jobs

Green Jobs Grow fast

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Wired is running an article that points out the outstanding growth of green jobs in the USA and how they already employ 770,000 Americans. Green jobs have grown 250% since 1998.

The report differs from government projections or most industry association estimates in that it counts individual jobs, not entire industries. In other words, only the electricians who actually install solar panels were counted as green electricians.

“Although our numbers are conservative, our report provides the most precise depiction to date of the clean energy economy in the United States,” the Pew researchers wrote.

Green jobs are a major part President Obama’s plan for economic recovery and energy transformation. Manufacturing jobs have declined a few percent a year over the last decade, and in the bullet-point language of Whitehouse.gov, his administration wants to “Drive the development of new, green jobs that pay well and cannot be outsourced.” The report shows that environmentally friendly jobs already exist, but most of the “green” jobs aren’t in clean energy at all. A full 65 percent of the jobs fell into the “conservation and pollution mitigation” category, which includes recycling.

That leaves a lot of room for growth in clean energy, even if some jobs are lost in traditional energy companies. Right now, there’s a small base. There were only 89,000 “clean energy” jobs in 2007. Current research indicates that for renewable energy sources to really make an impact on greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel dependence, we’re going to need a lot of manpower.

Green Collar in Chicago

- Adam Clare

I’m heading to Chicago in a couple weeks and I’m looking forward to finding out more about the green collar jobs in Chicago. If you’re in Chi-town and know about the green movement there please let me know in the comments!

He is part foot soldier, part guinea pig in a movement that starts in the Englewood garden and may reach all the way to the Oval Office, although he may not fully appreciate it. “I’m not going to lie to you,” Wright said one crisp morning while working a row of radishes in a greenhouse. “I needed a job. Long as I was plugged in somewhere, that was OK.”

Wright works for Growing Home Inc., which offers “social business enterprise” job training for low-income people. It and he are part of the “green-collar economy,” a movement toward an environmentally sound, robust economy with a vast array of jobs, some of which are rooted in withering small towns or decimated inner cities. And guess what metropolis experts say provides the most fertile environment for the green-collar economy? Chicago, Rust Belt capital and adopted hometown of the next president, whose New Energy for America plan calls for investing $150 billion over the next decade to create 5 million new “green jobs.”

UN Sees Green Jobs as the Future

- Adam Clare

A new report from the UN says that the future will be filled with green jobs.

The report, ‘Green Jobs: Towards Decent Work in a Sustainable, Low-Carbon World’, was commissioned and funded by the UN’s Environment Programme (Unep).
It says the manufacture, installation and maintenance of solar panels should add 6.3 million jobs by 2030, while wind power should add more than two million jobs.
Major opportunity
Unep director Achim Steiner said that if the world did not transform to a low-carbon economy it would “miss a major opportunity for the fast tracking of millions of new jobs”.
The report was written before the current global economic crisis.
However, Mr Steiner said that to ditch green energy policies because of the crisis would be a mistake because in the long term the new jobs will make economies stronger and help make goods with less oil and gas.

Urban Agriculture Growing in Popularity

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Urban framing is gaining popularity here in Toronto and that is good for jobs and people’s health.

Urban agriculture should not be confused with gardening, says Field. The main difference is the scale – the plots are larger – and the food is sold, not shared among a community or taken home at the end of the day by one gardener.

The harvest from FoodShare’s rooftop garden and greenhouses is included in its urban agriculture, as well as its bounty from city soil. And, as urban farmers such as Matchbox Garden and Seed Co. and The Cutting Veg begin to set up stalls at farmers’ markets, Toronto joins a larger movement that recognizes living in the city doesn’t mean you have to live miles from your food.

On Wednesday, Michael Ableman, the granddaddy of urban farming, is to speak at the Robert Rose lecture series From the Ground Up, a fundraiser for the Gardiner Museum. Ableman’s talk will be followed by a panel discussion on urban agriculture with Field from FoodShare, food columnist and author Elizabeth Driver and architect Stephen Teeple, who is designing community housing with green spaces for agriculture.

“What Michael did in his big garden in Los Angeles was to go from community garden to urban agriculture and he showed he could do it,” says Field.

Find Meaningful Work

- Adam Clare

This is kinda obscure and not a clear how-to guide or anything of the sort. The Tyee, which I’ve started to read on a semi-regular basis, has a post about a 22 year old who has no idea what he’s doing with his life. I’m still doing that and I’m older (but not by much). I just know what I won’t do, and yes I acknowledge to even be in such a position is huge privilege.

This fellow is more active than I am though:

My name is Sean Aiken and like many others in my generation, I can’t tell you what it is that I want to do with my life. Help me figure it out by offering me a One Week Job. I am travelling throughout North America working a different job each week. All my wages are donated to the Make Poverty History/ONE Campaign.” (At the time of posting, $8,431.60 has been raised).

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