Safety Awards for Big Polluters

  • Some say that workplace safety awards promote complacency. (Photo courtesy of the NIEHS/DOE)

The companies associated with the two biggest accidents this year both recently got safety awards from the government. Lester Graham reports.

Transcript

The companies associated with the two biggest accidents this year both recently got safety awards from the government. Lester Graham reports.

The Mineral Management Service announced BP was a finalist for a safety award in May. Then, the Deepwater Horizon exploded, killed eleven men, and spilled –who knows how much– oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration gave the coal company Massey Energy three safety awards last year. Then the Upper Big Branch Mine exploded. 29 miners died.

In an opinion piece in The Hill , The President of the Steelworkers union, Leo Gerard, argued those awards promote complacency– a sort of ‘see we’re already doing it.’

David Uhlmann is a law professor at the University of Michigan. He served for seven years as Chief of the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section. He says awards can prod companies to do better… but…

“There’s always going to be some companies who cut corners, who put profits before safety, who put profits before their obligations to protect the environment.”

BP was to get its award in May. The safety awards ceremonies were postponed.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Solar Within City Limits

  • Tom O'Neill (in suit) develops new businesses for Exelon, an energy company best known for its fleet of nuclear power stations. The Chicago solar project is the company's largest to date. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

There’s a commercial-scale solar project
that’s getting some buzz in Chicago and
beyond. The builders promise to use up
some abandoned industrial space within
the city limits… and hope to provide
some local jobs. City governments across
the country like both of those ideas.
Shawn Allee looks at why this
urban solar project’s falling into place,
and whether it might get repeated across
the country:

Transcript

There’s a commercial-scale solar project
that’s getting some buzz in Chicago and
beyond. The builders promise to use up
some abandoned industrial space within
the city limits… and hope to provide
some local jobs. City governments across
the country like both of those ideas.
Shawn Allee looks at why this
urban solar project’s falling into place,
and whether it might get repeated across
the country:

Carrie Austin is a Chicago alderman, and, as she says, she’s constantly dealing with problems unique to Chicago. But she’s convinced she’s got one problem a lot other cities face, too: what to do with vacant industrial land. She’s got 200 acres of it in her neighborhood.

“The environmental issues left from the company, left us with such devastation without any regards to human life. That has been our fight all these years. ”

Austin says, even with some clean-up in recent years, it’s been tough getting someone to come in with some work – and jobs.

“We’ve talked to FedEx, Kinkos and many other corporate offices. Even to Wal-Mart, bringing some of their distrubution to such a large piece of land. But to no avail.”

Austin says there’s a portion of this land she’s not so worried about now. The energy company, Exelon, is putting up solar panels on about 40 acres. And for the first time in a long time, there’s the sound of new construction there.

“This site’s been vacant for thirty years.”

That’s Tom O’Neill – he develops new businesses for Exelon. We’re walking along a padded-down field of soil where there used to be factory walls, machines, and concrete floors.

“What’s changed is you don’t see the brush and the shrubbery and there was a building that used to be here. The whole site is now graded and you can see signs of the construction where the foundations are going to come out. If you look further west, you can actually see the foundations going in for the solar panels, so it’s changed quite a bit.”

This is a transformation a lot of cities would envy, but I’m curious why Exelon’s doing this in Chicago and whether it’ll repeat it in other cities. On the first question, O’Neill says Exelon’s putting up the panels because it’s got a plan to cut its own carbon emissions.

“This project here will displace 30 million pounds of greenhouse gases per year. So it is a part of our low-carbon initiative.”

This Chicago solar project qualifies for federal loan guarantees and tax credits, but even with that, it’s not clear Exelon will make a profit. So, the question is: will Exelon repeat this? O’Neill says he’s hopeful.

“It is a demonstration project to show what can be done and with its success will come other successes.”

To get an industry-wide view of whether other cities might get urban solar farms, I talk with Nathaniel Bullard. He analyses solar power markets for New Energy Finance, a consulting firm. Bullard says cities are eager to re-use land that can be an eye-sore, or even cost a city money to maintain. For example, some southwestern cities have old landfills – and they’re planning to put solar farms on top.

“We’ve actually see those go much larger than what’s on the books right now for Exelon.”

Bullard says companies are taking a closer look at solar power because states are mandating utilities buy at least some. And the US Congress changed some tax laws recently. Exelon is taking advantage of that.

“First thing to note in the Exelon project is that it is Exelon itself which is going to own its project. If this was a year ago, they would be purchasing the electricity on contract. Now, with a change in policy, investor-owned utilities is allowed to own the asset itself and take advantage of tax benefit.”

