A Letter From Top Scientists Endorsing the Green New Deal

Joe Biden says Bernie Sanders' Green New Deal is impossible.

We refuse that narrative. We are scientists here to refute Biden's claim that "not a single, solitary scientist thinks that [Sanders' Green New Deal would] work." Not only do we believe that it is possible for the U.S. to decarbonize electricity and transportation by 2030, we know that such a goal is imperative.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's primary scientific authority on climate change, has been describing the immense harm that climate change will bring to the world and its peoples for decades. In 2018, it issued a report focused on the likely impacts of allowing global warming of 1.5. degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial warming, concluding in its famously measured phrasing that the global impacts of such warming are going to be bad. One example: "Any increase in global warming is projected to affect human health, with primarily negative consequences (high confidence)." Nonetheless, limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius can protect people and our planet from the most extreme anticipated consequences of climate change.

The planet has already warmed 0.8-1.2 degrees Celsius (1.4-2.2 degrees Fahrenheit), with an estimated future warming trajectory of 0.1-0.3 degrees Celsius (0.2-0.6 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade. Global mean sea level has already risen 8-9 inches (21-24 centimeters) since 1880 and is expected to rise by another 10-30 inches (26 to 77 centimeters) by 2100 under a 1.5 degrees constraint, or more if we go past that. We are running out of time.

We know we must act. Constraining climate change in a way that is most protective of our planet, our families, and our homes requires cutting greenhouse gas emissions rapidly and permanently. We believe that Bernie Sanders' Green New Deal proposal lays out a course of action that is matched to the scale of the challenge. It is possible. But we must commit wholeheartedly.

Sanders' Green New Deal is informed by science, linking its targets and timelines to what the science tells us is critical for staving off the most devastating impacts of climate change. Just as importantly, it understands the challenge for what it is: A need to transform our economy to support a more sustainable, healthier future.

Accordingly, it addresses decarbonization systemically, focusing on where money needs to be spent, where social programs need to be implemented, and where people need support to do great things. The plan funds new, clean energy, leveraging successful New Deal models of public financing and control of power generation, and fully funds a just, five-year transition for workers in the fossil fuel industry.

The plan recognizes climate change as an emergency. It would make the U.S. a global leader on climate action, while ensuring funding for a just transition and industrialization of the developing world. And perhaps most importantly, the plan reflects that it is the American people who will make this happen. That's why Sanders' Green New Deal focuses on jobs, justice, and public ownership of the energy systems that we create and will be bolstered by other policy commitments like Medicare for All, student loan forgiveness, union empowerment, and other programs that recognize the power and dignity of all.

We know that it is possible to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis. And we know that Sanders' Green New Deal is a commitment to people that recognizes that only together can we make this deeply ambitious and critically necessary plan work. As President John F. Kennedy said to Congress at the advent of the Space Race: "I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their fulfillment."

It is again time to take urgent, visionary actions that rise to the challenge that we as scientists know is coming. It is time to commit to a Green New Deal.

Signed,

Dr. Emily Grubert, Ph.D. in Environment and Resources from Stanford University

Dr. Eric Rehm, Senior Research Associate, UMI Takuvik/Arctic Remote Sensing at the Université Laval

Dr. Dargan Frierson, Associate Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at University of Washington

Dr. Shannon Hateley, Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Peter Kalmus, Associate Project Scientist at the UCLA Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science & Engineering

Matias Kaplan, PhD Candidate in Bioengineering at Stanford University

Isaac Larkin, PhD Candidate in Molecular Biology at Northwestern University

Yan Liu, BSc in Cell and Molecular Biology at San Francisco State University. Co-Founder and CEO, Biocaptivate

David Silverstone, PhD Candidate in Quantum Information Science at Yale University

Dr. Lucky Tran, PhD in Biology from Cambridge University

Spencer Roberts, BA in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, rooftop photovoltaic engineer

Peter E. Chen, PhD Candidate in Computational Genetics at Université de Montréal