Eco-Chick · The modern girl's guide to living green & fabulous.

Dose of Reality: Happy New Year

“The science is beyond dispute… Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response.”

I never thought I’d see the day when the President of the USA would be considered “more green” than the prime minister of Canada. I’m happy to say, that I truly believe Obama is just that. (Although…to be fair – being “more green” then the Canadian government isn’t super hard right now.)

The future looks mostly friendly with Obama on leading the way. Originally there was some skepticism over his support for “clean coal” support – but won the environmentalists back with his incredibly aggressive and undeniably ambitious plan for climate change and renewable energies. This plan focuses on an attempt to reduce 80 % emissions from 1990 levels by 2050 along side auctioning 100 % of the pollution permits. If he holds true to his plan it will also include a $150 billion investment for green jobs and clean energies.

He is calling for 30% of all the government’s electricity to come from renewable energy within the next 11 years, and 25% of ALL U.S.A electricity to come from sustainable/renewable sources by 2025. All “new buildings” would be carbon neutral by 2030 and U.S oil consumption would drop by at least 35%. He opposes oil drilling in the Arctic, supports Nuclear energy (although doesn’t want it stuck under Yucca - but did accept $159 800 in contributions from Exelon) and supports labeling foods for GMOs and country-of-origin.

So it looks as though that America is rolling into a new year with some bright light ahead of them. To the east Spain is putting forth intense efforts to start a competition for the biggest and baddest solar energy device this world can offer. They’re not even going to keep it to themselves, but have said that they will export the technology to places such as Algeria and Morocco.

The 20MW solar tower is also a forerunner for an even more ambitious idea, one that Abascal [Abengoa’s CTO] hopes will become a standard for CSP plants in future — a 50MW version that could generate electricity around the clock. “During the day, you’d use 50% of your electricity to produce electricity and 50% to heat molten salt. During the night you use the molten salt to produce electricity.”

Molten salt technology is in its early stages but Abengoa is testing the idea at a power plant in Granada. So far the company has demonstrated that it is possible to store up to eight hours of solar energy by heating tanks containing 28,000 tonnes of salt to more than 220C. “This will make it possible to have almost constant production or at least it will be able to produce energy for most of the day,” said Abascal.

India is doing it’s part by introducing such technology as the solar rickshaw!

The solar version reaches a pretty impressive speed of about 15 kilometres per hour and, fully-charged, the battery can keep going for 50-70 kilometres. The goal is to develop the current four Soleckshaws into more advanced models in time for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

Hopefully these sorts of technologies will only keep going so that the everyday rickshaw driver can afford one. But for less costly environmental efforts we can turn to Japan where they’re using recycled bottles to save people’s lives.

All over the world there are people devoting their lives, or simply just doing their best to help save the environment. I look forward to this new year, when I suspect that we’ll see many changes in America, Canada and all over the world. Although some of the governments may not have the best plans, at least they’re starting to have plans at all. And it’s going to take the effort, passion and devotion of every single person to see some major changes starting to take place.

So Happy New Year! I hope this coming year brings you lots of green-filled surprises and cool new technologies for us all to try out. Throughout the year I’ll keep you updated on coral reefs, endangered species, deforestation, pollution and the hardships that people are facing because of global warming and other environmental disasters.

“We are not acting as good stewards of God’s Earth when our bottom line puts the size of our profits before the future of our planet.”
— Obama Oct. 14, 2007, in a speech at an interfaith forum on climate change

Green Collar Jobs Report Released

Raquel Pinderhughes, Ph.D.’s “GREEN COLLAR JOBS : An Analysis of the Capacity of Green Businesses to Provide High Quality Jobs for Men and Women with Barriers to Employment” is a really interesting case study assessing “…the potential of Bay Area green businesses to provide high quality green collar jobs to men and women with barriers to employment.”

