Democrat socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders released his version of the infamous Green New Deal (GND) on Thursday. Using the same apocalyptic language that’s become commonplace for climate alarmists, Sanders claimed, “We have less than 11 years left to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.” Sanders further asserted, “When we are in the White House, we will launch the decade of the Green New Deal, a 10-year mobilization to avert climate catastrophe.”

Sanders’s GND mirrors much of the original House bill introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) earlier this year, though Sanders claims his plan would cost only $16.3 trillion while adding 20 million “good paying, union jobs.” Sounding like a modern-day alchemist, Sanders promises to essentially end the fossil-fuel industry and replace it with 100% renewable energy leading to “complete decarbonization” by 2050.

However, as with the original GND, Sanders’s plan is merely a veiled excuse to radically transform the U.S. into a socialist state. If his plan were primarily focused on tackling climate change, then it wouldn’t call for the ending of nuclear power, nor would it oppose carbon-capture technology. Sanders labels all these current and developing technologies as “false solutions,” when the truth is that these are real and perhaps the most viable solutions to the alleged problem of increasing CO₂ levels — solutions that don’t require a government takeover of the entire energy industry. As Joshua Freed of the centrist Democrat think tank Third Way notes, “The Sanders plan appears to be big, but it’s not serious.”

And he’s right. What we have here is yet another leftist boondoggle based more on fantasy than fact. Sanders’s Green Double Deal would actually do more damage to the climate than good, while robbing the American people of both their hard-earned money and their Liberty.