Press Clips

Organizations press Chester council for support

Ryan — 2008-10-13T19:41:27Z

CHESTER - Several local organizations put public pressure on the Chester City Council to demonstrate greater support for their community projects during a meeting Wednesday evening.
Desire Grover, an organizer for the Chester Energy Justice Network, pushed council members to sign a petition committing them to increase Chester's number of "green jobs."
"It used to be a very gray city and now we're paying for the pollution that happened here. Now we want to turn this into a green city," said Grover, advocating for job creation that also benefits the environment.
Only Councilwoman Marrea Walker-Smith has signed the petition to date, Grover said.
Mayor Wendell N. Butler Jr. told Grover she has the board's support and promised to have a representative meet with her organization. Several members of the Chester Community Grocery Co-op, including founder Tina Johnson, also spoke at Wednesday's meeting to ask for more explicit support for their co-op's expansion.
"I feel that the Chester Co-op is a viable business," argued Rod Powell, an instructor at the Chester Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired and a co-op board member. "The reason why I'm here is to get your blessing on a Chester Co-op."
Butler promised the group had his "blessing," and that he would promptly coordinate a meeting between city officials and co-op organizers.

It’s time for Blacks to start thinking green

Ryan — 2008-10-13T19:45:19Z



Participants in the September 27 "Green Jobs" rally

It’s time for Blacks to start thinking green
by Charles Hallman
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 10/8/2008

The Black community needs to be more involved as the U.S. continues debating its energy future, and more African Americans need to recognize the urgency — and the potential rewards — of a green economy with green jobs. That is the message coming from national commentators and a recent green-movement rally on Minneapolis’ North Side.

“This is not an issue that we can sit on the sidelines and let someone else do the business, because there is too much at stake,” notes American Association of Blacks in Energy President and COO Frank Stewart, who also is a member of the Washington, D.C.-based Commission to Engage African Americans on Climate Change (CEAC), which was created in July.

CEAC released a report this summer that described the disproportionate impacts of climate change on Blacks, including the “heat island effect” — high temperatures are expected to be more extreme in urban areas where Blacks are more than twice as likely to live than Whites, and there is a correlation between lower numbers of air conditioning units in Black households and higher heat-related mortality in major U.S. cities.

Blacks spend an estimated 25 percent more of their income on energy than the national average, the CEAC report continued. As a result, gas prices and heating costs “hit harder in our pocketbooks than it hits others’ pocketbooks,” adds Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams, the first Black in Texas history to be elected to a statewide post.

Too often, such issues as health care and education get more attention from Blacks, “so we really haven’t dealt with the whole energy piece,” Renee Amoore, president of the Pennsylvania-based Amoore Group, adds. “It should be among the top three [issues of concern].

“The bottom line is that [high] fuel costs affect everything, because we have everything imported into our community. If you think of everything that is imported into our community, then you know how important it is,” Amoore says.
Others, meanwhile, propose that a switch to a “green economy” might be the answer to U.S. energy concerns.

A report released in September by the Center for American Progress and the Political Economy Research Center at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst showed that at least two million construction and manufacturing jobs over two years can be created in the U.S. through a green economic recovery program, which would include retrofitting existing homes and buildings to make them more energy efficient.

Green For All founder-president Van Jones, who helped lobby for the Green Jobs Act that Congress passed in 2007, has been a longtime green advocate. Speaking recently in Austin, Texas, Jones suggested, “The next president of the United States should say, we are going to have a World War II-level mobilization, a crash program to weatherize and solarize America, put up millions of solar panels on every surface, [and] we can find and put people to work doing it.

“We have to build wind farms,” continued Jones, who was previously profiled in the MSR (July 10). “We have to build wave farms, solar farms, weatherize buildings. This is the movement that will create new work, new wealth, new health, and new investments.”

The green movement also is beginning to pick up steam in Minnesota, but only a handful of Blacks attended a September 27 “Green Jobs” rally at the Minneapolis Urban League’s Northside headquarters.

“I don’t see people of color participating [in such events],” noted Michael Haynes of Minneapolis, a board member of Environmental Justice Advocates for Minnesota (EJAM), which sponsored the event. “I am typically the only person in the room voicing our concerns.”

“We are one of the communities that are most impacted by environmental injustice,” claims Camille Cyprian of St. Paul. She supports the green movement because “green jobs offer livable wages and a way to take care of the earth. We do have a lot more work to do in raising awareness.”

It’s not about “hugging trees,” a frequent disparagement of such environmental rallies, said National Association of Minority Contractors Executive Director Bobby Champion, who spoke to the audience. “We have to do a better job making sure our community understands environmental issues and how they affect them as well,” he said, “so that they will feel enthusiastic and energized to come out to a rally like this.”

“We are looking for green jobs for the Northside for Northsiders,” says EJAM spokesperson Karen Monahan, whose office is located at the Urban League. “This is a community that needs to build hope. We figure that one way to bring hope back into the community is a good, green job.”

Rachel Dykoski, a wife and mother, said that she would like to see a local green economy in place for her two daughters, now ages six and seven, when they grow up, which includes establishing “a community-based compost program in the city” and recycling of leftover food scraps. “We have to utilize the resources we have,” she added.

Finally, the U.S. can’t let the current financial crisis put the energy crisis on the backburner. “They see it as very, very important,” Stewart said of the Congressional Black Caucus, who he recently met with, adding that both presidential candidates “are wrestling with it right now. It is going to be a tough set of decisions [for whoever is elected].”

“It’s not just about the green economy or green jobs,” noted Haynes. “It’s about changing how we as a people start to view ourselves, our neighborhood, our community and our children.”

