This year’s presidential candidates John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton might have had differences on a majority of their agendas, but one agenda that they had in common was that of green jobs. All three of them are green job lovers. Let us first understand what exactly a green job means.
Green job
Phil Angelides, chairman of Apollo Alliance gives the definition of a green job in the following terms:
• It has to pay decent wages and benefits that can support a family.
• It has to be part of a real career path, with upward mobility.
• It needs to reduce waste and pollution and benefit the environment.
Great and decent jobs? A schematic overview
Trends
As people around the globe are losing jobs due to the most dreaded recession, a significant inclination towards green jobs is noticed. Educational institutions are joining the green revolution. Not only are they greening their campuses, but are also incorporating green studies in their curriculum.
Unemployed workers, in large numbers, are getting themselves enrolled in courses that offer specialization in green jobs. Not only unemployed workers, but even students are learning to install solar panels, repair wind turbines, produce biofuels and do other work related to renewable energy.
A report by the United Nations Environment Program states that over the coming years, there would be millions of green jobs in sectors such as energy, transport, construction, agriculture, forestry and industries.
Opportunities
In recent years, we have witnessed a lot of new green efforts, apparently, followed by green opportunities.
One of the largest sectors that provide green collar jobs is that of alternative energy, which is on its way to progress. A U.N. report states that development of alternative energy should create more than 20 million jobs around the world in the coming decades as governments adopt policies to address the depletion of resources.
Around 2.3 million people around the world are already engaged in alternative energy jobs.
Another factor that highlights the importance of green jobs is that one of the major priorities of Obama Administration’s economic recovery plan is to create 5 million green collar jobs.
Threats
Though there is much opportunism in the green market, however, it is facing certain threats as well. The green industry has also been hit by the economic slowdown, causing hurdles in its rapid expansion. Many renewable-power firms are canceling their projects, laying-off workers and selling themselves to competitors because business has dried up. It is becoming difficult for newly trained workers to find jobs, and it is feared that schools could end up producing too many workers for too few jobs.
Criticism
Though many people around the world are supporting green collar jobs, it has received its share of criticism as well. A recent study by King Juan Carlos University puts light on the fact that investments in creating green collar jobs have destroyed numerous jobs of other industries. It further goes on to tell that Spain invests as high as € 571,138 to create a single green job, including subsidies worth over €10,00,000. Moreover, too much focus on the green industry destroys 2.2 jobs in other industries for every job created in the green industry. This estimate indicates that US will lose about 9 jobs for every 4 green jobs it will create and it would have to sacrifice 6.6-11 million jobs in other industries to create 3-5 million green jobs, as promised by Obama. San Diego, one of the US’s biggest destinations for green jobs, has also shown no significant change in the green collar job market, despite Obama’s promises, supports and subsidies. In UK too, green industry is just firing people, despite the innumerable steps taken by the nation towards the sustainability of green jobs.
Moreover, most green jobs in developing countries would include agriculture and recycling. Therefore, offering low wage, contractual and insecure employment and exposure to hazardous materials.
Green jobs would not be of much benefit to the most: the 1.3 billion working poor (43 per cent of the global workforce) in the world with earnings of US $2 per person a day.
All said and done, I still would support green collar jobs. They are good for the economy, as well as the planet as a whole. It might be true that these jobs would render some people of other industries jobless, but they can always get some training in this field and hence get employment again. In other words, blue-collar jobs can become green-collar jobs.
I stand by the green jobs, what about you?
Via: msnbc