America: Green Jobs Champion

Jobs that benefit the environment and conserve natural resources are growing faster than any other industry in the U.S. --– four times as fast.

According to a new study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of green jobs in America has grown four times faster than every other job sector combined, up nearly 5 percent in 2011 from the previous year.

Green jobs include any career that benefits the environment, regardless of industry: clean energy manufacturing, recycling, conservation, pollution reduction, and others. Currently, more than 3.4 million Americans are working in green jobs in sectors ranging from manufacturing to education to transportation and trade. The construction industry experienced the most growth in green goods and services, with a total of 101,932 new green construction jobs added between 2010 and 2011. Second to the construction sector, the professional, scientific and technical services sector added 26,595 jobs in in 2011.

Cleaner Tailpipe Standards -- It's Time to Act

Although we've taken many steps to clean up our air over the last few decades, four in ten Americans still live in places where the air is sometimes dangerous to breathe. Our cars and trucks remain a leading source of smog-forming pollution such as nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. These pollutants increase rates of asthma, respiratory disease, and premature death.

The Obama administration has the power to dramatically reduce pollution from our cars and trucks. The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to propose "Tier 3" cleaner tailpipe standards. These standards would require refineries to produce cleaner-burning gasoline beginning in 2017 and automakers to phase-in advanced pollution control technology to reduce tailpipe pollution beginning in the 2017 model year.

Why Is Massachusetts So Behind in EV adoption?

More than 80,000 American drivers have purchased plug-in electric vehicles in the past couple of years, but only 900 of them are in my home state of Massachusetts. Why? One reason is the lack of incentives and coordinated planning in the state compared with others -- like California, Colorado, and North Carolina.

This week's Massachusetts Electric Vehicle Roundtable event, organized by the MA Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Massachusetts Clean Cities Coalition, and the Conservation Law Foundation, set out to change that. It brought together leaders from utilities, auto companies, environmental advocacy groups, and the departments of Energy Resources, Transportation, and Public Utilities. There were even three state agency commissioners and a cabinet secretary in attendance. I was encouraged.

The day began with a reminder of Massachusetts' aggressive climate policies, which have set a goal to reduce carbon emissions to 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. The consensus was that we won't get there without a significant shift from gasoline to electric driving -- in addition to a whole range of other strategies, including better public transit.

Steve Russell, the coordinator of Massachusetts Clean Cities Coalition, said that some progress had been made in the state through the training of electricians to install EV-charging units, safety training for emergency responders, a specialized MA EV license plate, and the installation of 160 public charging units throughout the state. Rachel Szakmary, from the City of Boston, described some of the city's EV-friendly policies, such as one that requires new parking garages to install EV-charging units.

One-Sided Keystone XL Poll Tells the Story Big Oil Wants You To Hear

After a weekend during which tens of thousands of Americans took to the streets to oppose the Keystone XL pipeline and demand solutions to the climate crisis, the American Petroleum Institute (API) is touting a one-sided poll they claim shows Americans supporting the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline.

However, a closer look at their poll questions unveils a biased survey which failed to equip respondents with the basic facts of the project before asking them to form an opinion. Instead, API crafted a poll to ensure they got the types of answers they were looking for by totally ignoring the environmental and economic realities of the toxic pipeline from Canada.

Paying to Power Our Cars

According to a new report "Where Your Money Goes" by Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), the average American spends $22,000 to pay for gasoline over the lifetime of the vehicle. That's about as much as some people spend on the cars themselves!

President Obama doesn't like this equation at all. In this week's State of the Union address, the president proposed a new Energy Security Trust that would use funds generated by oil and gas revenues on public lands to invest in advanced vehicle technology that will "shift our cars and trucks off oil for good."

UCS further found that only about 81 cents per $50 fill-up goes to the local service station, and the vast majority of the money goes directly to U.S.-based Big Oil companies and state-owned foreign oil companies.

Plug-in electric vehicles, however, are powered partly or fully by domestic electricity sources. "Freedom from oil" is a reason that many EV drivers cite for switching to plug-in cars. Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran Tim Goodrich in a previous Sierra Club blog post said he bought his Nissan Leaf because

the cost of filling up with gas is just too much. I'm not just writing about the price we're paying at the pump; I am also referring to the cost to our future generations, our national security, and our economy. As a veteran, I have seen the toll these costs take and I am doing what I can to stop contributing to the problem.

Cars and Refrigerators Can Work Together

We've sure come a long way since Henry Ford.

