The Green New Deal: Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth

by Jeremy Rifkin Narrated by David Cochran Heath

Overview

An urgent, workable plan to confront climate change and transform America's economy for a post-fossil fuel world from the New York Times bestselling author of The Third Industrial Revolution.

A new vision for America's future is quickly gaining momentum. The Green New Deal has caught fire in activist circles and become a central focus in the national conversation, setting the agenda for a new political movement that will likely transform the entire US and world economy. Although the details remain to be hashed out, it has inspired the millennial generation, now the largest voting bloc in the country, to lead America on the issue of climate change.

While the Green New Deal has become an overnight sensation, it takes on added weight in lieu of a parallel movement within the global business community that is going to shake the very foundation of society over the next several years. Behind the scenes, the key sectors that make up the infrastructure of the global economy are quickly decoupling from fossil fuels and recoupling with solar and wind energies that are now near parity in cost and soon to be far cheaper. New studies are sounding the alarm about the prospect of 100 trillion dollars in stranded assets as the economy abandons the old energies of the twentieth century for the new cheaper green energies of the twenty-first century, creating a carbon bubble that is likely to burst by 2028-leading to the collapse of the fossil fuel civilization.

This great disruption is occurring because the marketplace is speaking. Every government will have to follow the market or face the consequences. Governments that lead in the scale-up of a new zero carbon green infrastructure and create the new business opportunities and employment that accompany it will stay ahead of the curve. Governments that fail to lead will be doomed.

In The Green New Deal, New York Times bestselling author and renowned economic and social theorist Jeremy Rifkin delivers the political narrative, technical framework, and economic plan for the debate now taking center stage across America. The concurrence of a stranded fossil fuel assets bubble and a green political vision opens up the possibility of a massive global paradigm shift into a post-carbon ecological era, hopefully in time to prevent a temperature rise that will tip us over the edge into runaway climate change. With twenty-five years of experience at the forefront of enacting green transitions for both the European Union and the People's Republic of China, Rifkin offers his indispensable wisdom in a blueprint for how to transform the global economy and save life on Earth.

Editorial Reviews

FEBRUARY 2020 - AudioFile

Rifkin lays out the economic and technological features present and forthcoming that will direct companies and governments across the globe to shift away from fossil fuels and into renewable energies. Narrator David Cochran Heath's deep, resonant voice commands listeners' attention but doesn't maintain it. His delivery is clear, consistent, and emphatic but not enthusiastic. Rifkin's prophetic writing clearly aims to excite listeners about the possibilities that lie ahead, but Heath leaves passion at the door. In doing so, he makes the listening experience less engaging. It’s unfortunate because Rifkin’s solutions are meant to empower listeners in their roles as individuals but also as representatives of the very organizations, businesses, and government entities that can save the world from the devastating effects of climate change. L.E. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

07/29/2019

America’s transition to clean energy is unstoppable—well, almost—according to this boosterish treatise that, contrary to the name, isn’t about the stimulus policy promoted by left-leaning Democrats. Sustainability consultant Rifkin (The Third Industrial Revolution) contends that plummeting prices for wind power, solar power, and batteries; a shift to electric vehicles; and “smart” electrical grids will render fossil-fueled energy too expensive to compete, leading to its “inevitable” failure in the marketplace. He embeds this forecast within a primer on “the Third Industrial Revolution” that he predicts will bring households and businesses trading home-brewed solar and wind power online, a vision of energy populism that he touts in ringing but nebulous verbiage. (“The distributed and laterally scaled infrastructure of the Third Industrial Revolution is... fluid and open, allowing literally billions of players around the world to assemble and reassemble, and disaggregate and reaggregate, their own component parts of it... in continuously evolving blockchained platforms.”) In the fine print, Rifkin grants that this collapse isn’t quite inevitable: he allows that market forces will need help from trillions in government subsidies for renewables to displace carbon and says little about the difficulty of knitting wind and solar into a reliable energy supply. Readers will find more jargon and hype than serious analysis. (Sept.)