Van Jones’ entire speech can be read at www.alternet.org/story/99550. Information from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the Political Economy Research Institute was used for this article.

We Need a Buildup, Not a Bailout: Van Jones and The Green Collar Economy

Ryan — 2008-10-14T18:01:28Z

"We don’t just need a bailout. We need a buildup," Thomas Friedman wrote inthe New York Times last month."We need to get back to making stuff, based on real engineering not just financial engineering.

"We need to get back to a world where people are able to realize the American Dream — a house with a yard — because they have built something with their hands, not because they got a 'liar loan' from an underregulated bank with no money down and nothing to pay for two years. The American Dream is an aspiration, not an entitlement."

Friedman described what a new economy could look like for America and how more important it is that we don't just see this bailout as a respite, but a wake-up call "to launch an E.T., energy technology, revolution with the same urgency as this bailout."

As Friedman wrote, "The exciting thing about the energy technology revolution is that it spans the whole economy — fromgreen-collar construction jobs to high-tech solar panel designing jobs. It could lift so many boats.

"In a green economy, we would rely less on credit from foreigners 'and more on creativity from Americans,' argued Van Jones, president of Green for All, and author of the forthcoming The Green Collar Economy.

"'It’s time to stop borrowing and start building. America's No. 1 resource is not oil or mortgages. Our No. 1 resource is our people. Let's put people back to work — retrofitting and repowering America. ... You can’t base a national economy on credit cards. But you can base it on solar panels, wind turbines, smart biofuels and a massive program to weatherize every building and home in America.'"

Van Jones is a familiar figure to readers of this blog. Now, you can read the words of the man himself, as his book is released tomorrow. (Pre-order it here.)

I'd like to see copies in the hand of the presidential candidates at the debates tomorrow night.

"The 'green' in 'green-collar' is about preserving and enhancing environmental quality—literally saving the Earth," Jones wrote in his Introduction. "Green-collar jobs are in the growing industries that are helping us kick the oil habit, curb greenhouse-gas emissions, eliminate toxins, and protect natural systems.

"Today, green-collar workers are installing solar panels, retrofitting buildings to make them more efficient, refining waste oil into biodiesel, erecting wind farms, repairing hybrid cars, building green rooftops, planting trees, constructing transit lines, and so much more. California has shown that a state can still grow its economy while reducing the rise in greenhouse-gas emissions. The nation can do the same thing.

"We have the chance now to create new markets, new technology, new industries, and a new workforce. Let's do it right—with good wages, equal opportunity, and pathways to success for those whom the pollution-based economy left behind."

A Green Path out of the Red

josh — 2008-10-13T18:04:24Z

[MUSIC: Boards Of Canada "Zoetrope" from "In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country" (Warp Records 2000)]

ANNOUNCER: Support for Living on Earth comes from the National Science Foundation and Stonyfield Farm.

[THEME]

GELLERMAN: From the Jennifer and Ted Stanley studios in Somerville, Massachusetts, This is Living on Earth. I'm Bruce Gellerman, in for Steve Curwood.

With Washington trying to bail out Wall Street with a 700 billion dollar pot of gold, there are those on the left and right who say green is really the way to go, that investments in clean energy and energy efficiency can both stimulate the economy and save the environment. Living on Earth's Jeff Young reports on what a green bailout might look like.

YOUNG: As the Capitol's political elite huddled to craft an economic rescue, some other Washington residents in the city's struggling Anacostia neighborhood rallied for a different kind of economic plan.

CROWD: I'm ready for green jobs now!

[CHEERING, MILLING OF PEOPLE]

YOUNG: It was one of some 700 rallies around the country that day promoting clean energy as a way to generate jobs and wealth. Activist Van Jones, with the Green for All campaign, says that's where government should be making its investments.

JONES: The people who said we could have a financial strategy based on borrow and spend and bubble and bailout, they've had their turn. They've been totally discredited. It's our turn now. Green jobs now! Green jobs now!

YOUNG: Jones says an economic recovery plan should attack many problems at once. If government spending helped idled workers in Anacostia weatherize homes, it would also save energy, cut greenhouse gas pollution and lower utility bills. He calls it greening the bailout.

Green for All activist Van
Jones charges up the crowd in Washington's Anacostia neighborhood.

JONES: We've gotta make this bailout bail out the people and the planet, not just the people who want their platinum parachutes. The bottom line is that we got ourselves into trouble because we started building our economy based on consumption, based on debt, and based on environmental destruction. The way forward is to recreate the U.S. economy so it's based on production, savings, and environmental restoration. That's the way forward. And any help that anybody gets now should have green strings on it to pull us into the only part of the economy that's going to grow, which is the green part.

YOUNG: It's not a new idea—Jones has been helping people find work in solar and energy efficiency efforts in the Oakland, California area. And many communities in the windswept states are already at work building turbines for that fast growing energy sector. But as the economy teetered in the past weeks, a green growth agenda really
seemed to gain steam. The opinion pages of the New York Times, Washington Post and other major papers drew parallels between the financial crisis and the climate crisis. And in the latest meeting of the influential Clinton Global Initiative former Environmental Protection Agency director Carol Browner threw out this idea.

College students facing a bleak job market hope green energy investment will brighten the outlook.

BROWNER: If we're gonna spend 700 billion on bailing out the financial, why not a trillion into energy and renewables?

YOUNG: Even oil business billionaire T. Boone Pickens, who once bankrolled right wing political attack ads, now buys airtime to encourage renewable energy. When Pickens pushed his energy plan at the National Press Club, he said building a wind energy corridor from Texas through the plains states would boost the flagging economy.

