Report: Invest in Broadband to Go Green, Overcome Digital Divide
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To build a green economy, we must also invest in broadband and overcome the growing digital divide in our society, according to a new report. “Networking the Green Economy: How Broadband & Related Technologies Can Build a Green Economic Future” calls for new communication technologies to make our energy-hungry economy more sustainable and energy-efficient.
By transforming the way people and businesses use technology, the United States can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by an estimated 20 percent by 2020–and potentially see gross energy and fuel savings of $2 trillion over the next two decades, the report says.
The Communications Workers of America’s (CWA) Speed Matters project, along with the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Sierra Club and the Blue Green Alliance jointly released the report today.
Specifically, the report calls for increasing grid efficiency through real-time monitoring, automation and self-healing capabilities, allowing various building systems to communicate with each other through smart technologies and extending communication technologies, such as broadband, to everyone.
Click here to read the full report.
Solis Tours ‘Green’ Minnesota Company
This is a cross-post by Barb Kucera, editor of Workday Minnesota.
Viking Drill & Tool employee Doug Sachs says the transition to more environmentally friendly production at the St. Paul company has benefited management, workers—and their wallets. “When you say green, people think cash,” he said.
With training provided through the GreenPOWER program, workers are reducing waste, increasing recycling and cutting energy usage in many areas of the production process. On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis toured the plant to learn more about the changes. Solis said, “Viking Drill & Tool is doing what it takes to improve their bottom line, become more energy efficient and prepare its workers for a changing landscape of American manufacturing.”
That’s what I call a triple win.
It’s Undeniable: U.S. Chamber and Climate Deniers Share Warm Relationship
We all know that the Chamber of Commerce comes down on the wrong side of just about every issue that matters for working families. But here’s a staggering statistic to show you just how far out of the mainstream the Chamber swims.
In the 2010 midterm elections, the Chamber spent $32 million to elect their anointed candidates and 94 percent of that money went to candidates who are “climate deniers,” the people who think global warming, greenhouse gases and climate change are a left-wing plot. “I don’t need no stinking scientist to tell me about climate change, I’ve got Glenn Beck.”
This little nutty nugget comes from our friends at The U.S. Chamber Doesn’t Speak for Me, who point out that there actually is a method in the Chamber’s madness in funneling money to politicians who are certainly no friends of the earth.
Out of the 118 [Chamber] board members, at least 49 represent companies tied to fossil fuel use: oil, gas and coal, and related companies….Throughout its history, the Chamber has taken an anti-environmental stance, fighting to weaken clean air standards, opposing a hazardous waste dumping ban, working to diminish the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and lobbying against any national action on climate change.
Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference: How to Build Sustainable Economy with Good Jobs
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Thousands of labor, environmental, business and community representatives will discuss the best ways to build a sustainable economy that creates good green jobs across the country at the 2011 Good Jobs, Green Jobs National Conference Feb. 8–10 in Washington, D.C.
This conference has become the leading forum for sharing ideas and strategies to grow a green economy that creates good jobs, addresses global warming and other environmental problems and preserves America’s economic and environmental security.
Click here for the conference agenda and here for the workshop schedule.
UAW Joins Blue Green Alliance
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Citing its commitment to energy-efficient transportation, the UAW today announced it’s joining the Blue Green Alliance. The Blue Green Alliance is a partnership among nine unions and two major environmental groups dedicated to expanding the number and quality of jobs in the green economy.
The Alliance last week launched “The Job’s Not Done Tour,” a three-week, 17-state, 30-city bus tour to remind lawmakers that Congress has stalled on legislation to create and save millions of jobs across the country through a clean energy economy. The tour began Aug. 16 in Los Angeles and will end Sept. 3 in Richmond, Va. For more information and a tour schedule on the bus tour, click here.
In addition to the UAW, members of the Alliance include AFT, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), Communications Workers of America (CWA), Laborers (LIUNA), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), SEIU, Sierra Club, Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA), UAW, United Steelworkers (USW) and the Utility Workers (UWUA).
Blue Green Alliance Bus Tour to Demand Action on Clean Energy Jobs
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To remind lawmakers that Congress has stalled on legislation that would create and save millions of jobs across the country by building a clean energy economy—while nations like China are forging ahead—the Blue Green Alliance today kicked off a three-week, 17-state, 30-city bus tour. The “Job’s Not Done Tour” began in Los Angeles and will end Sept. 3 in Richmond, Va.
Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), says:
By failing to take action on these important clean energy policies, we are missing a huge opportunity to create good jobs now. Currently we are 16th in the world in the percentage of citizens with access to broadband. Expansion will not only create jobs, save Americans money and make our country more efficient, it will lead to the sustainable communities that are such an important part of our future.
USW Members Urge Action on Clean Energy Jobs Bills
As the U.S. Senate prepares to consider clean energy legislation, a dozen United Steelworkers (USW) members are visiting Capitol Hill today to deliver letters urging senators from certain key states to vote for strong legislation that includes the investments needed to create and maintain good, middle-class manufacturing jobs in this country.
At a Capitol Hill press conference this morning, USW members announced that union members sent more than 100,000 letters to the Senate calling for comprehensive manufacturing policies that promote clean energy innovation and development. Dennis Barker, a USW member from Granite City, Ill., said:
Now is the time for the Senate to get moving on clean energy jobs legislation.
Union Workers Skilled for Clean Energy Jobs
Clean energy manufacturing jobs are the future of the American economy and unions are in the forefront of the movement to make sure these jobs are good jobs.
Union members already have many of the skills in electrical, welding, plumbing and other trades to build clean energy resources that will be needed to move to a green economy.
Speaking at the 2010 “Good Jobs, Green Jobs” National Conference earlier this month,, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said:
Never before has the need been so urgent to produce clean energy, to use energy more efficiently, to prevent climate change and to protect our natural environment.
And not since the Great Depression have so many Americans needed new and better jobs with secure benefits and promising futures-jobs that can’t be off-shored, downsized or downgraded into temporary or part-time positions.
Trumka’s message is echoed in a new video produced by the Blue Green Alliance. The video, which was screened at the Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference, rebuts the argument that creating a clean energy economy will cost good jobs.
Trumka: Green Jobs OR Good Jobs a ‘False Choice’
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With the oil platform explosion that killed 11 workers now is spilling millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico as a sobering background, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told delegates to the 2010 Good Jobs, Green Jobs National Conference:
“Never before has the need been so urgent to produce clean energy, to use energy more efficiently, to prevent climate change and to protect our natural environment.
And not since the Great Depression have so many Americans needed new and better jobs with secure benefits and promising futures–jobs that can’t be off-shored, downsized or downgraded into temporary or part-time positions.”
In its second day, the conference 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. It concludes tomorrow with a Green Jobs Advocacy Day Capitol Hill. Read the rest of this entry »
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.