Bullard says we’re likely to see more urban solar projects like Chicago’s – if the technology gets cheaper and government incentives stay in place.

Bullard has this joke about solar power that he swears is true. He says, in the solar industry, the strongest light does not come from sunshine – it comes from government policy.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

The Great Depression and Green Jobs

  • The CCC worked on soil conservation projects, built 3,000 state parks, and replanted forests. The men in the CCC planted three-billion trees - that’s estimated to be half of the trees ever planted by humans in the U.S. (Photo courtesy of the National Resources Conservation Service)

Today we hear a lot of news calling
this “the worst recession since the
Great Depression.” Tonight, PBS
begins airing a series of documentaries
from American Experience called
“The 1930s.” Lester Graham reports
the series looks back at the Great
Depression:

Transcript

Today we hear a lot of news calling
this “the worst recession since the
Great Depression.” Tonight, PBS
begins airing a series of documentaries
from American Experience called
“The 1930s.” Lester Graham reports
the series looks back at the Great
Depression:

The documentaries in “The 1930s” series look at the stockmarket crash, the Dust Bowl, and the government’s response – such as President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Robert Stone directed one of the five documentaries. He looked at the Civilian Conservation Corps – the CCC. Stone says it was the first of Roosevelt’s work programs, but it also tackled the biggest environmental disasters.

“We’d spent hundreds of years just chopping down all of the forests in this country and over-using all of the farmland. The topsoil was all running into our rivers and off into the ocean. And it reached a sort of crisis point in the 1920s and early ‘30s.”

FDR had watched the forests disappear and soil erode near his home in Hyde Park, New York. Putting men to work correcting those problems made sense to him.

“FDR was very aware of that. He started a sort of mini-Civilian Conservation Corps in New York state when he was Governor and then when he went to the White House he came up with the Civilian Conservation Corps.”

FDR: “We are planning within a few days to ask the Congress for legislation to enable the government to take on public works, thus stimulating directly and indirectly the employment of many others in well-considered projects.”

But this was new for government. At that time, helping the poor was something for charity, not government.

Harley Jolley is one of four CCC veterans who tell their stories in the documentary.

He says hiring unemployed young men to work in the Civilian Conservation Corps was new to politicians. But they saw it for the practical politics it was.

“And because all those politicians were well aware that they had young men in their hometown, in their home state that could vote for them next time around, ‘Yeah, yeah, we’ll go with you.’ And very quickly it came to pass.”

FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps was the first, but several work programs followed.

The CCC worked on soil conservation projects, built three-thousand state parks and replanted forests. The men in the CCC planted three-billion trees – that’s estimated to be half of the trees ever planted by humans in the U.S.

This revolutionary idea got off the ground quickly. Camps were set up in every state. Men worked under military officers. The Civilian Conservation Corps members were required to send most of their pay back home.

Sometimes nearby towns welcomed the young men. CCC veteran Vincente Ximenes says, other times, people were wary of Roosevelt’s army of workers.

“And there were some farmers who didn’t like FDR and what he did. He was called a Communist, a Socialist, any name you could find. So, therefore, the CCC-ers also, of course, were no good as far as they were concerned.”

And it wasn’t just farmers.

The documentary’s director, Robert Stone says, in the beginning, President Roosevelt faced a lot of opposition to his government ‘green jobs’ program.

“Well, there were concerns very similar to what you have today with concerns about deficit spending.”

“The national debt today is 30-billion as compared to 19-billions under Hoover. And God knows Hoover was bad enough.”

“So that was on the right. And on the left there were concerns about paying these people a dollar-a-day. The unions were upset about it. But the success of it was such that it really quelled most any opposition.”

The Civilian Conservation Corps documentary, like the other documentaries in the 1930s American Experience series, looks at the connections between environmental damage and economic collapse in a way that still resonates today.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Green Jobs in the Golden State

  • California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the biggest state-funded green jobs training program in the nation. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

California is putting together
a huge green jobs training program.
Lester Graham reports it will mean
thousands of workers trained for a
growing part of the economy:

Transcript

California is putting together
a huge green jobs training program.
Lester Graham reports it will mean
thousands of workers trained for a
growing part of the economy:

Last week, lost in the news of wildfires and state budget problems, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the biggest state-funded green jobs training program in the nation. California is leveraging federal stimulus dollars with state money and public-private partnership matching funds.

