As the climate movement goes, so goes the nation

Hi,

As of Thursday morning, three days after the Iowa caucuses marked the start of a long process of choosing the Democratic candidate to challenge Donald Trump in the US election this year, we’re finally close to learning what happened: Bernie Sanders probably won. The New York Times now expects Bernie Sanders to win the most votes in Iowa. A now-likely win in Iowa has propelled Sanders to frontrunner status. The forecasting website FiveThirtyEight now gives Bernie Sanders the best odds for the Democratic nomination.

But amid all the news from the Iowa caucuses in the US this week, one video clip stood out for me.

An eight-minute short film Watch the video here. produced by the Sunrise Movement and Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement showed an intimate look at what Iowa could be like in 2030, after a decade of revolutionary environmental and social policy called the Green New Deal, which Sanders strongly supports. Read our analysis of the best climate plans in the US election.

The video is a series of interviews infused with gorgeous water-colour animation that were developed from role-playing games at a workshop last fall Watch additional videos from the workshop. about what life in Iowa will be like over the next 10 years as the state remakes itself to fight climate change. 

“The average family isn’t going to be spending hours reading about Green New Deal or climate theory,” Mona Abhrari, a Sunrise organiser in Iowa told the New Republic. Read additional reporting on the video and how it was made in the New Republic. “They are focused on getting food on the table, or keeping up with their two or three jobs to pay the bills. If they see that that’s not the world they have to live in, that instils a sense of hope, and connection, and solidarity.”

Over the past two months, we’ve published profiles of Julian Brave NoiseCat, Read our profile of NoiseCat. who was one of the architects of the Green New Deal, and Varshini Prakash, Read our profile of Prakash. the executive director of the Sunrise Movement, which has been the leading organisation fighting to make the deal a reality. A similar imaginative preview of the 2020s Read ‘In 2030, we ended the climate emergency. Here’s how’. has become the most-read article on climate we’ve ever published at The Correspondent.

The video is a spiritual successor to one published last year by The Intercept Watch the video here. that featured work from Naomi Klein, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Molly Crabapple just as the Green New Deal was beginning to make its way into the presidential candidates’ climate platforms. 

These kinds of visions are increasingly and overwhelmingly popular. A poll of Iowa caucusgoers Here’s the poll summary. released by NoiseCat’s organisation, Data for Progress, before the voting showed that 92% of respondents supported the Green New Deal, a stunning figure for a swing state in the US midwest. This poll is the biggest sign yet that US Americans are ready for radical social change to preserve the climate, and this video is the best I’ve seen on what it will look and feel like once we’ve got it.

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