How to actually deliver green-collar jobs to those who need them.
by Alan Durning
Converting the Pacific Northwest over the next few decades to a place of compact, walkable communities that run on superefficient, renewable energy system—a climate-safe economy—will be a lot of work: paid work. But for all the exciting announcements of solar jobs and green-tech investment that pepper the newspapers, the skill sets of today’s workers are not yet aligned with the needs of this future.
In previous posts in this series, I have described three good uses for revenue from the auctioning of carbon permits: dividends for all, buffering the incomes of low-income families, and upgrading the energy efficiency of working families’ homes. A fourth good use for cap-and-trade auction...
$700 billion still goes a long way.
by Eric de Place
I just can't help wondering what else we could do with $700 billion.
According to the United Nations, the entire debt for the entire continent of Africa was about $320 billion in 2003. Adjusting for inflation and further accumulated debt, let's call it an even $350 billion.
You could install solar panels on 20 million American homes for $300 billion. (I'm ballparking a rather conservative $15k for full installation of enough solar infrastructure to fully power an average American house; the price would surely come down drastically at that scale.) By the way, 20 million houses is more than one-quarter of the entire stock of occupied detached houses in the U.S.
Of course, the solar panels would actually pay for...
Wind energy can supply 20 percent of U.S. electricity needs by 2030 at a "modest" cost difference, a new U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) report says.
The analysis predicts that the 20 percent wind scenario would cost about 2 percent more than sticking with the current energy mix, which relies more heavily on traditional fossil fuels.
"The 20 percent wind scenario entails higher initial capital costs (to install wind capacity and associated transmission infrastructure) in many areas, yet offers lower ongoing energy costs than conventional power plants for operations, maintenance, and fuel," said the report, which was written in conjunction with industry and environmental analysts. Under the scenario, 500,000 new jobs would be created.
To reach their goal...
Many predict that the future of job growth lies within a green economy. Expanding renewable energy industries, such as wind and solar, can offer high-paying jobs for skilled workers. Sitting in a warm Capitol Hill office building last week, a panel of green-collar job activists attempted to rally support among a room of sleepy Congressional staffers. At the end of the briefing, Van Jones, a civil-rights lawyer-turned-green jobs champion, delivered the message that jolted many audience members out of their afternoon haze. "We are about to enter stagflation," Jones said. "That means people get voted out of office."
Highlighting the connections between lagging employment and the need to address climate change has become a favorite talking point in the U.S. environmental and labor...
We recently had a chance to talk with Mark Anielski, Albertan and author of The Economics of Happiness: Building Genuine Wealth. Mark has been working for many years on better ways of measuring progress, and this conversation delves into the potential of moving beyond GNP. Whether in measuring a sense of community or valuing ecosystem goods and services, better measures of progress can align us on the targets that really matter.
Hassan Masum: In your book, you have this great quote from Robert Kennedy about GNP, which I was amazed to read because it was back from 1968 or so - 40 years ago. It seems like we've had some progress, but not a whole lot of progress since then. Could you give us some framing thoughts as to why better measures of progress are so important, and why...
by Anna Fahey
There's lots of buzz about green-collar jobs these days (sort of like blue-collar jobs, but with a sustainable edge) -- whether you're listening to Obama, McCain, or Clinton; Gregoire, Kulongoski, or Schwarzenegger.
Green-collar jobs: skilled manufacturing. You hear this kind of thing a lot: A study conducted by the RAND Corporation and the University of Tennessee found that producing 25 percent of all American energy fuel and electricity from renewables by the year 2025 would produce the following: "$700 billion of new economic activity, carbon emission reduction by 1 billion tons, and 5 million new jobs."
Fine and dandy, but, some might ask "where are those five million new jobs? When will we see them?" Some skeptics have begun to ask whether it's bordering on...
By Grace Augustine
It is impossible to argue against the need for reliable energy at the base of the pyramid (BoP). Energy drives every facet of society, from nourishment to communication. According to the UNDP, at least 1.2 billion people suffer from energy poverty, which has profound impact on health, education, and livelihoods.Increasingly, people are calling for the new energy models in developing nations to be "sustainable" and drawn from "clean" and renewable sources. The accepted belief is that if we can get developing nations on a path of adopting clean technologies, they can completely leapfrog the dirty, self-perpetuating system we have created in the west. However, there are barriers to establishing renewable energy projects at the BoP, on both the...
Taking one step back to size up American opinions surrounding sustainability, Worldchanging correspondent Joel Makower has once again collected a number of "green" polls concerning the subject, which came out just in time for Earth Day.