“This $75-million program will train more than 20,000 workers for clean and green jobs in the future.”

Green jobs – such as repairing hybrid and electric cars, installing solar panels and building wind turbines.

Governor Schwarzenegger says this Clean Energy Workforce Training Program is where economic growth starts.

“There are still people out there who think that protecting the environment will slow the economy down, but it’s quite the opposite here in California and all over the United States.”

Some business leaders say the green sector likely will be the only growth sector in this economy for a while.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

What Counts as Green Collar?

  • President Obama has said that a move toward clean energy production has enormous job creation potential. But some researchers say that’s overblown. (Source: Kmadison at Wikimedia Commons)

At the heart of President Obama’s economic recovery plan is the promise of new green collar jobs. Workers concerned about being laid off from their blue collar jobs are starting to wonder what those new jobs will look like. Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

At the heart of President Obama’s economic recovery plan is the promise of new green collar jobs. Workers concerned about being laid off from their blue collar jobs are starting to wonder what those new jobs will look like. Julie Grant reports:

Michelle Forte has been a dye maker at the General Motors plant in Parma, Ohio for 15 years. She says everyone at work is worried about the future of the plant, and the prospects of the whole company.

“It’s a scary industry to be in right now. They keep on sending our work to China. And my job could be next, you just don’t know. It’s scary to live in that environment every day. You go into work and it’s negative all the time.”

Forte hasn’t gotten a raise in 6 years. And in the future, if she stays as autoworker, she’s going to be making a lot less.

“I will tell you what I made last year, and that was $80,000. And this year, with the concessions that we’ve took and the overtime that we’ve lost, I will be lucky to make $60,000. So, yeah, it’s a drastic cut.”

Forte decided to take advantage of job training money available at GM. She gets up a five in the morning to start work, then after her shift she heads to school.

She and two co-workers have started taking courses at the new Green Academy at Cuyahoga Community College. They’re learning what it takes to install solar panels, wind turbines, and to make buildings energy efficient. It’s tough getting home after 10 at night. But Forte says learning to work in the clean energy field is a positive step for their future.

“Because we wanted to get in on the ground floor. If it breaks open like we think it is, we want to have the education under our belt already.”

But most autoworkers aren’t betting on an explosion of green jobs. At least, they aren’t spending their time in training classes – even if they’ve already been laid off.

Joe Rugola is president of the AFL-CIO of Ohio. The union represents everyone from musicians to office workers to electricians.

Rugola says people who’ve been laid off have to make impossible choices if they decide to start training in a new industry – do they continue looking for jobs to keep the unemployment check coming in – or do they go to school for retraining?

“Am I going to go for training, if I’m already laid off, am I going to risk my unemployment benefits, and go for training in an industry that may or may not produce real work down the road? A person in that situation should not have to make that choice.”

And that’s the big gamble. Do they invest time and effort to retrain for jobs that might never materialize?

President Obama has said that a move toward clean energy production has enormous job creation potential. But some researchers say that’s overblown.

Andrew Dorchak is a researcher with the Case Western Reserve University law library. He coauthored a study titled Green Job Myths.

The first myth: that there is a common understanding of what makes something a green job.

“We’ve figured out that there wasn’t a really good definition of green jobs. Especially if there are political subsidies involved that might be problematic.”

Problematic because many of the jobs classified as green today aren’t making wind turbines and solar panels in the Midwest. They’re lobbyists, administrative assistants, and janitors working for environmental organizations in New York and Washington.

And he’s concerned the definition of green jobs will get even wider as government pockets get deeper.

“It’s subject to maneuvering. To people fighting to classify their jobs as green.”

Dorchak says companies will chase the subsidies. That could take away from government money to create productive jobs.

Jobs that could help people like Michelle Forte find work – and improve the environment at the same time.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Mountaintop Mining (Part Three)

  • Christians for the Mountains field worker Robert "Sage" Russo standing on Kayford Mountain overlooking an MTR site in West Virginia (Photo courtesy of Christians for the Mountains)

Environmentalists have been fighting to stop mountain top removal coal mining for
decades. They say they want to preserve the mountains, the water that’s polluted by the
mining and the people. But many of the people don’t want the help. They want the jobs
provided by the mining operations. Sandra Sleight Brennan reports the struggle
between the two sides is complicated. Now churches and synagogues are introducing
religion into that struggle:

Transcript

Environmentalists have been fighting to stop mountain top removal coal mining for
decades. They say they want to preserve the mountains, the water that’s polluted by the
mining and the people. But many of the people don’t want the help. They want the jobs
provided by the mining operations. Sandra Sleight Brennan reports the struggle
between the two sides is complicated. Now churches and synagogues are introducing
religion into that struggle:

The line drawn between environmentalists who want to stop mountain removal
coal mining and the coal miners who depend on it for jobs has always been
smudged.

