Today, Sightline released a primer on green jobs called Green-Collar Jobs: Realizing the Promise. Green jobs have been a much-discussed topic here and elsewhere. But what are they? Who has them? And how do we get more for Northwest workers?
A follow up to our popular Cap and Trade 101, Sightline’s new primer explains what makes a green job, how investment in clean energy creates those jobs, and how Northwest leaders can build a green-collar workforce in our region.
Included in the primer:
Green jobs, defined:
Green-collar jobs are those held by employees who devote a substantial share of their work hours to activities that boost energy efficiency, increase the supply of renewable energy, or prevent, reduce, or clean up pollution.
The Promise
Green jobs can speed progress on three important challenges at once: economic recovery, job creation, and climate change. This is an enormous opportunity to ease our dependence on climate-warming fossil fuels while fostering lasting, broadly shared economic prosperity for local families.
The Plan
The biggest chance in the near term for green-collar job creation is in boosting energy efficiency in buildings. This is local work that saves energy. These are jobs that cannot be outsourced. Focusing on training programs for workers that lead to credentials or certifications and factoring training, employment, and formal education into career ladders will help grow a green-collar workforce that gets Northwest families on a track to prosperity in the clean energy economy.
Combining work training programs in fields like efficiency retrofitting or renewable energy with innovative financing programs will supply the workers, stoke demand, and secure funding for the green-collar economy—right here in our communities.
The Prize
Applying a comprehensive set of solutions can help the Northwest lead a green-collar economic recovery. Success won’t be fully captured in higher quarterly earnings or a lower unemployment rate; it will be measured by whether the Northwest increasingly offers its residents a more sustainable way to live, with greater energy independence, fewer greenhouse-gas emissions, cozier buildings with lower operating costs, and good-paying jobs that provide paychecks with a purpose for local families.
Read more about the green jobs primer; check out profiles of northwesterners joining the green workforce; or DOWNLOAD the primer now.
NucEngineer
It is nice that the Senate Cap & Trade bill (in its current form, I can’t keep up with the added pages) is on-line. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/DEC09610_xml.pdfHowever, that gave me the opportunity to note a very distressing fact: Section 744. INTERNATIONAL OFFSET CREDITS, will provide the global redistribution of wealth that is so desired by the leftists. This is our future being given away to foreign countries where corruption is rampant (well, it’s also rampant in Washington DC, but that is another problem). Often, the SO2 (acid rain) cap & trade program of 1992 is held up as an example of sucess, and yes it has worked. However, that plan was debated on the floor of congress for 6-weeks. It did not permit international offsets. This international plan for GHGs will be rife with corruption. Also, like the House version, will 300 pages be added to the bill at 2am on the day that it is voted on and passed by the Senate? Get a grip folks, we are being had.
NucEngineer
Wow! I provided a link in my previous post to the senate cap & tax bill that is 801 pages long, dated 8/21/09. The new version at Senator Kerry’s website has 821 pages and is dated 8/30/09.http://kerry.senate.gov/cleanenergyjobsandamericanpower/pdf/bill.pdfI can’t keep up. Will your senator read it? Will you have a chance to read it? Will our supposed watchdogs in the Press have a chance to read it?
Mike Morin
The environment is each and every individual and her/his relationship to their environment. The environment is not an issue. It is THE issue!- Mike MorinPost-Peak Oil, Climate Change and Green JobsPVs and Wind are somewhat of an illusion. Neither supplies the voltage and amperage needed to do the great majority of the electrical work that our society has grown accustomed to.The key to a bountiful green building economy is the reversal of the thirty, fifty, one hundred year trend of sprawl development in the United States.By rebuilding neighborhoods and reallocating goods and services to those renovated neighborhoods (made walkable, meaning that the great majority of Americans will be able to get what they need within walking distance of their homes), we can succeed.Such a tremendous dedication of resources will be a boom to the building trades and will create the effect of reducing automobile usage by 80% in the next 20 to 40 years. Neighborhood commercial, community and work/telecommute centers will be centrally placed in what are now alienating, automobile dependent, strictly residential areas, alleviating the problems associated with post-peak oil and climate change and bringing with it the quality of life associated with communities and neighborhoods, that most individuals and families currently lack.If we do this, we can take the opportunity to retrofit for weatherization, passive solar design (heating and cooling), electronic environmental controls, solar assisted hot water applications, limited PV and wind applications, etc.Also, if done correctly, we can make changes in ownership arrangements that are much more fair and just, and work towards an equitable distribution of wealth among neighborhoods.Please do contact me so that we can establish a working relationship and together build a great future for the building trades, for our communities, for the world.In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,Mike MorinEugene, OR(541) 343-3808www.peoplesequityunion.blogspot.com