[VOICES AND CLICKING OF DISHES]

PICKENS: Can you imagine how many jobs created in America? Jobs, profits taxes, economy -- America could be revitalized! By just managing our energy properly.

YOUNG: But just how does a bailout aimed at shoring up banks and easing the credit
crunch translate into green jobs? Well, the bailout itself could stimulate green energy by extending tax credits for wind and solar. And some analysts say housing-related assets the government buys could be leveraged to support energy efficient homes. But green jobs author and organizer Bracken Hendricks says the larger opportunities lie in the larger trend we're now seeing of major government involvement in the markets.

HENDRICKS: We need to be stimulating the businesses and the investments that are really going to improve our productivity by investing in clean energy and renewable energy. And at a time when we are seeing an increasing public role in shoring up financial institutions, this is the time to ask for that sort of a public return on our investment.

YOUNG: Hendricks helped bring business, labor, and environmental groups together in
the Apollo Alliance. He's now a senior fellow at the progressive policy think tank Center for American Progress. Hendricks thinks Congress will try another economic stimulus package to bring the country out of recession. The last stimulus, you might remember, came in the form of checks straight to taxpayers. Hendricks says a CAP study shows a green stimulus package creates more jobs than just encouraging consumption.

HENDRICKS: That money stays locally—you can't outsource jobs retrofitting buildings for efficiency or building transit systems. Put aside the environmental benefits. Investing in a green recovery is better economic policy and it puts us on a faster road to recovery.

YOUNG: Hendricks says that would be an attractive option for the next president, no matter who wins in November - both candidates say they support renewable energy. But with the bailout and a slow economy stressing the budget, will the president still be able to pay for large-scale investment? Recent statements from the candidates offer some insight. In the first presidential debate, PBS moderator Jim Lehrer asked Republican Sen. John McCain what he might give up in a tight budget.

Many say a green economy will be a bullish economy.

MCCAIN: How about a spending freeze on everything but defense, veteran affairs and entitlement programs.

LEHRER: Spending freeze?

MCCAIN: I think we ought to seriously consider it, with the exceptions the caring of veterans national defense and several other vital issues.

YOUNG: As for spending that might create jobs, McCain said his plan for more nuclear power plants would put hundreds of thousands to work. Democratic Senator Barack Obama emphasized jobs from renewable energy and rebuilding infrastructure. It was a theme he returned to on the Senate floor, just before Wednesday's bailout vote.

OBAMA: We can¹t wait to create millions of new jobs by rebuilding our roads and bridges and investing in fixing our electricity grid so we can get renewable energy to population centers that need them. These are the priorities we cannot delay.

YOUNG: Just how much energy government puts into growing green jobs could largely depend on how the next president and Congress view clean energy: Is it a luxury to be cut in hard times, or is it part of the way out of hard times?

For Living on Earth, I'm Jeff Young in Washington, DC.

Environmental advocates rally for family-supporting, green-collar jobs

Ryan — 2008-10-13T18:25:56Z

MINNEAPOLIS - About 50 community leaders, office holders and activists gathered at the Urban League in Minneapolis last Saturday to declare themselves ready for the transition to a new economy driven by so-called "green-collar" jobs.

The Minneapolis rally, organized by the Environmental Justice Advocates of Minnesota, coincided with similar events across the U.S.

Although coincidental, the rally's timing – it was held as lawmakers in Washington scrambled to negotiate a bailout of failing Wall Street firms – was fitting.

Rep. Keith Ellison, in Washington for negotiations on the bailout, said in a letter read at the rally that the failures on Wall Street only strengthen the case that the U.S. economy is broken and, he said, ready to be replaced with a new, green economy.

"It will result in the creation of jobs here, at home, that can't be sent overseas," Ellison said of the new economy. "It means living wages, access to health care and access to education and a clean environment in which to live and raise our families."

Ellison pointedly put a share of the burden for building the green economy on the shoulders of the labor movement.

"We need to have the training opportunities to create a pathway for people in poverty to take advantage of these jobs," Ellison said.

"This will require the strong participation of unions to focus their apprenticeship programs on training for these jobs, to commit to increased organizing focus on green collar jobs, and to (move) people in poverty into their apprenticeship programs, because a union job is going to be a job with a decent wage and health benefits and a safe workplace."

Union members who attended the rally agreed that the labor movement is playing catch-up when it comes to the green economy.

"We need to take a look at how we get a piece of that pie," Sheet Metal Workers Local 10 member Dustin Denison said. "We need to look at how we can provide to our members the technological expertise, how we can provide new opportunites and expand our marketplace in this expanding environment."

But Lynn Hinkle, an activist with United Auto Workers Local 879, said that as more and more green jobs sprout up around the country, unions' interest in the new economy will grow. In the last six months alone, Hinkle said, the American economy has added 10,000 jobs in solar PV manufacturing.
"This isn't just one of those, 'Wouldn't it be nice?' situations," Hinkle said. "We need to catch up. We need to get on the train because it's already pulling out of the station.

"Union labor has to not just be at the table, it needs to be convening people. Once the union movement becomes aware of the importance of this new economy for our jobs, the environmental movement is going to have trouble even being part of the discussion. We're going to take that mic and hold it."

State Sen. Ellen Anderson of St. Paul, a leading environmental advocate in the Legislature, pointed to the standards for renewable energy production – considered the most aggressive in the nation – passed by the Legislature last session, and called for a parallel strategy to attract green employers to the state.