Often the environmental activists had relatives and close friends who worked for
the mining companies. There aren’t a lot of jobs in the Appalachian Mountains.
Of the jobs that are there, the coal mining jobs pay the most.

In the small Appalachian towns in the coal fields, the God-fearing families who
depended on the mining jobs have often seen the environmentalists as people
who were out to destroy their way of life.

But lately some people are seeing things differently. More than a dozen churches
and synagogues have passed resolutions against mountaintop removal mining.

Allan Johnson is the co-founder of Christians for the Mountains, a group that’s
sided with the environmentalists.

“It’s a serious issue, ultimately it is a moral issue and, as a moral issue, we’re appealing
to the religious communities, the Christian communities. We’ve got to do right. We
cannot destroy God’s creation in order to have a temporal economy.”

And Johnson is getting help from other Christians. Rebekah Eppling is an
Ameri-Corps VISTA volunteer. She’s working with Christians for the Mountains.

“We present ourselves that we are a Christian organization and we are working for
Creation Care and we are following the Biblical mandate to take care of God’s planet – it
brings a different sense of what we’re doing to people. So a lot of people who
traditionally wouldn’t be interested all the sudden start to realize the different aspects of
it. It kind of hits a different spark for them.”

Creation Care is how some Evangelical Christians describe their brand of
environmentalism. One of the most prominent spokesman for Creation Care is
Richard Cizik. He’s a former Vice President of the National Association of
Evangelicals.

“We say Creation Care because first of all we believe the earth was created and
second of all we know from God’s word in Genesis that we are to care and protect
it. So, we call it Creation Care.”

The group, Christians for the Mountains, works with many different
denominations. They teach people who want to get involved about the issues
surrounding mining. They go into detail about how the short term benefit of the
destructive form of mining not only alters the mountains, but pollutes the streams
and ultimately the drinking water. They point out that once the coal fields are
mined, the jobs are gone and the communities are left to live with the damage to
the environment.

Volunteer Rebekah Eppling says there’s resistance to the message.

“The term environmentalist is kind of a dirty word in the coalfields region. Since we are a
religious organization that puts us in a unique spot.”

“We do get some pretty harsh criticism.”

Allen Johnson with Christians for the Mountains.

“We are concerned about people’s jobs. We want to have a healthy economy. And it is
not a healthy economy in that area. If you go down into the area with the mountaintop
removal is going on it in some of the impoverished areas in the country.”

Like the more traditional kinds of environmentalists, these Creation Care
environmentalists have ties to the community. Eppling says her family comes
from an area that’s targeted for coal mining in the near future.

“My family is very supportive of what I’m doing. Because they see the place where they
used to live are now being destroyed. The mountain very close to where my
grandmother and father grew up its being blasted away. My father and his family are
from Boone County – which is one of the big coal producing areas. Coal River runs right
behind his house where he grew up.”

The Christians for the Mountains know the families that depend on the coal
mining don’t always understand why anyone would want to stop one of the very
few industries that offer good paying jobs in the region. But Rebekah Eppling
says there has to be a better way than blowing up the tops of the mountains and
filling the valleys with rubble.

“It’s not just environmentalist versus workers. It’s a very complex. It’s not just about
stopping coal – it’s about bringing in more options for people.”

And some of those options include preserving the environment by finding alternatives for
the region – such as wind energy, tourism, and not letting the mining companies decide
the fate of the Appalachian Mountains and the people who live there.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sandra Sleight-Brennan.

Related Links

Not Much Green From Eco Jobs

  • A manufacturing job in a wind or solar plant sometimes pays as little as $11 an hour - much lower than the national average for workers making other durable goods (Source: Man-ucommons at Wikimedia Commons)

One of the big plans for kick-starting the nation’s economy is to invest in green jobs: solar and wind energy projects, mass transit, and energy efficiency. But a new report finds some of those jobs might not pay as well as some people expect. Julie Grant has the story:

Transcript

One of the big plans for kick-starting the nation’s economy is
to invest in green jobs: solar and wind energy projects, mass
transit, and energy efficiency. But a new report finds some
those jobs might not be pay as well as some people expect.
Julie Grant has the story:

A manufacturing job in a wind or solar plant sometimes pays
as little as $11 an hour – much lower than the national
average for workers making other durable goods.