Green collar jobs are blue collar jobs in green businesses – that is, manual labor jobs in businesses whose products and services directly improve environmental quality (Pinderhughes, 2006). Green collar jobs are located in large and small for-profit businesses, non-profit organizations, social enterprises, and public sector institutions. What unites these jobs is that all of them are associated with manual labor work that directly improves environmental quality.

Green collar jobs represent an important new category of work force opportunities because they are relatively high quality jobs, with relatively low barriers to entry, in sectors that are poised for dramatic growth. The combination of these three features means that cultivating green collar jobs for people with barriers to employment can be an effective strategy to provide low-income men and women with access to good jobs – jobs that provide workers with meaningful, community serving work, living wages, benefits, and advancement opportunities.

The study focuses on seven major questions around green collar jobs:

1. To what extent are green collar jobs good jobs?
2. To what extent are green collar jobs suitable for people with barriers to employment?
3. To what extent are people with barriers to employment interested in green collar jobs?
4. Are green business owners willing to hire workers with barriers to employment for green collar jobs?
5. To what extent are the green collar job business sectors growing?
6. What strategies are needed to grow the number of green collar jobs?
7. What strategies are needed to ensure that workers with barriers to employment can gain access to green collar jobs?

I was psyched to learn that Berkeley businesses provide so many green collar jobs (probably more so than other areas of the country). What is also cool to see reinforced by this study, is the idea that working to help the environment doesn’t require an advanced degree, and that green collar jobs can be a great means to providing low-income workers with jobs that will better the planet and community.

To read the Executive summary of the research study, click here.
To read the more extensive report, click here.

Green for All

I’ve been reading quite a bit lately about Van Jones and his Oakland-based campaign, Green For All, and I’ve got to say, I’m intrigued.

Premised on the idea that a clean-energy economy can help lift people out of poverty, Jones’ campaign advocates for the creation of what he calls green collar jobs (manual labor positions that benefit the environment, like solar panel installers and home weatherizers) for the impoverished or those left behind by the outsourcing of blue collar jobs. The idea seemed feasible enough that both the House and the Senate passed the Green Jobs Act (H.R. 2847) of 2007, directing $125 million annually for greening the nation’s workforce, including job training for 35,000 people every year. Unfortunately, the President has vowed to veto the bill because of its workforce training component. Hmmm….

Sounds a bit fishy to me that someone who’s recently claimed to be an advocate for alternative energies (despite believing that nuclear is a good “alternative”) would veto a bill like this. Especially if he looks to his Allies a bit further east.

Here in Germany, the environmental movement has meant a boom both to the economy and to the workforce. Two of the largest Photovoltaic panel manufacturers opened factories in the former East, significantly lowering unemployment in the part of the country with the highest unemployment rates. These same solar companies are now billion-Euro industries, even though Germany gets as less sun than most of the United States.

The boom has also created and expanded blue collar jobs in Germany. While I can’t speak to the costs of training (the education system here is very different than the US’s, with most universities only now, after quite a lot of controversy, beginning to institute tuition fees – at a measly 500 Euros/semester), their Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training knows a lot about green collar jobs and what’s required in a new sustainably developed marketplace. They’ve qualified 5000 people to become building energy experts and trained many more to install solar panels both for electricity generation and water heating. Still, they know there is more to do and they’re creating new programs each day to do it. As their website says, it’s no longer a lack of energy efficient technology that’s creating problems with every household going green: “the ‘bottleneck’ turns out to be in the awareness and confidence of the customer and in the skills of the specialist craft trade workers, rather than in the technical development of energy efficient systems.”

So, Mr. Prez, how are we going to get those specialists in the US if you don’t want to provide the training? Do you really plan to keep importing German-trained workers to take care of this? I guess I shouldn’t complain. I have to love Germany for training my husband in his green job for a fraction of the price he’d have paid in the States. But what about those people unable to come to Europe for training? Thank goodness organizations like those of Van Jones’ exist to pick up your slack.