green economy

Green Workers Need a Voice in the Climate Change Debate

Working out on my oyster boat this week, I've been slurping my catch and wondering what sort of future lies ahead for those of us who work in industries already being impacted by climate change.

Some like me will be the first to experience the negative effects: I run a small organic oyster farm that faces extinction within the next 40 years because my oysters will not survive rising carbon emissions. Friends of mine are firefighters already facing hotter and more frequent wildfires.

Posted in green economy, green jobs

Will America Lose the Clean-Energy Race?

As Congress debates climate and energy legislation, Asian challengers are moving rapidly to win the clean-energy race. China alone is reportedly investing $440 billion to $660 billion in its clean-energy industries over 10 years. South Korea is investing a full 2 percent of its gross domestic product in a Green New Deal. And Japan is redoubling incentives for solar, aiming for a 20-fold expansion in installed solar energy by 2020.

Posted in green economy, green technology

We Need an Energy Revolution

The United States today spends some $400 billion a year importing oil from countries like Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Mexico, Russia, and Venezuela. Think for a moment what an incredible impact that same $400 billion a year could have on our country if that money were invested here and not abroad, in such areas as weatherization, energy efficiency, sustainable energies like wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, public transportation and automobiles that are energy efficient or don't use fossil

Posted in alternative energy, green economy

Lessons from Hard Times Past

We’re all struggling with how to think -- and what to do -- in the face of the “great recession.” An initial progressive response was to advocate better regulation; then Keynesian economic stimulus; now nationalization; perhaps in the future some kind of socialism.

One theme that has reverberated through periods of “hard times” in the past is the idea of “production for use.” It has appeared in the form of public works job creation; worker run enterprises; self-help mutual aid; and efforts to push the envelope on property rights tha

Posted in financial crisis, green economy, local

The Green Shoots are Dead

The June US employment report should convince even the determinedly ignorant that the time has come for another round of stimulus for the American economy. The economy is continuing to shed jobs and work hours at a very rapid pace. The unemployment rate is virtually certain to cross 10% by the end of the summer and will likely hit 11% before we are very far into 2010.

Posted in green economy, stimulus

The New Economy Won't Be Like the Last One

Despite the best efforts of the Obama administration, the economy is a long ways from recovery. The speculative system that created the mess remains intact, and foreclosures and unemployment continue to rise. But at the same time, a new economy is taking form. It’s built on a recognition that the only thing too big to fail is the Earth itself.

Posted in green economy, new economy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 18, 2009
1:06 PM

CONTACT: Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
Michael Oko, NRDC, 202-513-6245 or moko@nrdc.org

Clean-Energy Investment Provides Economic Boost, More Jobs, and Expanded Opportunities

New Analysis Demonstrates How America Can Create 1.7 Million Jobs and Opportunities for Low-Income Families

WASHINGTON - June 18 - As clean energy and climate legislation moves through Congress, new data show that a $150 billion investment in clean energy could create a net increase of 1.7 million American jobs and significantly lower the national unemployment rate. According to the analysis, shifting to a clean-energy economy will help millions of low-income Americans by creating more accessible job opportunities -- with the potential for advancement -- and by lowering utility bills and transportation costs.

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The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has 1.2 million members and online activists, served from offices in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Beijing.

The Center for American Progress is a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to promoting a strong, just and free America that ensures opportunity for all. We believe that Americans are bound together by a common commitment to these values and we aspire to ensure that our national policies reflect these values. We work to find progressive and pragmatic solutions to significant domestic and international problems and develop policy proposals that foster a government that is "of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Green For All is a national organization dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans through a clean energy economy. The organization works in collaboration with the business, government, labor, and grassroots communities to create and implement programs that increase quality jobs and opportunities in green industry - all while holding the most vulnerable people at the center of its agenda.

The Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) promotes human and ecological well-being through our original research. Our approach is to translate what we learn into workable policy proposals that are capable of improving life on our planet today and in the future. In the words of the late Professor Robert Heilbroner, we at PERI "strive to make a workable science out of morality." Established in 1998, PERI is an independent unit of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with close ties to the Department of Economics.

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Links:

Posted in green economy

Out of the Ashes of GM: the Phoenix of Renewable Energy

It may be prophetic that among the brands GM chose to kill was the Pontiac Firebird, a classic hot car of the 1960s sporting the fabled Phoenix on its hood. In mythology, the Phoenix was a colorful bird that incinerated itself in its nest, then rose from the ashes as its own offspring. GM too, says Michael Moore, could be reborn as something else. In a June 1 eulogy of sorts, he wrote:

Posted in green economy, industry, manufacturing

Bigger Isn't Better

There’s nothing like a good crisis to make us rethink old ideas. The depression of the 1930s led to the rejection of the prevailing idea that unemployment would right itself if only people would work for lower wages. Governments could do very little to help. These ideas were overthrown by experience and by the invention of modern macro economics by British economist, John Maynard Keynes. By the end of World War II, most Western governments had adopted Keynesian economic policies designed to ensure that total expenditures were sufficient to maintain full employment.

Posted in financial crisis, green economy, growth

Why This Crisis May Be Our Best Chance to Build a New Economy

Wall Street is bankrupt. Instead of trying to save it, we can build a new economy that puts money and business in the service of people and the planet-not the other way around.

Posted in financial crisis, green economy, new economy