"What we've found is that in some places, they've been doing a lot better than we are," Anderson said. "While we were passing these strong laws to promote wind power in Minnesota, Iowa was recruiting big wind turbine manufactures from Europe and bringing them to their state. So they've got green jobs in Iowa and not in Minnesota."

Moving From Rhetoric to Reality: Clean, Green Jobs

Ryan — 2008-10-14T17:16:57Z

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.

So, now that clean technology and the greening of business seem to be in full swing, where are all the jobs? So far, they're nowhere in sight — at least not in any appreciable numbers.

The reasons are many and varied. Most of the big companies in the clean-energy business — the BPs, GE, and PG&E's of the world — don't seem to be going on hiring sprees, typically creating clean-tech business units from within. So, too, with much of the green business activity — it has to do with efficiency, with doing more with the same or fewer resources, and that includes human resources. Few of the start-ups are undergoing massive hiring, and when they do, they're more often in the market for engineers and other skilled professionals. And the jobs that are being created are disperse, geographically, meaning that there are few robust Silicon Valley-like clean-tech clusters, where companies congregate and jobs proliferate.

Despite such obstacles, there seems to be new energy building behind the notion of a Big Green Job Machine. Last week in Pittsburgh, for example, aGood Jobs, Green Jobs conference, organized by the Sierra Club and the United Steelworkers union, drew more than 900 people from business, government, nonprofits, academe, and labor unions to share strategies for increasing job opportunities in the environmental and clean-tech sectors.

There were about 8 million green jobs in the U.S. in industries that attracted $148 million in investment in 2007, up 60 percent from the year before, Lois Quam, managing director of alternative investments at Piper Jaffray, told the conference. I haven't yet seen the research on which this was based, but I'm intrigued. As I noted in our State of Green Business report, tracking green job creation has been difficult. One reason is that green jobs, at least by my definition, aren't often identified as such, and can be found throughout companies of all sizes and sectors. Does a procurement manager — whose job entails implementing her company's environmentally preferable procurement mandate, thereby seeking out and purchasing millions of dollars a year of recycled, energy-efficient, and other green products — count as a "green job"? What about the loading dock laborer whose job it is to make sure all packaging materials are recycled? Or the facility manager working to replace maintenance staples with green cleaning products? Are these counted among the "green jobs"? Possibly, but I doubt it.

Fact is, there's no good definition of "green job." Consider this report, released last week, by Raquel Rivera Pinderhughes, professor of urban studies at San Francisco State University. Titled Green Collar Jobs: An Analysis of the Capacity of Green Businesses to Provide High Quality Jobs for Men and Women with Barriers to Employment (Download - pdf), it focuses on opportunities in the San Francisco Bay Area. According to Pinderhughes,

Green collar jobs are blue collar jobs in green businesses — that is, manual labor jobs in businesses whose products and services directly improve environmental quality. . . . What unites these jobs is that all of them are associated with manual labor work that directly improves environmental quality.

Pinderhughes lists 22 types of green collar jobs, from food production (using organic and/or sustainably grown agricultural products) to furniture making (from environmentally certified and recycled wood), from parks and open space (maintenance and expansion) to printing (with non-toxic inks and dyes and recycled papers). It's a good list, but it doesn't seem to cover all that's out there.

Another report, Green-Collar Jobs in America's Cities (download - pdf), released for the Pittsburgh event, lays out steps for creating comprehensive green-collar job strategies at the local level. It also profiles some of the great work already underway around the country. The guide — published by Green For All, the Apollo Alliance, the Center for American Progress, and the Center on Wisconsin Strategy — focuses on local green jobs in clean energy industries: energy efficiency, renewable energy, alternative transportation, and low-carbon fuels.

Yet another new report, Greener Pathways, from the same consortium, profiles some of the best examples in the U.S. where work is underway to develop green jobs, including green construction career development in California, Iowa's biofuels job-training bonds, wind technician training in Oregon; and Pennsylvania's green re-industrialization.

It's all very encouraging, but it feels like there's one key group that's not yet at the table: companies. A look at the impressive speaker roster for the Pittsburgh event reveals only eight of 86 speakers from the private sector — and only three large companies: BP, Gamesa, and Johnson Controls.

Why aren't bigger companies more engaged? Do they not foresee a need for talent in this arena? Are their labor pools overflowing? Or are they simply not tuned in to the opportunity? Any ideas?

For now, groups like the Apollo Alliance and Green for All will have to go it alone, and they have their work cut out for them, helping to ensure, in the words of Green for All founder and president, Van Jones, that "the clean-tech wave lifts all boats." It won't be easy, especially without the active participation of companies in the clean and green sector.

As Jones told me recently: "The next set of challenges have to do with going from rhetoric to reality."

Green jobs for R.I. discussed at forum

Ryan — 2008-10-13T18:41:34Z

WARWICK - A key solution to Rhode Island's economic struggles is increasing awareness of and investing in more "green" jobs for the state's residents, according to a panel of local experts who gathered at the New England Institute of Technology Saturday.

The forum, which attracted almost 100 people from all over the state, including Providence Mayor David Cicilline '83, was one of several hundred events organized around the country as part of Green Jobs Now, a nonprofit, nonpartisan national day of action spearheaded by environmental groups such as Green For All, 1Sky and the We Campaign.

Saturday's panel, comprised of economists, educators and others passionate about environmental issues, discussed the need to reduce demand for traditional sources of energy and educate the state's youth about renewable energy technology.

Part of the task is to convince consumers and legislators that embracing renewable energy will help create jobs, especially for low-income groups, and will prove healthier and more profitable in the long run, said Joseph Ilaqua, professor of economics at Bryant University.

"Green jobs are really not that different from (the jobs) people have or had before they lost them," he said.

