As concern has grown both over the consequences of global warming and over the loss of well-paying manufacturing jobs in the U.S., much attention has begun to be focused on the green economy and green jobs.

Responding to initiatives, support and pressure from organizations including the Apollo Alliance, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, the Center for American Progress, The Energy Action Coalition and Green for All, late last year Congress passed and President Bush signed an energy bill containing the Green Jobs Act of 2007. The act authorizes $125 million annually to train up to 30,000 people each year for jobs in emerging green economic sectors like solar and wind industries, green building construction and biofuels (the latter is controversial because of its impact on food crops and small farmers). In addition, the measure provides $25 million for green pathways out of poverty, targeting low income people for training and career paths.

Some of the same groups were disappointed early this year when the short term economic stimulus measures passed by Congress and signed by President Bush failed to include a Clean Energy Corps that would have provided opportunities for young and poor Americans in renewable energy and energy efficiency (RE&EE) projects.

Several states have also put forward green economy bills. In California leaders in both legislative houses have just introduced a set of eight related bills to encourage green business and promote green jobs. In Washington state, by now Gov. Christine Gregoire may already have signed HB 2815, the Climate Action and Green Jobs bill, which includes a program to train and transition workers to clean energy jobs.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, four East Bay cities Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville and Richmond announced late last year they were forming the East Bay Green Corridor Partnership, together with leaders of the University of California at Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, to build the heart of the East Bay into a dynamic Green Corridor. The four cities aim to lead the world in environmental innovation, emerging green business and industry, green jobs, and renewable energy in much the same way as the South Bay communities around San Jose, known collectively as Silicon Valley, play a leading role in the high tech industry. The Oakland City Council had earlier approved $250,000 to fund a green jobs corps, from a settlement with energy companies over the energy crisis they created in 2001.

The issue has become part of the presidential campaigns. Barack Obama is calling for a $150 billion green-collar jobs program. Hillary Clinton projects 5 million renewable energy jobs of the future. Even John McCain calls green technology the path to restore the strength of America’s economy.

On March 13 and 14, the Blue-Green Alliance is holding a national conference in Pittsburgh on the topic, organized by the Blue-Green Alliance of steelworkers and environmentalists..

For several years, the Apollo Alliance, a broad coalition of labor, environmental, business, social justice and faith organizations, has put forward a public-private $300 billion program to create 3 million new clean energy jobs to free America from foreign oil dependence in 10 years. The Alliance says the program reinvests in the competitiveness of American industry, rebuilds our cities, creates good jobs for working families, and ensure good stewardship of both the economy and our natural environment.

Defining green economy and green jobs
In its 2007 report, Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency: Economic Drivers for the 21st Century, the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) defined the renewable energy and energy efficient industry (RE&EE) as encompassing all aspects of the energy efficiency industry, including insulation manufacturers and installers, energy audits and energy service contract firms, and manufacturers, sellers and installers of a wide array of energy efficiency products and services. Besides obvious renewable energy technologies, ASES included hydropower, geothermal, fuel cells, hydrogen, energy conservation and efficiency products, electric and hybrid vehicles, sustainable and energy-efficient construction, and daylighting.

ASES said that in 2006, RE&EE technologies generated 8.5 million new jobs, nearly $970 billion in revenue, over $100 billion in industry profits and over $150 billion in increased tax revenues at all levels. With a major effort, the association said, the sector could generate 40 million new jobs and up to $4.5 trillion in revenue by 2030. The sector could account for nearly one in four jobs by 2030, with many of them being difficult to outsource.

While many of these jobs require extensive scientific and engineering skills, a large percentage are so-called green collar jobs, manual labor jobs in businesses that directly improve environmental quality. These occupations can put workers with challenges to employment, including young oppressed minority workers who may lack education and English skills, and workers who may have encountered the criminal justice system, on the road to good-paying jobs with paths to advancement, including apprenticeships in the building trades.

Some examples
In EPI Briefing Paper #212, Renewing U.S. Manufacturing, written by Susan Helper and issued Feb. 13, 2008, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) calls for expanding the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, set up in 1989 as part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to provide technical and businesses assistance to small and medium manufacturers, similar to the help agricultural extension agents give farmers.

EPI says a proposal under the Manufacturing Extension Program to generate 20% of U.S. electricity demand from renewable sources would cost about $35 billion per year for 10 years and would generate about 350,000 jobs. It could be funded from taxes on carbon emissions, or from auctioning permits to emit carbon.

EPI says programs to improve energy efficiency could be funded from canceling oil and gas subsidies of $3.6 billion per year, and could save at least 18,000 auto industry jobs by facilitating retooling to make hybrids and other advanced vehicles. Such efforts could create about 420,000 new manufacturing jobs and preserve about 70,000 more that could be lost, EPI says.

In her case study of Berkeley, Calif., Green Collar Jobs: An Analysis of the Capacity of Green Businesses to Provide High Quality Jobs for Men and Women with Barriers to Employment, San Francisco State University Professor Raquel Pinderhughes cites 22 sectors in the U.S. economy that provide green collar occupations, including energy retrofits to increase energy efficiency and conservation, green building, recycling, manufacturing of green technologies such as solar panels, furniture-making from environmentally certified and recycled wood, etc.

Pinderhughes points out that green collar jobs in Berkeley pay on average significantly more, $15.80 with benefits, than the citys living wage, which last year was $11.39, the nations highest.

In their 2007 report, Community Jobs in the Green Economy, the Apollo Alliance and Urban Habitat concluded that the emerging green economy holds great promise for Americas cities, and especially for our low-income, heavily minority urban communities. Every aspect of clean energy development, from manufacturing to construction, can create good jobs, clean up the air and water, and save consumers money on their energy bills.

In order to make this happen, they said, communities must get involved to ensure labor standards as well as incentives to companies, and to make sure that governments include local hire and apprenticeship programs in city projects, and invest in needed worker training programs.

A similar caution was sounded in Putting Oakland to Work: A Comprehensive Strategy to Create Real Jobs for Residents, by the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy and the Oakland Network for Responsible Development. Saying the green jobs sector has significant potential to create high quality jobs that are accessible to Oakland residents, the report cautioned that the citys government private sector must work together not only to grow the sector, but also to make sure the jobs are actually available to city residents.

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