From the Publisher

"[Jeremy Rifkin] is a principal architect of the European Union’s long-term economic vision, Smart Europe, and a key advisor to China's Third Industrial Revolution vision...The European Commission is calling for a climate-neutral Europe by 2050. His new book, The Green New Deal, is essentially an attempt to rouse the United States from its slumber within a collapsing 20th century fossil fuel era." —Forbes

“The futurist and prolific author is the kind of thinker popular among chief executives and the TED Talk crowd. So it’s not surprising that ‘The Green New Deal’ takes a stance quite different from that of typical Green New Deal supporters... he’s interested in building factories, farms, and vehicles in a fossil-free world, asserting that ‘the Green New Deal is all about infrastructure.’” —The New York Times Book Review

"[In The Green New Deal], economic theorist Jeremy Rifkin, whose work has inspired climate legislation in China and in various countries in the European Union (E.U.), is well positioned to advocate for this new political vision. In The Green New Deal, Rifkin confronts skepticism about the feasibility of making a transition of the scale required by countering that we are already making these changes in many global regions. It is time, he argues, for the United States to join the E.U. and China as leaders toward a zero-carbon economy." —Science

“An influential advisor to governments the world over and a prolific author in areas of societal importance, Rifkin delivers a passionate vision and practical narrative, based on his extensive experience implementing pioneering changes throughout the European Union and People’s Republic of China.” —Booklist

“An urgent endorsement of efforts to remake a doomed fossil-fuel economy before it's too late.” —Kirkus Reviews

"Jeremy Rifkin is a thinker at the front edge of important issues from genetic engineering to automation. Now he confirms the opportunities that open up if we seize the challenge of rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions." —David Suzuki

“Once again, Jeremy Rifkin has wrapped his brilliant mind around humanity’s greatest challenges and makes a compelling case for ending business as usual. The Green New Deal is a clear roadmap for the post-carbon transformation of the US economy and an inspiring vision of what could be the most promising economic opportunity of our lifetimes. It’s a must-read for investors, entrepreneurs and policy makers alike.” —Sir Richard Branson

“Energy is the economic, social, and existential issue of our time. Jeremy Rifkin’s command of the issue in all its shades and shapes is unsurpassed. His narrative deftly deconstructs the future energy problem set, soberly chronicles the zeitgeist, and offers a bold snapshot of the future with an accompanying roadmap. The Green New Deal is singular in its holistic perspective on the necessary energy revolution—from addressing the clean resource mix to identifying financing alternatives to emphasizing the importance of reinventing the oft-forgotten grid infrastructure to the overarching demand for social equity. It’s all here—a must read.” —Anne Pramaggiore, CEO of Exelon Utilities

“Challenging yes! Unrealistically provocative - far from it! Workers want their money invested in a sustainable future with human-centered technology, jobs and a just transition… Jeremy Rifkin provides a realistic timeline and an indispensable roadmap for action. There are simply no jobs on a dead planet!” —Sharan Burrow, Secretary General of the International Trade Union Confederation

“Jeremy Rifkin’s ground-breaking ideas have long been the staple diet of enlightened political leaders across the world. The Green New Deal shows why his work remains more important than ever. In charting the natural decline of fossil fuel industrialization, Rifkin offers a compelling prescription for how the green economy has the potential to unlock the sustainable growth of the future.” —Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever and Vice Chair of the United Nations Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative

“Jeremy Rifkin is the economic and ecological worldwide ambassador of the energy transition…he presents a grand scenario for the future: a visionary approach unlike anyone has dared to put forward in the last fifty years. The Green New Deal is a must-read…for grassroots movements and policy-makers in Europe and the United States alike!” —Sigmar Gabriel, former Vice Chancellor and the Minister of Economic Affairs of Germany

"Jeremy Rifkin's The Green New Deal presents the most comprehensive and compelling narrative to transition the U.S. energy, telecommunications, and transportation sectors into a smart Third Industrial Revolution. While our national leaders have been unable to find common ground, Rifkin provides a bipartisan means to accelerate our nation's path toward decarbonization.” —Robert Wilhite, Managing Director, Navigant Consulting, the largest energy and sustainability consulting team in the industry

