google Trends snapshot showed overall online mentions of the Green New Deal (not just social media but everywhere on the Internet) far outperformed the well-established term “climate change” over the same time period.

I recently asked climate change scientist Dr. Katharine Hayhoe about all the debate related to the Green New Deal. She said, “The science is clear that we need to reduce our carbon emissions as quickly as possible, and the more we reduce and the faster we do it, the more serious the impacts we’ll avoid. What’s the best way to do this? That’s not a science question: that’s a policy question.”

Considering most of those 4 million Green New Deal social media conversations have been neutral, the legislation’s policymakers have an enormous opportunity to convert these interested parties into advocates. I can’t speak for everyone on Twitter, but I think we’re ready to learn and maybe even do more. Please, bring on a specific policy that’s just as cutting-edge as the Green New Deal concept.

View all of Valerie’s HuffPost Blogs Here