At the start of the event, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., addressed the audience in a short satellite message from Washington, emphasizing his commitment to bringing more green jobs to the state.

"I envision a new green economy beckoning us, creating new industries and millions of new jobs to fuel America's growth and prosperity in the future," a smiling Whitehouse said.

Panelists suggested that possible green jobs in the state include retrofitting existing buildings in the state to make them more energy efficient, installing white roofs that reflect certain types of radiation to help cool the earth and repairing hybrid and electric cars.

Steven Kitchin, vice president of corporate education and training at NEIT, said high school graduates, members of various ethnic groups and inmates at the Adult Correctional Institutions must be trained in green technology.

"We have to increase our ability to get people to participate in the labor force," Kitchin said.

Many attendees interviewed by The Herald said the event was successful in kicking off a dialogue about the need to "go green," policy initiatives and potential challenges in the path of switching over to non-traditional sources of energy.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics Jessica Millar said she had discovered a new community of like-minded, environmentally conscious people at the event.

Millar, who serves on Barrington's Committee for Renewable Energy, said she was able to share her passion for wind energy with several people she met at the event. In the future, she said she might work with some of those people on environmental projects.

The event was "a good combination of the practical and the philosophical," said Keally Dewitt '04.5, a marketing associate at Solar Wrights, which installs efficient renewable energy systems, including photovoltaic, solar-thermal and wind systems in New England.

Dewitt said the knowledge and awareness of green technology in the state must spread from traditional sources - from Brown and other leading institutions - and from independent and nonprofit organizations.

Matthew Soursourian '08, an Urban Studies concentrator who works as a policy associate for Cicilline, said the event energized those who are passionate about environmental issues.

Soursourian said young people who come from different educational backgrounds and interests can play a part in helping make Rhode Island greener.

"This is the future," he said. "It's the next dot-com-type industry."

Atlanta’s Green Students React to Presidential Debate

Ryan — 2008-10-13T18:32:18Z

Article by Beth Bond and the LRAM Team!
ATLANTA – Saturday, September 27th, residents and students of metro Atlanta joined tens of thousands of concerned citizens across the country for a national day of service and action. Let’s Raise A Million, a student founded non-profit to bring the message of green and sustainable living to limited-income communities, was one of the national day of services spot light events. The event demonstrated that people are ready to build an inclusive green economy and communities of service.
With over 100 students, community residents, and Atlanta Firefighters in attendance, a press conference and rally were held. With speakers from as faraway as Oakland, California and as esteemed as Chief Kelvin Cochran of the City of Atlanta Fire Department, the audience learned about how the light bulbs and detectors would make positive changes in the neighbor’s lives.

FREE energy audits, complete exchange of light bulbs and smoke and carbon monoxide detectors were distributed at five locations including Adair Park, Historic West End, Peoplestown, Vine City, and the Georgia Dome. These communities of modest means received a full complement of compact fluorescent light bulbs provided by, in part, The Home Depot and TCP, exchanged by student volunteers.
Students from Agnes Scott, Clark-Atlanta, Emory, Georgia Tech, Morehouse, Spelman and the National Wildlife Federations high school program spread out from the rally at Adair Park and took a first step in learning about community service at its most basic level. The goal was to distribute 8,000 “clean” compact fluorescent bulbs on Saturday and many teams returned with their bags donated by IKEA almost empty. All the cardboard boxes and light bulbs removed from homes were recycled.

“With the state of our financial institutions, we need a green economy now, more than ever before! With these free ‘clean bulbs’, we provide a framework to begin a conversation about energy conservation and green jobs.” said event coordinator Tony Anderson, of the Let’s Raise a Million Project.

Students returned to the park for funnel cakes powered by solar panels provided by GreenLeaf Music. The day was a great success says event organizers. Organizers highlighted the students commitment to make a difference in a meaningful way to citizens who all too often get left behind in economic conversations, as a driving reason to such high levels of participation.

The Let’s Raise A Million Project, a student-led project that is raising funds for obtaining, and installing one million energy efficient light bulbs over four years to be delivered to households with modest means. The first pilot site is now operating in Atlanta’s West End.

KyotoNOW! Urges That University Consider Energy in Election

Ryan — 2008-10-13T18:59:05Z

Prior to the Educate the Vote panel at Bailey Hall last Friday, members of the KyotoNOW! were on the Bailey Plaza campaigning for “Green Jobs Now” and calling for young voters to pledge to make energy policies a top priority in the upcoming election.

The purpose of Green Jobs Now is to get voters to discuss the potential to revitalize our economy with clean, safe and just green jobs that lift people out of poverty.

“We are trying to make clean energy and green jobs a part of the debate and a part of what people think about when they search for [their] candidate’s policies,” Kimberly Schroder ’09, tabling chair for the Power Vote campaign said, standing next to a poster, which read in bold green letters “GREEN JOBS … helping the environment and our economy.”

Schroder emphasized that Power Vote is a bi-partisan youth organization that strongly encourages voters to look over their candidate’s energy policy and does not favor one candidate over another based solely on party lines.

According to Schroder, about 100 more attendees pledged on Friday, bringing the total number of Cornell pledges to 1,100 and the national number close to 150,000.

When asked about whether Power Vote’s denunciation of coal would exclude voters that believe in the concept of “clean coal,” Schroder emphasized that bipartisanship does not necessarily mean that each and every voter will be included. “Clean coal is [only] less dirty,” she said, citing a need to invest in a technology that is “actually clean … way cleaner than coal, even clean coal.”