While looking through a variety of polls ranging from "substantive to silly to self-serving," Makower found that although the "public wants to buy green products and support good companies," they often don't know how they should define "green" and "good." What's more is that they are willing to let corporations do the defining for them:
Almost four in 10 Americans are preferentially buying products they believe to be environmentally friendly, though almost half (48 percent) erroneously believes such products are beneficial for the planet, as...
Recently, we've looked at the ecological future of metals, the sometimes obscured truth that all our resources are either grown or mined, the sustainability challenges of biofuels and second-generation approaches to moving from a hydrocarbon to a carbohydrate economy.
Overall, we're beginning to grasp the myriad and tangled ways that energy availability, resource depletion, climate change and ecosystem services are all wound together -- which, in turn, informs our understanding of the degree to which the answers we put forward must themselves respond to a suite of issues, pushing energy efficiency, preserving ecosystem function, reducing emissions and aiming at closed loop resource use.
Jamais has posted a piece in his big picture series, this time about resource collapse,...
I like offsets: there, I've gone and said it. Other than genetic engineering and biofuels, there may be at the moment no solution more controversial among eco-activists than offsets. That's a shame, because they make good sense.
Much of the criticism centers around two objections: that they don't work, or that they're just wrong.
The evidence critics most frequently that they don't work is that some people have set up completely ineffective offsetting systems, even faux offsetting. The moral argument seems to be based mostly on the idea that paying money for good things to happen in order to make up for doing other harm is wrong, a contention many disagree with.
It is possible to design away the problems with offsets, and it seems like there's even an increasingly good tool...
The promise of the green economy and the clean-tech revolution is that they will bring a new wave of job opportunities — productive and respectable jobs at every part of the economic spectrum, from line workers to senior managers. Nonprofit groups like the Apollo Alliance have made this part of their raison d'etre. A steady drumbeat of studies since the late 1990s has told us that burgeoning markets for solar, wind, clean transportation, and other technologies would represent the next big wave of job creation. Cities and states have been positioning to become clean-tech hubs, eyeing the workforce development potential. Organizations representing low-income populations have been viewing the green economy as an entry point for those near the bottom of the economic ladder....
by Alan Durning
Today, March 18, 2008 is the fortieth anniversary of one of Robert F. Kennedy's most famous speeches, given just months before his assassination.
In it, RFK performed a rhetorical evisceration of our national economic report card, Gross National Product. You can watch a great new video of his remarks, prepared by the Glaser Progress Foundation. He said:
"Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. . . . Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or...
Earlier this month, I posted a piece musing about the possibility of home delivery becoming a bigger lever for sustainable living. One of the big challenges there, of course, is that we're not always home, and leaving packages on our stoop is not always safe.
Recently, though, Martin Tillman turned me on to Deutsche Post's Packstation.
Packstations are sort of like neighorhood parcel ATMs: they hold packages which couldn't be delivered to you directly for you to claim with a swipe card and a pin. You get SMS'd or emailed a notification and pick up the package at your convenience. You can also send packages out. They seem to work:
The 24/7 service is popular. About 570,000 people have registered for the Packstation service so far, and the trend continues. Some 700 Packstations...
By Tom Prugh
A few years ago, a homeowner in Las Vegas—a place that gets maybe five inches of rainfall a year—was confronted by a water district inspector for running an illegal sprinkler in the middle of the day. The man became very angry. He said, “You people and all your stupid rules—you’re trying to turn this place into a desert!”
Ideas about how the world works that don’t accord with reality can be unhelpful. That’s especially true about mainstream economics, which is based in part on ideas that made a lot of sense at some point in the last 250 years but that have outlived their time and usefulness. These ideas—such as the reliance on GDP as the key index of general wellbeing—still dominate assumptions and thinking about economic matters in the media,...
Legislators are still debating an economic stimulus package, but it's pretty certain we'll see a U.S. tax rebate. I heard one legislator, interviewed by NPR, say how, once the rebate's passed and the check's distributed, citizens should do their jobs ad consumers and spend the money into the staggering, confused economy. The Simple Living Network has a Don't Buy It campaign, saying "it is difficult to imagine why anyone would help reinforce the behavior of a broken government or stimulate an out of control economy by purchasing more stuff and junk." The elevator speech: "Don't Buy It, Change The Economy, Put Your Rebate To Work!" What I'm hearing is that we should think strategically about the use of our rebate dollars. Proponents of the rebate have a clear strategy: stimulate...
Growing interest among national and regional governments in curbing carbon emissions has led to rapid expansion of the global carbon market.