Kate Gordon is with the Apollo Alliance, a group that
advocates jobs in renewable energy. She helped to write
the report on green jobs.

“Just because something’s a green job does not necessarily
mean it’s a good job. There are a lot of jobs emerging in
renewable energy and energy efficiency companies where
the workers are being paid minimum wage or slightly more
or don’t have benefits.”

At the same time, the report finds that some U.S. wind and
solar companies are already outsourcing jobs to China and
Mexico.

But Gordon says the government can change this direction
with its investments – by requiring local job creation, labor
standards, and domestic content.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Obama on Environmental Economy

  • Obama delivering the American Recovery and Reinvestment speech on Thursday, January 8, 2009 (Photo courtesy of the Obama Transition Team)

President-elect Barack Obama
is calling on Congress to get busy on
his American Recovery and Reinvestment
Plan. Lester Graham reports energy
and environment are top items in the
plan:

Transcript

President-elect Barack Obama
is calling on Congress to get busy on
his American Recovery and Reinvestment
Plan. Lester Graham reports energy
and environment are top items in the
plan:


Speaking at George Mason University, President-elect Obama called for dramatic
action to overcome the recession. The plan starts off with investments in new forms
of energy and energy efficiency.

“We will double the production of alternative energy in the next three years. We will
modernize more than 75% of federal buildings and improve the energy efficiency of
two-million American homes, saving consumers and taxpayers billions on our energy
bills.”

Obama says building solar panels and wind turbines and fuel-efficient cars will mean
more American jobs and improve the environment at the same time.

Obama warns those investments, and others he outlined, means spending a lot of
government money. But, he says doing too little or nothing at all will mean losing
even more jobs and watching the recession get worse.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Turning the Rust Belt Green

  • The creation of 'green-collar' jobs may help the Rust Belt's unemployment problems (Photo by Lester Graham)

The nation’s economy is in decline, and
the middle states that make up the Rust Belt have
been hit particularly hard with job losses. Some
Midwest states have turned to a new type of
manufacturing and the so-called green collar jobs
it creates. Marianne Holland reports:

Transcript

The nation’s economy is in decline, and
the middle states that make up the Rust Belt have
been hit particularly hard with job losses. Some
Midwest states have turned to a new type of
manufacturing and the so-called green collar jobs
it creates. Marianne Holland reports:

Nationwide, just over half the states have passed some sort of laws or incentives geared at
getting green manufacturing jobs. In the nation’s rust belt,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and Ohio already have green policy in place.

Ron Pernick is a co-founder of CleanEdge. That’s a national green manufacturing research
organization. Pernick says those jobs, are in one of the major growth sectors in American
manufacturing. They’re growing at a rate of about 30% each year. In Iowa, property tax abatements are given to green manufacturing. In Illinois, the state has passed laws requiring utilities to get a portion of their energy from wind or solar power. Pernick says public policy translates to more jobs.

“If you think about creating new industry, you can’t export development. You’ve got to
hire local people to put in the wind turbines, to install the solar farms, to put solar on top
of rooftops. And those jobs can never be exported.”

But other states have been slow to change policy to embrace green manufacturing. In Michigan, green energy legislation has been tied up in
the State Senate. An in states like Indiana, there are no laws or business incentives even on the table to attract the green
manufacturing industry.

Indiana State Representative Ryan Dvorak blames the big power companies for lobbying against incentives to create green jobs.

“I’m not sure why they have so much sway in the state with the different legislators but
they don’t want to give up any ground basically. Obviously they make their money by
generating and selling electricity, so any loss in market share, they’re motivated to
stop that legislation.”

The power companies say they’re just looking out for their customers.
Angeline Protegere is a spokesperson for Duke Energy. Protegere says renewable energy is
moving forward without state regulations. She says Duke understands that some day
regulations will come. But she says that will be at a high risk.

“We constantly have to balance our environmental responsibilities with our economic
responsibilities to our customers because they pay for the cost of pollution control
through their bills.”

And the power companies’ lobbyists persuade legislators it’s in the best interests of the people to block incentives for green jobs. Representative Dvorak thinks his colleagues are being misled.

Jesse Kharbanda is with the Hoosier Environmental Council. He says in his state and others that ignore the green jobs opportunity, workers are being left behind.