Ford has unveiled a partnership with Eaton, SunPower, Whirlpool, and the thermostat company Nest Labs that aims to launch a collaborative tool for consumers called MyEnergi Lifestyle, linking EV technology with on-site solar and home appliances, something that can revolutionize the experience of powering our homes and cars.

The idea is made possible by a cloud-based mobile app that deciphers the time of day utility rates are lowest and takes advantage of them, thus decreasing EV charging costs for the driver and easing stress on the electrical grid for utilities. Ford's database holds information on utility "time-of-use" rates that EV owners will be able to access to get the most out of their charge.

Now Ford will share this data with its new partners so that appliances, such as a smart refrigerator for example, can enjoy the same type of efficiency that the plug-in car gets while it charges overnight. A Georgia Institute of Technology computer model found that this system could reduce energy costs by 60 percent. How huge is that? Imagine: if every home in the U.S. did this, it would be like taking all the homes in California, New York and Texas off the power grid.

Meanwhile, as shown in this video, SunPower's solar-powered EV charging unit offers people the opportunity to charge their vehicles, like Ford's plug-in Focus, using sunlight, making it truly a zero emissions vehicle.

Cleaner Cars, Cleaner Air, Lives Saved

Now is the time to move forward with Tier 3 standards

Here at the Sierra Club, we tend to believe that if you have the power to drastically reduce air pollution and save lives, you should use it.

That’s why we joined this week with manufacturers, investors, labor, and environmental groups urging President Obama to move forward with a new set of clean fuel and vehicle standards, known as “Tier 3.” These standards will both reduce the amount of sulfur in U.S. gasoline and significantly reduce tailpipe emissions from passenger vehicles, which contribute to asthma, cancer, heart attacks, and premature death.

While we’ve already come a long way towards improving the quality of air that we breathe, more than one third of Americans still live in areas where air pollution is higher than the EPA has determined safe. Passenger vehicles are one of the primary culprits in producing this dangerous pollution. The Tier 3 standards will have immediate, far-reaching impacts on reducing emissions from cars and drastically improving the air we breathe.

Back on the Rails: Transit Benefits and the Fiscal Cliff

This week Congress went to the brink of the fiscal cliff before producing a last minute legislative deal, brokered by Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).  While the centerpiece of the bill included extending tax breaks for most Americans and delaying broad spending cuts, there were many other tax provisions included in the final package. On the night of the vote, Sierra Club applauded the extension of two tax credits that will spur growth in wind energy.

Unknown to many, the bill also included an extension of a transit tax benefit that will level the playing field for commuters that take transit to work and those that drive. Through 2013, employers will be able to offer their employees pretax deductions of up to $240 per month for riding transit.

For years commuters have received bigger tax breaks for driving to work instead of taking public transit. In 2012, drivers could deduct up to $240 a month before taxes for parking expenses, while transit commuters could only deduct $125. The difference is substantial.

This Sierra Clubber's DIY Car

Sierra Club members are known for camping, hiking, and campaigning to protect the outdoors. Building cars? Not so much.

But Gary Krysztopik of San Antonio, Texas, isn't your typical environmental activist. He's an electric vehicle advocate working on developing an open-sourced electric vehicle kit that will allow anyone to build his or her own EV. Now all you'll need is some space in the garage to put it together.

"My goal is to make building an electric vehicle as easy as possible," says Gary, who started his company ZWheelz http://www.zwheelz.com/ in 2007. "It's mainly for people who want to commute back and forth. It allows for a very easy entry point to get an EV."

The challenge of putting together an EV sounds a tad more difficult than assembling IKEA furniture. Gary's plan is to make it so simple that even people who have never picked up a wrench before will be able to build one. What might motivate people to build their own car? Money, of course.

Many people are finding the purchase of a new EV to be more financially do-able than they anticipated -especially with federal and some state tax credits as well as reduced fueling and maintenance costs. However, there are some people for whom buying any car is a financial hurdle they just can’t jump right now.

Cleaner Cars -- It's Time to Act

I went to pick-up my son from school yesterday evening, which brought me to the busy corner of Georgia and Forest Glen Avenue in Silver Spring, Maryland, at 6:00 pm. I had a few minutes to wait, which left me with some time to stand in the darkness and ponder the endless stream of headlights heading north (and south).

Working on transportation sometimes makes these moments ones of angst -- how on earth do we solve this problem? There are the greenhouse gas emissions and the oil consumption from all of these cars, there’s the sprawl that drives all these drivers to drive and the need to improve our transit system to get more of folks out of their cars, and then there's all of the air pollution spewing from their tailpipes.