“We are not advocating shutting down existing coal plants” she clarified, in an attempt to emphasize that her organization only asks that new power plants be green in nature. “Obama supports clean coal; Obama’s energy policy is not perfect.”

In almost every instance, attendees of Educate the Vote who were confronted about Green Jobs Now pledged to make sustainable energy a top-priority in their vote.

One man considered his pledge a support for the “green collar industry.” He added, “The auto industry has still not taken a viable course of action. We need to retool America’s industry to [achieve] a shared developmental technology throughout the world.”

“We should have started long ago,” said Amy McKlindon ’09.

Dawn Gearhart ’10, an undecided voter, thought of her pledge to make energy policies a top priority as “just one [deciding] factor.” Gearhart went on to blame the use of fossil fuel and the concept of “clean coal.”

“Our generation cares about clean energy and that affects the vote … that’s why I’m here,” said Gearhart.

Some attendees of Educate the Vote, however, refused to pledge.

“I’m not going to sign it. [I] just feel uncomfortable signing things that are political in nature,” said a woman who described the petition as “not the only thing” that should be taken into account when voting.

LA: Green Jobs

Ryan — 2008-10-14T17:27:45Z

A crowd of about 100 environmental activists, volunteers and business owners gathered Saturday in Lafayette Square for a rally designed to draw attention to the nascent green-building and alternative-energy industries in the New Orleans area.

The event, titled “Green Jobs Now” and sponsored by the national nonprofit group Green For All, allowed representatives from the nonprofit, governmental and private sectors to compare notes on the state of New Orleans’ green economy.

Jobs that involve lessening the impact of people and structures on the environment include solar panel installers and manufacturers, energy-efficiency building consultants and home-deconstruction contractors.

Helping to expand the local green work force is the goal of the Louisiana Green Corps, which trains young unskilled workers in energy-efficient building practices.

Supported by a U.S. Department of Labor grant, the program will train more than 800 people during four-month courses, administered locally by a number of environmental and community groups, said Reed Dickson with the Conservation Corps of Greater New Orleans.

Crowd rallies for more green jobs

Ryan — 2008-10-13T18:54:32Z

Activists for government action on climate change marched down State Street Saturday promoting more “green jobs,” with leaders calling it “the biggest issue of our century, of our generation.”

The event was organized by 1Sky, an organization seeking to unite people across the nation on the global warming issue.

Roughly 50 residents from all over Wisconsin came to participate in the event, which was one of 668 green job rallies on Saturday throughout the country, according to John Stewart, an organizer for 1Sky.

“People across the country are coming to unite over this,” he said.

The crowd of about 50 participants wearing green hard hats marched up State Street holding signs and chanting “green jobs now!”

Reactions on the sidewalk were mostly positive. People smiled, took pictures and a few even clapped.

Stewart said he was pleased with the event, especially with the visuals and the march.

“The march was … amazing,” Stewart said. “People up and down the blocks were taking pictures … raising the profile of the issue.”

The rally included a series of speeches in Library Mall by Madison leaders and influential people involved in environmental action as well as live music by the band A Minute Jack.

Madison resident Caryl Terrell, the legislative chair for the local chapter of the Sierra Club, a nationwide group that has long been addressing environmental issues, said the unity Stewart alluded to is essential to the campaign.

“What’s really important is the breadth of the coalition,” Terrell said.

She went on to explain that not just environmentally-focused groups, but unions, religious organizations and others were coming together to take action against global warming.

University of Wisconsin students were represented at the rally in part by senior Scott Thompson, head of the Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group’s Big Red, Go Green campaign.

Thompson’s speech focused on how much the youth of Madison have done already and motivating more students to take action.

“We’re ready to make a difference,” Thompson said. “We’re not going to stand for an economy after we graduate that isn’t able to support us.”

Other speakers included Jim Cavanaugh, president of the South Central Federation of Labor; Todd Dennis, a member of Veterans for Peace since 2005; Richard Bogovich, a founder and member of the Wisconsin Interfaith Climate and Energy Campaign; and Ald. Satya Rhodes-Conway, District 12.

Rhodes-Conway also expressed satisfaction after the event and showed confidence in Madison’s ability to move forward on this issue.

“There’s a lot of opportunity in Madison to grow the clean energy economy,” Rhodes-Conway said. “Madisonians are very environmentally aware, and we’ve got a number of businesses in the Madison area that are on the cutting edge of renewable energy work.”

Rhodes-Conway said she is hopeful Madison will continue toward making environmentally-conscious decisions.

“All of this is possible today,” Rhodes-Conway said. “All of this is within our reach.”

Green Jobs Now: A Day of Action with Van Jones and the Green for All Initiative

Ryan — 2008-10-13T19:48:54Z

Last weekend, while lawmakers huddled in Congress attempting to rescue Wall Street, people rallied in more than 600 communities around the country to propose an alternative bailout plan.

"There is only one comprehensive solution to the present mess," said Van Jones, founder of Green For All, the organization behind the "Green Jobs Now!" National Day of Action. "Put America back to work retrofitting and re-powering America with millions of green-collar jobs."

The promise of green jobs revitalizing our tired economy isn't a new one. Groups like the Apollo Allianceand the Energy Action Coalition, leaders like Van Jones and Majora Carter, and others have been calling for a green-collar revolution for a number of years. Recently, however, the economic nosedive and proposed bailout have amplified the usual chorus. As Carl Pope, head of the Sierra Club, commented on the bailout, "The amount being talked about -- $700 billion -- is roughly equal to this year's bill for imported oil. So if we really took ending our addiction to oil seriously, we could repay the Treasury for the bailout -- and it's hard to see any other pot of money lying around big enough."

