I doubt America’s industrial capacity is sufficient to produce all of the Green Weenie Awards that the Green New Deal, unveiled today in Washington, will deserve. Before getting to some of the details (or lack thereof) I want to take note of the style of this “legislation” as an example of the modern liberal mind at work.

The modern liberal mind runs on gerunds—verbs made into nouns with the “-ing” ending. The Green New Deal resolution introduced today is full of gerundive commands for all of the great capacities that will be brought to bear to achieve our brave new green utopia: “mitigating and managing”; “investing, supporting” and (of course) “sustaining”: “building and overhauling”; “upgrading and spurring”; “working and removing”; “cleaning, identifying, and promoting”; “removing and identifying”; “leveraging and ensuring”; “making and directing”; “guaranteeing, strengthening and enforcing”; “enacting and obtaining.” I missed “facilitating,” which is my favorite liberal gerund. All in just 14 double-spaced, large-print pages.

Where do liberals learn to write like this? Probably the same places they learn to think like this.

I’ll perhaps comment on some of the technical aspects of this wish list on some other occasion, but will simply note for now one interesting small detail (one of the very few concrete policy details at all) of the bill that says we should achieve “net-zero emissions” of greenhouse gases by 2030, instead of simply “zero emissions,” which had been the term previously in use. This language seems to leave the door open to carbon capture and other technologies that might enable some continued fossil fuel use even in the sunny green uplands of our new utopia. But carbon capture is anathema to most deep greens.

But never fear, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is here! In her FAQ about the Green New Deal, she helpfully explains:

We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.

Follow up question for AOC: Are you planning for a mass genocide of cattle? Have you checked with PETA on this? Or maybe cows will be sterilized and placed on Social Security so they can live out their flatulent golden years in peace?

And: Get rid of airplanes? Turns out AOC is just warming up:

Totally overhaul transportation by massively expanding electric vehicle manufacturing, build charging stations everywhere, build out high- speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary, create affordable public transit available to all, with goal to replace every combustion-engine vehicle. All by 2030. At least she’s not targeting popcorn, because I’m going to want a lot of that.

UPDATE: The “Green New Deal” has been the source of so much hilarity that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez apparently has deleted the FAQ page from her web site:

This was one of the quickest fails in political history, but I will hazard a guess that we haven’t seen the last of the Democrats’ “green” fantasies.