A proposal imagines how building solar panels and wind turbines along the U.S.-Mexico border could unite calls for a Green New Deal and a border wall.
The proposal, co-written with more than two dozen engineers from large research universities including Texas Tech, Arizona State, and Stanford University, is mostly focused on the technical and economic challenges at hand. It doesn't address the complexities that drive migration in the region, or the fate of the people who will still ultimately be stopped at a border wall—even if that wall functions as a hub of economic activity. "We're not arguing that this is going to make everything nice for everyone," he says.