Green Jobs Are Red, White, and Blue

Canton, OH -- The door-to-door outreach program of Working America here has found a sweet spot. In this economically devastated corner of northeastern Ohio, people understand and believe -- with Barack Obama -- that green jobs are the key to their and America's economic revitalization. The job loss caused by recent U.S. trade policies is part of the reason people are embracing the idea that clean energy could be the driver of economic recovery. Voters here understand that if you are going to harvest the wind energy of Lake Erie, you have to harvest it in Ohio, not Mexico; and that if I retrofit my house with new windows in San Francisco, I can't ship my house to China to have it done. So it's exciting and heartening, after hearing Obama make energy reform his first priority, to hear that there is an eager constituency in America's heartland that's excited about that fact.

Ingrid Jackson, the young women who asked the two candidates at the debate about global warming, sees this need very clearly. While she says Obama's answer got her off the fence to vote for him, she didn't feel that either candidate really got the urgency or the opportunity of the issue.

"I don't think either one dealt with the urgency issue," she said. "I think it's very feasible for them to do things within the first two years, especially since the green jobs would help the economy..."

Amen. The sooner we invest in clean energy solutions, the sooner we put Americans back to work, and the sooner our economy turns around.

Paid for by Sierra Club Political Committee, www.sierraclub.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

Comments

[Paul from Potomac]

Carl,
Again, Obama and McCain have this strange belief that we can invest in offshore drilling, nuclear power, clean coal, and as an afterthought, some renewables.

Obama thinks that $15 billion a year will do the trick for the green economy. McCain doesn't know what a green economy is, unless it glows green in the dark.

The energy payback time; i.e., the time it takes to return the energy required to build and operate an energy system, is over ten years for nuclear power. There would be no net contribution to our energy needs by a massive expansion of nukes, but a new giant deficit. There is no such thing as clean coal, as we know to be true. Global warming is not some parlor game, it's a matter of survival. If we don't kick Big Carbon out of the game, we all die. It's that simple. Drilling our way to "Independence" is an absurd and dangerously suicidal notion.

Energy payback for solar thermal and wind technology is about 6 to 9 months. Ocean power systems are around one year. Other solar technologies, like photovoltaics and biofuels, are much longer and more resource intensive. The capital intensity, and by definition the labor intensity of these solutions, is 100%. We are talking about 30 million new jobs as the potential!

So, if the only answer is renewable energy, then why not focus all of our resources to get it done?

It will take over ten trillion dollars to do the job in the U.S. alone. The global solution is nearer to 30!

$15 billion a year is factor of 20 too low.

[Dr. J. Singmaster]

I just posted on the "We Can Solve it" blog a comment on its Sept. 25 posting about "Repowering America with Green Jobs now". I point out that we could get some money by increasing fuel taxes because no new money power will be coming from the economy now to develop green jobs. That money would go into the Transportation Fund that could be use to electrify our rail systems eliminating the diesel part of diesel electric engines and its emitting of GHGs and microparticles being blamed for health problems. Also I point out again the huge benefits of using pyrolysis on organic wastes and separated sewage and fecal solids.
Carl: I would urge you to get this to Gore's attention as the organic waste and sewage messes are ever-expanding and could soon be causing more environmental crisess than the climate one. They may cause expanding dead zones in the oceans to wipe out seafood production and destroy their ability to take up carbon dioxide Dr. J. Singmaster

[Obama]

Carl Pope is a fool. The Green movement has stalled. Carl will continue to get used by the Democrats and once they get into office (which they will) they will begin drilling off shore because that is what 2/3 of the Amercian people want (according to a recent CNN poll)What a novel concept it would be if the SC decided to withhold support, waiting for a true green instead of picking the lesser of 2 evils.

[Obama]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/07/30/poll-most-americans-want-offshore-drilling/

2/3 of Americans want offshore drilling.