“What I find inspiring, if not miraculous, is that the green economy continues to blossom – despite everything that has been thrown against it.” – Van Jones, author of The Green Collar Economy
Here’s my latest bumper-sticker catchphrase: “Job-destroying climate change.”
Like it?
I came up with the idea after I saw a TV piece about how global warming is affecting the skiing industry: Slopes are closed, snow machines are doing a pathetic job of trying to replace nature’s white abundance, the ski season’s shortened, jobs are lost.
Not that anybody cares much about the ski industry – other than the thousands who work the slopes and the millions who love the sport. Skiing, after all, is nonessential.
So (arguably) is wine, the bounty of another industry that’s threatened by climate change because the proper growth of grapes is highly temperature-dependent. If – actually, when – global warming brings down the economy we know, we can make do without the fruit of the vine, right?
But what if the loss of these “nonessentials” is just the canary in the coal mine? Consider that in 2011 and 2012, the worst extreme-weather years in U.S. history, the 25 biggest climate events resulted in direct losses totaling more than $120 billion, and Hurricane Sandy cost the federal government an additional $60 billion.
In 2012, the worst drought in 50 years devastated the Midwestern corn and soy crops and led to a 3 to 4 percent increase in anticipated 2013 global food prices. The Mississippi River ran so low that barges had to cut their loads, and small ports throughout the Great Lakes region became inaccessible because of low water. Ocean warming and acidification from carbon dioxide pollution is affecting the shellfish harvest and threatening marine ecosystems. Forest fires are destroying tomorrow’s harvestable timber.
All these manifestations of climate change cost jobs in the affected industries and those that support them. Workers are laid off; machinery sits idle as do the mechanics who repair it. Whole towns can be reduced to subsisting on welfare. Meanwhile, early predictions say the 2013 drought and forest fire seasons will be as bad as or worse than last year’s.
But also consider this: In the lower 48 states, 119,000 Americans were employed by the solar industry in 2012 compared with 87,500 in coal mining according to a report by The Solar Foundation. The report also noted that there were more solar workers than paid actors in California (43,700 vs. 32,300) and ranchers in Texas (3,200 vs. 2,410).
Additionally, The Solar Foundation reported the growth rate for solar jobs for 2011-12 was 13.2 percent compared with 2.3 percent in the overall economy. The industry added 14,000 jobs, 86 percent of them entirely new, and is expected to achieve another 17.2 percent growth rate, adding 20,000 new jobs this year.
All this despite three factors: (1) economies of scale are making solar installations far more efficient, requiring only one-third the number of workers to install a megawatt than were needed in 2010; (2) several of the top solar-growth states rank in the bottom 30 percent for available sunlight; and, (3) the U.S. so far has lost out on a huge opportunity to capitalize through federal incentives on global growth in solar manufacturing. The remarkable solar job growth has been mostly in systems installation – jobs that can’t be exported.
Green job opportunities extend far beyond installing solar panels, of course.
On the high-tech/infrastructure side, there’s rebuilding our dilapidated electricity grid, creating a high-speed train network, weatherizing our building stock and rebuilding our city centers.
On the biodesign side, there’s revitalizing our decaying industrial agricultural system with diverse, locally owned, mid-scaled organic farms that produce healthy food, restore rather than deplete the soil, store atmospheric carbon and are labor intensive, that is, job generators.
Would organic food cost more? Possibly, but at least it would be available – unlike industrialized food which will be increasingly vulnerable to climate variability and its own abuse of chemicals and the soil. Also, people employed in a green economy might happily spend a little more for healthy food – and less on medical bills.
Google Inc. recently made a simple observation: The cost of renewable energy will continue to go down while that of nonrenewables will continue to rise. Since then, the company has invested more than $2 billion in renewable energy projects, mostly in the U.S. Maybe Google is onto something at our ecological house.
Philip S. Wenz, who grew up in Durango and Boulder, now lives in Corvallis, Ore., where he teaches and writes about environmental issues. Reach him by email at his website, www.your-ecological-house.com.