Policymakers worldwide are recognizing the true costs of carbon emissions for our economy and our environment. These markets could not have taken off without strong policy leadership. But while many U.S. states are taking action, the national government is falling notably behind by not setting a national cap on carbon emissions.
Worldwide, carbon trading reached a value of $59.2 billion in 2007, up 80 percent over 2006, according to estimates from the market research group Point Carbon. The European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) is the largest carbon market to date, with a trading volume of more than 1 billion tons of carbon...
We're fans of knowing where the things in your life came from, and where they're going when you're done with them. This is especially true when it comes to food. We're into the idea of having a connection with the people who grow our produce, brine our olives, cure our meats, brew our beers and even harvest our bananas. But even by our now somewhat jaded standards, the CSA Rebecca Blood just joined is pretty damn cool.
They sell you community-supported wool, as yarn:
After shearing, we’ll let our friends at the mill work their magic and soon you’ll receive your share of the harvest. The number of skeins, yardage, etc., will depend on the size of the clip but we are limiting our shareholders this first year to ensure that everyone gets a bountiful supply. You can choose to...
By Worldchanging Austin blogger Michael Gomez In Berlin recently, I had an opportunity to drop in on the local Web Montag event, held monthly at an interesting outfit called the Newthinking Store. The Berlin event is one of many Web Montags held for web professionals regularly throughout Germany and Austria (and one in San Jose, California) as a forum for showcasing notable projects, networking, and idea exchange related to Web 2.0. Two Newthinking stores, in Berlin and Cologne, play host to workshops and speaking events related to Open Source issues and technologies. The Berlin store has a comfortable feel, with places to sit and drinks available, and anyone in the community is welcome to come in and enjoy the free wi-fi (a rarity in Berlin, where all the networks appear closed)....
Policymakers around the world increasingly recognize that adopting sound environmental policies can promote, not hinder, economic growth and job creation. In September, after United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged representatives from more than 150 countries to act quickly on climate change, Juan Somavia, the head of the Geneva-based International Labour Organization (ILO), outlined his organization's plan for a new "Green Jobs Initiative." Somavia observed in his remarks that "Investments in energy efficiency, clean energy technology, and in renewable energy have enormous potential to create productive and decent work." The ILO Green Jobs Initiative is based on two fundamental premises: one, that workers and employers must change the way they use and conserve natural...
Una Song - October 17, 2007 - 5:00am Policymakers around the world increasingly recognize that adopting sound environmental policies can promote, not hinder, economic growth and job creation. In September, after United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged representatives from more than 150 countries to act quickly on climate change, Juan Somavia, the head of the Geneva-based International Labour Organization (ILO), outlined his organization's plan for a new "Green Jobs Initiative." Somavia observed in his remarks that "Investments in energy efficiency, clean energy technology, and in renewable energy have enormous potential to create productive and decent work." The ILO Green Jobs Initiative is based on two fundamental premises: one, that workers and employers must change the...
Recent assessments of the state of the environment in 32 states across India indicate that the country's rising economic prosperity is putting the environment under stress, the Hindustan Times reports. Experts cite tourism as a leading cause of the environmental degradation in some areas. But "ecotourism," if properly implemented, has the potential to benefit both the economy and the environment, according to Manoj Bhatt, president and executive director of RACHNA (Research, Advocacy and Communication in Himalayan Areas), a nongovernmental organization based in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand. India's tourism industry experienced a 20 percent earnings increase in 2005, but this "has not translated into jobs for areas like the Himalayas," notes Bhatt. Despite the region's...
Thanks, SmartMobs, for the nice write-up of Alex's presentation at Picnic '07 in Amsterdam this week: Steffen's call to us as consumers was to change our thinking about ownership. He encouraged the audience to “imagine what happens when we share tools” “Consider to share a car, a power drill or whatever”. He promised that “with different things we can build more sustaineable lives that are more fun”. After Alex's PICNIC presentation Smartmobs had a chance to talk to him. We asked him in particular to tell us how his worldview relates to smartmobbie thinking. The green revolution moves online, said Worldchanging’s Steffen earlier in the San Francisco Gate. He believes that the green blogosphere is filling a gap in mainstream media. Alex: “Just think of what happens...
Is a shortage of workers who can put up solar panels and build green roofs what's holding up development of a "green economy"? That's part of the premise behind "Green for All," a national jobs training project that launched today at the Clinton Global Initiative. Its goal is to set up jobs training programs that will create a force of 250,000 green-collar workers, drawn from the communities of "poor urban Americans" -- by which we should read African-Americans, as the group's announcement makes clear: "It's time the African American community had a part in the discussion on climate change," said [founder Van Jones]. "We are not going to solve global warming just with expensive consumer choices like buying hybrid cars and shopping for organic food. People need to realize that you...