“The United States is falling behind the European Union and now China in the race to prepare our economies for the low-carbon future. Rifkin’s new book gives the US the crucial narrative it needs to confront the ‘carbon bubble’ of stranded assets increasingly threatening the stability of the global financial system. And his advice is not just for the US. The 9,200 cities that are part of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy have a lot to learn from Rifkin’s work with pioneer smart cities and regions in Europe.” —Maroš Šefcovic, Vice President of the European Commission and Co-Chair of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy

“Rifkin is bold, prescient and revolutionary. The urgent global public health and humanitarian impacts of Climate Change are well upon us and accelerating. Rifkin charts a tough and achievable path forward - Distributed, Open Source, Glocal and Green – and brings us to the threshold of a New Beginning.” —James Orbinski MD, former International President of Doctors Without Borders

“The Green New Deal is impressive in its ability to connect the dots of environmental, political, social and geographical issues that define our sustainable future. Rifkin has laid out a vast Green New Deal plan that is radical and defensible for an historic twenty-year retrofit of the nation’s millions of buildings to reduce global warming emissions, taking us into a green century.” —Gordon Gill, Principal, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (ranked the number one architecture firm in the United States of America by Architect magazine)

“In The Green New Deal, Jeremy Rifkin presents a survival imperative for the millions without work and for a planet that needs healing. In this timely book, he defines the urgent steps that will need to be taken to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and reclaim public infrastructure.” —Dr. Vandana Shiva, feminist, ecologist, and recipient of the Right Livelihood Award

FEBRUARY 2020 - AudioFile

Rifkin lays out the economic and technological features present and forthcoming that will direct companies and governments across the globe to shift away from fossil fuels and into renewable energies. Narrator David Cochran Heath's deep, resonant voice commands listeners' attention but doesn't maintain it. His delivery is clear, consistent, and emphatic but not enthusiastic. Rifkin's prophetic writing clearly aims to excite listeners about the possibilities that lie ahead, but Heath leaves passion at the door. In doing so, he makes the listening experience less engaging. It’s unfortunate because Rifkin’s solutions are meant to empower listeners in their roles as individuals but also as representatives of the very organizations, businesses, and government entities that can save the world from the devastating effects of climate change. L.E. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2019-06-25
A noted activist elucidates the program of environmental and economic reform that is being largely ignored on Capitol Hill.

According to Rifkin (The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism, 2014, etc.), the president of the Foundation on Economic Trends, we are within a degree or two of temperature rise before we see the cataclysm of "runaway feedback loops and a cascade of climate-change events that would decimate the Earth's ecosystems." The possibility of such devastation, he argues, is not lost on heartland voters who, though perhaps otherwise conservative, are increasingly alarmed by severe weather events and other clear signs of a changing climate regime, manifest in expensive destruction of life and property. Against this, Rifkin notes trends among younger citizens to participate in a so-called sharing economy, with shared housing, office space, vehicles, tools, and the like, "allowing the human race to use far less of the resources of the Earth while passing on what they no longer use to others and, by doing so, dramatically reducing carbon emissions." It will take more than that, of course: Infrastructure must be overhauled, which would add jobs to the economy, and old ways of doing things must be cast aside. There's not much time to do so. Rifkin projects that without change, "fossil-fuel civilization" has less than 10 years of life; he adds that this change "is inevitable, despite any efforts by the fossil fuel industries to forestall it." The author then enumerates a 21-point program around Democratic proposals spearheaded by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey, closing with the fond hope that a "biosphere consciousness" is emerging. A little hectoring alternating with wishful thinking goes a long way, but Rifkin's point that something needs to be done—immediately—is well taken. Better a Chicken Little than a Pollyanna any day of the week.

An urgent endorsement of efforts to remake a doomed fossil-fuel economy before it's too late.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169284546
Publisher:	Macmillan Audio
Publication date:	09/10/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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