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Country’s Future Depends on Creating Good Green Jobs
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The future prosperity of the country depends on our ability to create good, green jobs and clean energy, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today.
Speaking at the opening plenary of the 2010 Good Jobs, Green Jobs National Conference meeting in Washington, D.C., she said clean energy jobs are one way to put people back to work and address the problem of chronic unemployment.
We must train the next generation of workers in the good-paying jobs of the 21st century. And clean energy jobs is one way to do just that.
We know our recovery and our prosperity depend on making the United States first in clean energy. For our economy and our workers, America must be first.
Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) echoed Pelosi at the afternoon plenary, telling participants at the three-day conference that green jobs offer the opportunity for people of color who have been hit hardest by the economic crisis to gain long-term employment.
The Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference, which began today, brings together union members, environmentalists, business leaders, lawmakers and administration officials to map out a path to a green economy that creates good jobs, reduces global warming and preserves America’s economic and environmental security.
U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis told participants that “while the steps we have taken over the past year have begun to put the economy back on the right track, we still have a lot of work to do.”
Together we must “invest, innovate, and act” to restart our economy.
Our workers are our nation’s most valuable asset and it is critical that as we invest in clean energy jobs, we ensure they are good jobs for everyone.
Read Pelosi’s speech here and Solis’ here.
Communications Workers of America (CWA) President Larry Cohen, who introduced Solis, told the participants protecting workers’ rights will ensure that green jobs are good jobs.
The fight we’re all in has never been tougher. But all of us working together can keep alive the hope that is in this room. We’re building new alliances and new allies and together, we can’t be stopped.
Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) President Warren George made the case for mass transportation as a key part of the effort to clean up the environment and create jobs. He pointed out that every $1 billion spent on public transportation creates 60,000 new jobs. He called on Congress to quickly pass climate change legislation that includes substantial investment in mass transit.
Dean Allen, CEO of McKinstry, a Seattle-based company that designs, builds, operates and maintains buildings, said his company and the building trades unions that represent the employees have developed several new, innovative ways to create green buildings. He said it is essential to bring everyone to the table to address the issues of green jobs in order for the country to grow.
Pelosi, Solis, Cohen and George head up an impressive group of speakers, including AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka; United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard; Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.); Sierra Club Executive Director Carol Pope; Rick Fedrizzi, president and CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council; George Miller, president of the American Institute of Architects; high-ranking Obama administration officials; and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter.
More than 100 workshops are on tap, covering green manufacturing, environmental and occupational health and safety, business investment and new markets. Click here for a schedule of the workshops and here for the entire agenda.
In addition, the conference features the 2010 Green Innovation Expo, where more than 100 exhibitors from labor, industry, environment and academia will be on hand to demonstrate how they are charting the path toward growing the green economy and developing clean energy jobs.
The conference is coordinated by the Blue Green Alliance, the partnership of the labor and environmental organizations, which includes the USW, CWA, AFT, Utility Workers (UWUA), ATU, the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
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4 Comments
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I see Green.
http://onequeensridgeplaceusessecond-ratedevelopers.com
Bunk.
There are no such thing as clean energy jobs.
Wind is a myth. Your conference poster blares out your ignorant naievete.
The only hope for America and the world is a complete commitment to demand side management ecological economic redevelopment. That is, the rebuilding and reallocation of goods and services to sedentary communities in which people can meet their needs within walking distance of their homes.
There is a tremendous potential in reallocation, reuse, and rebuilding all communities to have village/community centers thus reducing the use of the personal automobile by 80% in the next 20 to 40 years.
There is also great potential is solar hot water units (much more than the doltish Clinton suggestion of “a million solar roofs” – his lame Keynesian Capitalist pump prime strategy that could never accomplish anything).
Also, PVs are a fantasy.
Solar hot water, the promise of decent housing and equity for all and passive solar design construction and the building and operations of edible lanscapes and organic waste recycling systems wherever possible, and telecommuting opportunities will lead to a structural revolution in the education, communications, and building trades that need to focus on the commitment immediately to the retraining of the workforce to implement a comprehensive plan.
The Capitalist system is a failure.
It will fail more dismally and the impending disaster for the youth and children of America is beyond the most hellish expectations that can be enunciated and/or communicated.
Without a total commitment to comprehensive change, we will be witnessing and experiencing the Biblical End Times and the USA is the Beast of Extinction, the evilest Empire of all time that is and increasingly will cause the extinction of the planet by fire.
Simple minded, childish proposals by “Organized Labor” only speak to the maximization of stupidity (and decadence) that has gripped this nation (evil at its inception and climaxed in the fluke oil and automobile age aggravated by a debauched population of substance abusers (alcohol, tobacco, junk drink and food) and hoodwinked “consumers”. I used to crine at the reference to the American people as consumers and not people, but they exhibit so clearly that is what the brainless sheep of the USA have become (as a gas guzzling pig speeds down the Jetson streets by my abode)).
So grow up and get yourself out of the fantasy conference racket.
By the way, pink hearts for teachers is very sentimental, but does it matter to you what the educational system instructs and directs?
The jobs created will go to China, not the US. Wind turbines were made in China. The Administration has failed to make sure JOBS STAY HERE IN THE U.S. I can not trust them.
In response to M.Moron, I think that ignorance on your part is most likely. The thought of blaming progressive America for the shortfalls of the nation is rediculous. You are commenting to the very people that are making a difference in the environment and to the working people. You may blame developers for not making the world you want, it is corporate greed that will not spend the money to build the community that you desire. Not the progressive people out there trying to make a difference. You want more telecommuting? It is here now, companies are shipping our jobs overseas to India and other countries and taking away jobs from Americans. You do not like wind power I take it? you would rather nothing happen? Solar power is relatively inefficient but it is getting better all the time. Also it is more progressive than not doing anything but whining about it. I think you sir, need to grow up a little and take your frustrations out somewhere else. By the way, what is wrong with organized labor? Better trained workers, safer workplaces, better quality of work, all American? Pull your head out, you are very uninformed. Oh and edible landscapes?……eat your shorts!