By Worldchanging Canada blogger Sonia Mendes In addition to being Earth Day, April 23, 2007 also fittingly marked the official launch of Ark Eco Delivery Service in Ottawa, Canada’s first eco-friendly delivery company. In a fiercely competitive business world where the definition of “success” is rapid growth and profits, Ark Eco takes a boldly oppositional stance. “I think sustainability is the real key to success,” says Juan Gomez, co-owner of Ark Eco Delivery Services along with his brother, Luis Gomez, and brothers Don and Jeffery Abboud. Drawing on their past collective experience in the transportation business, the two sets of brothers came to realize that the industry was not operating in a sustainable fashion. As they began to question how large delivery companies...
Over at MobileActive.org, Katrin Verclas has launched a series of articles on mobile phones in economic development, with a survey of the latest issue of BusinessWeek, which features "interesting sumamries of the state of affairs in mobiles in economic development. This apparently just to make it easy for us to get MobileActives around the world up to speed!" Not to mention Worldchanging readers new to the tremendous adoption rates of mobile phones around the world, and how they're faciliating economic opportunities in developing nations like Kenya and India. Katrin also surveys some more comprehensive reports on mobiles and economic development, including "the famous Robert Jensen study on the now proverbial economic success of fishermen in Bangladesh upon introduction of mobiles in...
It seems like the world is getting downright giddy about stopping global warming. Congress has held more than 75 hearings on the topic this year, climate-friendly technologies are making it into venture capitalists’ dreams and millions tuned into Live Earth, a seven-continent global warming anthem. But it turns out there’s a big gap between awareness and action. Last month, three top power company execs gave investors the inside scoop on what they expect on climate change. I couldn’t help but be curious if their projections and time frames for reducing greenhouse gases lined up with NASA scientist James Hansen’s oft-repeated warning that we have less than 10 years to take strong action on global warming to avoid its worst consequences. But in listening to the first two execs...
(A collaborative series by Hassan Masum, David Zaks, and Chad Monfreda.) How much is a pristine lake worth? A clean atmosphere? An oil field? Answering these questions takes us from the heart of economic philosophy to the frontiers of analytical science. It turns out to be very difficult to give objective monetary values, even in principle. But as our analytical capabilities and understanding of ecosystem services increases, we're developing useful valuation methods that will form the basis for future policy and financial activities. Our last post explained the biophysical basis of ecosystem services. In this post, our goal is to explain how people come up with those intriguing currency figures for ecosystem values, and look at a couple of...
Guest writer Mindy S. Lubber is President of Ceres and the Investor Network on Climate Risk Flying home (sleep deprived) from five intensive days and nights at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, I am trying to draw a few clear conclusions that I can share with my family, friends and colleagues. The Forum covered myriad issues from trade, famine, Middle East unrest, and climate change, to name just a few. What emerged, most clearly in Davos, whatever the issue, was a clear consensus that unilateralism in our interdependent world is unacceptable. "Despite the multiple challenges we face in the world today, I am optimistic," said British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the closing address. "The issue of global climate change hangs in the balance, yet despite...
Ask Mark Shorrock, CEO of the Low Carbon Accelerator fund, how he got into green investing, and he will cite childhood trips to a bird reserve where he still pays an annual "pilgrimage", choosing to do his French schoolwork on Greenpeace, and sitting on top of Scottish mountains while in the middle of his earlier career as a film producer. Not much about money or business - at least on the outset - but the 36 year old is successfully presiding over a unique beast, a publicly-listed venture capital fund that launched late last autumn, raising £45m capital from City investors which he is now busy spending on a raft of small companies that definitely aren't traditional. Their mission is simple: "Low Carbon Accelerator invests in a diverse portfolio of unquoted private companies...
Guest writer Mindy S. Lubber is President of Ceres and the Investor Network on Climate Risk As the climate change conversations heat up here at Davos, the question was finally asked, "Why are we not ready to act on the central truth that energy conservation and energy efficiency are the cheapest, quickest, largest source of energy?” Or as David Gergen, Harvard professor and adviser to many U.S. presidents said, using Amory Lovins’ oft-used phrase, “Are we ready to address negawatts? The U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of negawatts.” I am delighted that the message coming from Davos this year is loud and clear – that we must address climate change and energy security, that we must act now, and that voluntary efforts are woefully inadequate to the challenge we face and so there must...