Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “Call me a radical”

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, talks to 60 Minutes about the Green New Deal and says only “radicals” have changed this country. 

The youngest woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), tells Anderson Cooper that high tax rates on the very rich would help finance an ambitious plan to combat climate change known as the “Green New Deal.” The interview will be broadcast on 60 Minutes, Sunday, January 6 at 7:00 p.m., ET/PT on CBS.

Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal” aims to eliminate carbon emissions within 12 years. Speaking about the ambitious goal, Ocasio-Cortez says, “It’s going to require a lot of rapid change that we don’t even conceive as possible right now. What is the problem with trying to push our technological capacities to the furthest extent possible?”

“I think that it only has ever been radicals that have changed this country,” Ocasio-Cortez says. “Abraham Lincoln made the radical decision to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. Franklin Delano Roosevelt made the radical decision to embark on establishing programs like Social Security. That is radical.” MORE

 

Post-Brexit, the U.K. and Canada can fuel global sustainability

 

A “circular economy” is one that avoids waste and instead innovatively reuses or regenerates end products. That’s in contrast to today’s largely “linear” economy, in which products are dumped as waste after we’re finished with them — losing value and damaging our environment.

With a circular economy, new business models generate value from end products and even turn those products into services, such as the phenomenon known as car-as-a-service, which minimizes negative impacts on the environment and people. A circular model relies on renewable energy, and an emphasis on human well-being has been incorporated into the concept.

The main message of our research is that Canada and the U.K. could jointly start a global race to the top through a trade agreement that incorporates circular economy principles.  MORE

Horizon scanning: Nine innovations set to shake-up sustainability in 2019

Over the past 12 months, countless innovations which could help businesses and nations deliveron resource and carbon commitments have emerged. Here, edie rounds up nine key products and concepts that could transform sustainability in 2019. MORE