A job building a giant wind turbine is a green job. So is a job building a solar panel.
But so is:
a job installing that solar panel,
a job maintaining it or repairing it,
a job working at a wind farm, or a job managing a wind turbine factory.
That's not all. So is:
a job reducing the amount of energy a house uses by increasing the amount of insulation or replacing the hot water heater.
a job working at a recycling center, or driving a recycling truck.
a job working to make even the dirtiest factory greener by reducing waste and energy usage.
a job with the water company that aims to reduce the amount of clean water lost in a city's water system.
And that's just the start of it.
A look at the variety of green jobs in California.
In short - there are an enormous number of green jobs, in a variety of industries you may never have thought of. It's not just wind, and solar. It's anything which makes our planet more sustainable, more clean, more energy efficient.
In part because there are so many categories of green jobs (see the previous question) there's been some difficulty in determining it.
The goal of this website, however, is to answer that question. Both by presenting quantitative evidence of how many jobs there are, but also qualitative information about the jobs themselves.
What we know.
A 2008 report from the Conference of Mayors indicated that there were 751,000 green jobs in the United States. That number has certainly grown - and may have been low to start with.
A Pew Charitable Trusts report concludes there were about 770,000 U.S. green jobs in 2007. That a number grew by 9.1% in the course of a decade, or about two and a half times faster than job growth overall.
As we note in the post about this chart, it's oversimplified. But the trends it depicts are accurate. Energy sources that depend on fossil fuels will only get more expensive, as it becomes harder to extract them and as they start to run out.
Think about what that means. Oil, coal and natural gas get more expensive. That means everything else makes more economic sense: weatherizing homes to reduce energy use; recycling, since plastics are a derivative of petroleum; and of course, renewable energy sources. Each change creates demand.
Another thought: even if you don't believe in climate change (which you should), almost the entire rest of the world does. And they're going to buy more energy efficient products and tools as a result. Who's going to fill that demand?
A January 2011 report from Ceres, a network of investors and environmental organizations, indicates that stricter standards on power plant emissions could lead to 1.4 million new jobs. It makes sense: asking coal plants to reduce soot and smog that they emit means buying pollution control devices that need to be installed and maintained.
There is also evidence that job losses associated with transitioning away from polluting industries and systems are over-estimated. For example, a 1990 amendment to the Clean Air Act was expected to lead to huge job loss. But only 4,000 jobs were lost - primarily "the result of mechanization and productivity increases, not regulation."
America has lost enough jobs in this recession. We believe strongly in policy and regulation that creates jobs (the Center for American Progress took a comprehensive look at this), and that knee-jerk critique of the EPA overlooks the role the Agency can play in strengthening growing markets.
We must acknowledge, of course, that some such critique is motivated not by real concern, but because old, powerful interests are threatened. Learn more at OpposeTheFuture.com.
Last week, Clean Energy Works Oregon celebrated the successful first two years of a pilot program in Portland. Focused on providing a simple, cost effective way to retrofit homes for energy efficiency, the program highlighted several impressive data points:
More than 900 homes remodeled for energy efficiency
More than 500 workers who have received paychecks
Nearly 100 direct construction new-hires
50% of work hours by women and minorities
$12 million in economic development (revenue to contractors and small business growth)
1,000 applications in the pipeline
That’s a small part of the green economy - but one that shows just how much room there is to grow.
Learn more about Clean Energy Works Oregon at their website, or check out the video below.
“For a long time, the holy grail of solar photovoltaics (PV) has been “grid parity,” the point at which it would be as cheap to generate one’s own solar electricity as it is to buy electricity from the grid. And that is indeed an important market milestone, being achieved now in many places around the world. But recently it has become clear that PV is set to go beyond grid parity and become the cheapest way to generate electricity.”
“There’s a good workforce up here with a background in electronics, and there was a supportive local government that was looking to attract a renewable energy company to their renewable energy park, so it just seemed like a really good arrangement.”
“A report released this week by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), automotive workers union (UAW), and the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) shows that vehicle emissions standards and clean vehicle R&D and production are already responsible for 155,000 jobs at 504 facilities in 43 states and the District of Columbia. 119,000 jobs have been created in this industry since 2009 alone.”
And now there’s another way the system is replacing cars: a new solar array on the MTA’s facility in Coney Island reduces the system’s greenhouse gas emissions by 15 cars’ worth every year.