What was new about the Green Jobs Now! Day of Action wasn't the message, essential as it is, but the messengers. Watching the slide-show of images from the day on the campaign's website one thing becomes abundantly clear: these were not your usual environmental rallies. These are pictures of graffiti installations, job fairs, green hard hats, hip hop concerts and, most important of all, people of every race, class and walk of life.

People. In the abstract call for millions of new green jobs, real people can be strangely absent. Who are the workers who will get these jobs? Where do they live? What do they look like? Could I be one of them?

In community after community, last weekend's day of action answered all these questions and showed us what a diverse, inspiring and powerful movement we really are.

In Atlanta, Georgia, students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities distributed compact fluorescent light bulbs to their low-income neighbors, and rallied together in support of Green Jobs Now.

In Coal River, West Virginia, the sons and daughters of coal miners stood up to coal companies and called for a wind farm on their beloved mountain. The wind farm would generate clean energy and 200 jobs for their community. But the Massey Coal company is preparing to blast the mountain for coal.

In Richmond, California (the home of a Chevron oil refinery), residents demonstrated they are now paying less for their energy bills, thanks to the solar panels that green-collar workers are installing on the roofs of the city's houses. The nonprofit organization Solar Richmond trains workers to do solar installations, then places them in jobs with solar companies, building the green economy and creating pathways out of poverty in the process.

"Who are these people?" Jeremy Hayes, one of the organizers behind the day of action joked. "There are so many incredible reports from around the country in places we didn't even know about."

So where do all these people go from here? On the national level, Green For All and the hundreds of other groups that rallied around the day of action will continue to push for legislation that creates at least 5 million new green jobs. On the local level, a number of innovative initiatives are under way from Albuquerque toNewark to create city-wide green job programs. The movement is even going international. Next month, students I work with in Singapore are hosting anAsian Youth Energy Summit to promote clean-tech employment opportunities.

Van Jones is right when he says: "We can't drill and burn our way out of this economic crisis. We can – and must – invest and invent our way out." The pictures from the Green Jobs Now! Day of Action remind us that when Van talks about new investments he isn't just talking about solar panels and wind turbines. He's talking about people.

Jamie Henn is the co-coordinator of 350.org (http://www.350.org), a grassroots campaign that unites an international climate movement behind a common call to action. In 2007, he helped organize Step It Up 2007 (http://www.stepitup2007.org), the first national day of action on global warming in US history.

Forum looks at 'greening' of Rhode Island economy

Ryan — 2008-10-13T19:11:06Z

WARWICK — The economy and the environment go hand in hand, but it’s up to residents to make the connection, local experts told an audience gathered yesterday for a conversation about making the state’s economy more green.

“If we as a public don’t demand it, we won’t get it,” said Connie L. McGreavy, chairwoman of the Rhode Island Green Building Council.

The forum was part of the National Day of Action sponsored by Green Jobs Now, a nonpartisan initiative of sustainable energy organizations Green For All, 1Sky and the We Campaign, according to the Green Jobs Now Web site. In addition to the conversation, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse gave a keynote address via satellite and Providence Mayor David Cicilline offered remarks to the group.

Across the country, organizations held more than 650 events calling attention to the need for environmentally sustainable jobs that would not only bolster the economy, but employ low-income people. In Cambridge, the Massachusetts Green Jobs Coalition, along with other organizations, held a Green Jobs Now rally at the Cambridge City Hall, where Mayor E. Denise Simmons urged the audience to create green jobs in Massachusetts.

In Rhode Island, roughly 100 people packed an auditorium at New England Institute of Technology to talk about solar energy, educating young workers on green technology and policy initiatives.

“We want to educate people and get people thinking and talking to each other and start working together toward the greening of Rhode Island’s economy,” said Greg Gerritt, founder of the Rhode Island Prosperity Project, one of the sponsors of yesterday’s event. “People need workers. They need educated workers. We have to think about the big picture.”

A green job, Gerritt said, is typically a job in the building construction industry that uses practices to reduce energy consumption and the use of fossil fuels. That means laborers who install solar panels, construction workers who use techniques that reduce their carbon footprint, and builders who use technology aimed at reducing a building’s energy consumption are all in green jobs.

Already, Rhode Island is taking initial steps toward encouraging green jobs. Governor Carcieri last week selected the company that will build and operate wind turbines off the Rhode Island coast, to supply 15 percent of the state’s electricity. At New England Tech, students are learning how to repair cars that have been converted to compressed natural gas, and are studying other areas including engineering and construction that use green technology, said Steven Kitchin, vice president of corporate education and training at the college.

“We don’t lack the resources to do what we need to do to create green jobs today,” he said. “The training resources exist, the money exists … the bottom line is we’ve got the resources. We’ve got to find the will to make everything work together.”

The workers have the desire, said Anthony Hubbard, program director at YouthBuild, an organization that teaches work skills to low-income young people. He put the laborer’s view of the initative this way: “Green jobs equal green money.”

“They could care less if the job is blue collar or green collar,” Hubbard said, using the moniker for environmentally friendly jobs. “As long as they can get a living wage job that takes care of their families and they feel like they can make a difference, it can be their pathway out of poverty.”

South Carolina talks Economy; 725+ say Green Jobs Now!

Ryan — 2008-10-14T19:56:40Z

South Carolina Alliance for Sustainable Campuses and Community(SCASCC), a network of the Southern Energy Network hosted over 75 young concerned citizens from 11 colleges, high schools, and universities to call on elected officials and educate the public about the potential to create over28,000 new jobs in energy efficiency and renewable energy sectors in the next two years!