“We’re obviously in this situation where Indiana has historically had a formidable
manufacturing base and that base has been continuously eroded because of globalization.
We’re not in any time going to fundamentally change Indiana’s economy and so we have
to deal with the labor force as it is. We have a good, technically minded labor base, but
the question is: what sectors are we creating in the state to employ that technical labor
base. And one of them ought to be the green technology sector.”

Kharbanda says it’s a state’s public policy, tax breaks, and other incentives that will attract the
most green collar jobs. Without those incentives, unemployed factory workers in Rust Belt
states will have to hope for some kind of recovery in manufacturing, or take lower paying, service sector jobs.

For The Environment Report, I’m Marianne Holland.

Related Links

New Push for ‘Green Collar’ Jobs

  • A solar panel installation training program run by Grid Alternatives. (Photo by Kristi Coale)

A new employment program is tying the need low-income people have for
good-paying work to the imperative of meeting the nation’s growing energy
demands. The “green jobs” movement trains out-of-work people and former
blue-collar workers to install solar, wind and other alternative energy
systems at homes and businesses. Kristi Coale reports what started as a
local program might soon be coming to the rest of the nation:

Transcript

A new employment program is tying the need low-income people have for
good-paying work to the imperative of meeting the nation’s growing energy
demands. The “green jobs” movement trains out-of-work people and former
blue-collar workers to install solar, wind and other alternative energy
systems at homes and businesses. Kristi Coale reports what started as a
local program might soon be coming to the rest of the nation:


It’s a sweltering, sunny day – one when people are encouraged to reduce
their energy use. And so it’s fitting that a small group of young adults is
busily installing solar panels on the roof of a house.


People honk their car horns as they drive past this house. Solar power is
supported here in California. The workers on the rooftop stop to cheer, clap,
and pump their fists in response. The atmosphere here is electric. And that’s
to be expected because these young trainees, like Andre Collins, are the
embodiment of a vision, one that takes low-income people, often people of
color, and trains them to work in the fast-growing alternative energy
industry.


“They’re green jobs, because they’re healthy and right for the people and the
environment and they’re green also because they’re taking the people who
would otherwise be poor and putting green in their pockets.”



Andre Collins is one of 15 people who are completing a 9-week training
program in solar panel installation. This program is run by Grid Alternatives,
a non-profit that installs solar in low-income communities. Grid uses
volunteers recruited by local youth employment and job training
organizations. This installation is a graduation of sorts and so these trainees
are thinking about the job market.


“I’m just proud to be a part of this, and I can’t wait to make money.”


Some non-profits are stepping up to make training programs like this
possible. So are cities. The city council in Oakland, California approved a
quarter of a million dollars for such a program, a sum that’s possible thanks
to a settlement between energy companies and the State of California. Six
years ago, when rolling blackouts hit California, companies such as Enron
raised their rates. While Enron and others didn’t admit to any wrongdoing,
they gave the state one billion dollars. Some of that money is being used to
train lower-income people in what’s come to be known as green jobs…
installing solar panels and tankless hot water heaters, converting vegetable
oil to fuel.


Renewable energy industries are worth big money, already 40 billion dollars
a year worldwide. These new industries hold the promise of putting tens of
thousands of people to work in the U.S. Van Jones is president of the Ella
Baker Center for Human Rights. He says support for green jobs is redefining
the environmental movement:


“…A social uplift environmentalism that is less about the Birkenstocks and
the tofu, though that stuff is all beautiful. It’s more about the hard hat, the
lunch bucket, more of a working class, we-can-do-it environmentalism I
think is the next step in the environmental revolution.”


Jones is leading that revolution in cities like his hometown of Oakland,
which has fallen on hard times. Jones says what’s missing in struggling blue-
collar cities like Oakland are good-paying, skilled labor jobs, jobs that used
to come through unions.


“And it’s time to really rebuild the labor movement with we think the new
face of working class America which is more Latino, more black, more
Asian and also with a new consciousness around doing things in a more
ecologically smart way.”



Oakland is the first city to declare a green jobs corps. But there could be
many more. Cities across the country might get a chance to start their own
programs, thanks to pending federal legislation:


“This bill will allow for three million workers here to be able to enjoy this
kind of training and advancement.”


That’s California Congresswoman Hilda Solis describing a bill she’s
authored in a YouTube video. The Green Jobs Act of 2007 proposes to
dedicate a half a billion dollars to train people to do green collar work. This
fall, the U.S. Senate will take up Solis’ bill. Many believe creating green jobs
will not only revitalize the economy and the environment, but also reinsert
something that has long been missing from these communities: hope.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kristi Coale.

Related Links