|
|
GROWING A GREEN COLLAR ECONOMY
Mark Sommer
MARCH 2009 (IPS) - In an economic downturn long on loss and short on solutions, few buzzwords have travelled
more rapidly from the margins to the mainstream than the term "green jobs", writes Mark
Sommer, host of the award-winning, internationally-syndicated radio programme, A World
of Possibilities.
In this analysis, Sommer describes civil rights activist Van Jones' "green jobs" initiative: a
proposal to address two long-standing challenges at once -- poverty and climate change.
Van Jones' strategy is elegantly simple: "Let's connect the people who most need work
with the work that most needs to be done." He proposed employing inner city youth to
plant trees, install insulation and solar panels, clean up toxic waste sites, and construct
mass transit systems.
Efficient as it might seem to alleviate poverty and pollution at the same time, it may prove
challenging to optimize both objectives in one policy initiative. Jones compares the
creation of a green collar economy that includes the chronically excluded to the
construction decades ago of the Interstate highway system and the Internet - both
system-changing innovations that at the time were sold not as social and environmental
justice initiatives but as national security strategies, a proven winner even when the real
reasons and benefits lie largely elsewhere.
//NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN CANADA, NEW ZEALAND, CZECH REPUBLIC, IRELAND,
POLAND, THE UNITED STATES, AND THE UNITED KINGDOM// (END/2009)
|
|
|
|
|
What is RSS?
