Kevin Doyle at Gristmill continues with the second part of his review of the Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference that took place last week in Pittsburgh. While the phrase "green jobs" makes intuitive sense, it can be a bit ambiguous to anyone not following developments in clean energy, and his review spells out quite clearly what those kinds of jobs will look like. It's definitely a good one to send off to anyone skeptical of yet another media hyped new economy.

Like this comment over on Gristmill:

What about an almost middle-aged person locked in a dead-end, potentially environmentally destructive job, who has to continue to work full-time to pay their bills and might have already dipped into their savings to survive substantial reductions in income and unexpected expenses? How does such a person find and prepare for a role in the new sparkling green economy?

I don't consider selling the house and jetting off to the next green economic boom town a viable option. That's the sort of behavior that has been destabilizing communities for decades.

This is definitely a concern, though I would counter that the housing bust is destabilizing communities pretty well on its own. Why not give all these people who are already in transition the skills to help build the green economy?

Tags: Green collar jobs.

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It's almost hard to believe that environmentalism is where it is today. There's no doubt that it's received a full facelift after being wrestled from the hippy culture of the 1970s, even down to rebranding "environmentalism" as "green". I don't think anyone could have ever predicted that giant corporations like Walmart would even entertain talk of changing what they sell and how they do business.

So it's a kind of unfortunate irony that, while capitalists are starting to make the connection between going green and making green, there's a growing rift between the working class and "environmental elites". What started as a left wing movement is now in a position of having to win over the political left.

Which is why the work Van Jones is doing is so important. In an interview with The Sun, he talks about the need to find solutions that solve global problems, without forcing people into the impossible dilemma of feeding themselves or cutting their carbon emissions:

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Tags: Social justice, Green collar jobs.

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