The Green New Deal would create nearly 30 million jobs -- study

If we want to avoid the possibly catastrophic effects of climate change, we’re going to have to transition to renewable energy as soon as possible. That will mean jobs will be lost in the fossil fuel industry, but a new study out of Stanford University shows a lot of jobs would be created. The study was recently published in the journal One Earth.

It won’t be cheap—with a total price tag of around $73 trillion—but climate experts argue dealing with the effects of climate change will be more expensive than trying to stop it now. This plan would create nearly 30 million jobs, and it could save millions of lives per year just by reducing pollution. The best part is we already have pretty much all of the technology we’d need to do it.

So what kind of technology are we talking about? The researchers write that their plan focuses solely on adopting wind, solar and water power. Nuclear is out of the equation because it typically takes at least a decade to set up, and biofuels are out because they contribute to carbon emissions. As you may have guessed, natural gas and the mythical “clean coal” are also off the table.