The SCASCC fall summit, In the wake of a near total economic collapse,poorly thought-out government bail-outs, and a fuel-crisis that has haunted the Southeast for the past several days, focused on ending our nations daunting addiction to the fossil fuels that are driving the economy into the ground.

Taking to the streets, 30 student activists paraded through the party-minded tailgaters at the University of South Carolina vs University of Alabama Birmingham football game, preaching the gospel of the potential for real sustainable green jobs to lift the econcomy while solving the imposing climate crisis.

Over 725 youth signed the PowerVote pledge in just under three hours, sending a message to elected officials that South Carolinians are ready for a Green Economy to lift all boats, pull our nation out of its fossil fuel addictions, and declare an end to coal and nuclear development in the south.

SCASCC: a youth powershift, attendees also planned for the future of the network, highlighting student and community struggles to stop new coal andnuclear proposals. Re-invigorated and invested in the struggle to endenvironmental racism, economic injustice, and protect a healthy future; students decided to take on the challenge of shutting down new dirty energy developments, and of creating a state moratorium on both coal and nuclear power development within 5 years.

To date, South Carolina gets nearly 50% of its electricity from nucler power, and is coming increasingly closer to becoming a dumping grounds for Nuclear Waste being produced around the region and around the world. To say the least, the nuclear lobby is strong in South Carolina, and has caused many inSouth Carolina’s conservation community waiver in their stances against the expensive and risky technology.

The South Carolina Alliance for Sustainable Campuses and Communities, in its fourth year, has worked in coalition with state-wide conservation organizations to stop proposed Pee Dee Energy Facility, and has worked withseveral communities and community leaders to halt development plans of new nuclear facilities.

Green Jobs Now!

Ryan — 2008-10-13T19:52:41Z

Think about this: Although most of us don't see this reality often, we live in a city (not unlike most U.S. cities) where a large number of our fellow citizens have very little to hope for in life beyond a fast food or Walmart job. There is no dignity or future for families that are employed and working hard but still not able to provide for their kids. In fact, one single mom, who gave up her Saturday morning to attend a nationalGreen Jobs Now event with two little kids in tow, was deeply embarrassed when her 8 year old daughter actually raised her hand to ask what a family could do when it found itself without enough money, even after a full week's work. "We retract the question, that's not our question!" the poor, embarrassed mom said. But in fact, it's a great question – what is that mom supposed to do?

So here's my story . . . This past weekend, I hopped the MARTA and rode deep into downtown Atlanta to attend one of 668 Green Jobs Nowevents being held all over the U.S. Nearing the United Way building, I was greeted by several friendly folks wearing green hard hats, t-shirts proclaiming "Atlanta is Ready!" and holding Green Jobs Now signs.

I had no idea what this seminar would be about. More than eighty people had registered but no one I knew. One friend had even said, "Aren't green collar jobs just the same as blue collar jobs? Why is that interesting?" Quite honestly, I really didn't know.

I sat down amid a sea of excited people as Patricia Harris of the Edge Connection in Kennesaw welcomed us.

Now Patricia is a force to be reckoned with - most recently, and to the chagrin of several construction companies, she has insisted her organization's new building be LEED-certified, and nothing less. After several battles, she won over every single contractor by demonstrating the multiple tax breaks this would earn them, and now she has builders begging her for more things to green!

Patricia's multi-award-winning Edge Connection provides low-to-moderate income women, persons with disabilities, and minorities, with training, financial literacy and support to launch and grow their businesses, and Patricia is all about doing things right. Even the morning's bagels, fruit and drinks were served on china and in glasses. Wow! Not even the Buckhead law firms do this at morning meetings, so why here? Because Patricia was certainly not going to "talk green" and then throw away dozens of paper or plastic plates!

Patricia's husband Cozell Harris, a green jobs and fatherhood development advocate, joined her to explain that "Green collar jobs are blue collar jobs that have been upgraded to respect the environment. Green collar jobs are critical to rebuilding a strong middle class. Green collar jobs provide a pathway out of poverty. Green collar jobs require some new skills, and some new thinking about old skills, but green collar jobs are not low paying service sector jobs like McDonald's!" WOW!

If these ideas intrigue you - and they have huge, ground-shifting, positive implications for all of us - you really need to meet the founder of theGreen for All movement, Van Jones, and hear his eloquent and thought-provoking solutions to our complex employment, environmental, energy, and quality of life problems. Believe me, he is well worth the two minutes it takes to watch the short video clip above.

And yes, here are three key things that presenter Charlotte King, one of the "100 Most Influential Black Women in Atlanta" and one of the nation's most recognized experts in environmental marketing suggested we can all do, no matter the color of our collars:

1) Support all bills and referendums that call for green infrastructure improvements including sidewalks, bike lanes, light rail, and expansions of MARTA and bus routes – they are desperately needed, and especially by the folks with the least number of options. After all, what's the point of having a green collar job if you can't get to it?

2) Plant trees! Not Bradford pears or crepe myrtles, but maples and oaks and fruit trees that absorb carbon and produce food. Did you know Georgia currently loses 55 acres of trees a day to clear cutting and development? Those trees are vitally important to everyone's quality of life, but especially to inner city kids who are disproportionately impacted by asthma from vehicle exhaust and air pollution.

3) Do what you can, but do something! Charlotte pointed out, "In this country, we all like to react and fix problems – everyone gets excited about recycling but how come we messed things up in the first place!?" Let's get ahead of our environmental problems, not chase after them when the damage has already been done. Reduce and reuse first, then recycle!

And of course, please join me in supporting the Green Jobs Now mission – it's in all of our best interests!

Judy