The Green New Deal is the most ambitious climate proposal ever brought to Congress. And it’s coming to the table during one of the most divisive periods that Washington has ever seen. The New Yorker’s Eliza Griswold recently spoke with a woman named Varshini Prakash. Prakash, who is twenty-five, is the co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, a group of environmental activists, many of whom are very young. Although it’s not a household name, like the Sierra Club, the Sunrise Movement has played a key role in bringing the Green New Deal to Washington. Prakash has had to answer criticism that the proposal is too radical and that the economic and technological transformation it demands simply isn’t possible in the proposed ten-year time frame. “I don’t know if we can completely decarbonize our economy in the next ten years. I don’t know if we can eliminate all warming emissions,” she says. “But we have done incredible things in this nation’s history before.” And, this late in the game, Prakash says, “We don’t have a choice but to strive.”

What will it take to get serious climate legislation passed? The New Yorker’s John Cassidy posed that question to Carol Browner, who was the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton and an adviser, known as the “climate czar,” to President Barack Obama. Yet neither of those Administrations managed to make any substantial dent in the climate crisis. Browner supports the Green New Deal, but she says that we shouldn’t depend on Congress to lead the way to serious climate reform. Grassroots organizing and appealing to industry leaders are crucial steps. “If you look at the long history of environmental protection in this country, what you will see is that people move forward, and then Congress follows, because you have to set a floor,” she says. “It may not ever be as much as we all hoped for, but it will be a step, and then we have to argue for more.”