President Bush sees the economy and environment at odds, while many corporations and towns have already proven that what is good for the environment can also be good for the economy.

What if reducing carbon emissions also resulted in more local jobs and a stronger local economy?

Cambridge, Mass., is making just that effort and setting an example for municipalities across the nation. Cambridge joined the Cities for Climate Protection Campaign, sponsored by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives. Cambridge also has signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, sponsored by the City of Seattle and the U.S. Conference of Mayors. These commitments mean Cambridge will reduce its carbon emissions by 20 percent in the next two years, and draw 20 percent of municipal power from renewable sources.

To meet these ambitious goals, a nonprofit, city-sponsored group was formed to create green-collar jobs and increase building efficiency.

The group, the Cambridge Energy Alliance, connects local business owners with energy-efficiency experts and bankers willing to loan money for these upgrades. The alliance tries to reduce energy use 15 percent to 30 percent in area businesses. The loans it helps secure are low interest and can be paid back by the savings from utility bills.

Retrofitting thousands of old buildings has helped to stimulate a "green-collar" job market in Cambridge. "A green-collar job is in essence a blue-collar job that has been upgraded to address the environmental challenges of our country," says Lucy Blake of the Apollo Alliance of Oakland, Calif., which is working to change the nation's economy from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

Green-collar jobs that are generated by encouraging energy-efficiency would include jobs such as home-energy auditors, insulation installers, weatherization workers, retrofitters for buildings, and solar installers for electricity and solar hot water systems, among other jobs.

According to Van Jones, of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and the Apollo Alliance, green-collar jobs are manual-labor jobs that can't be outsourced.

"You can't take a building you want to weatherize, put it on a ship to China and then have them do it and send it back," said Jones in a recent New York Times interview. "So we are going to have to put people to work in this country - weatherizing millions of buildings, putting up solar panels, constructing wind farms. Those green-collar jobs can provide a pathway out of poverty for someone who has not gone to college."

Picture this: Your child graduates from high school and has the option of going away to college, or enrolling in a local trade school, which now includes green alternatives. Let's say that young Sally, who might have opted for "beautician" as the only viable local career last year, can now choose from a $12 per hour job weatherizing senior housing, with potential to grow to $40 per hour as a certified home-energy auditor. Or perhaps your fledgling will start with $18 per hour rate, working as a solar technician, and work his way up to $50 per hour as a certified solar installer.

"If we can get these youth in on the ground floor of the solar industry now, where they can be installers today, they'll become managers in five years and owners in 10. And then they become inventors," Jones said. "The green economy has the power to deliver new sources of work, wealth and health to low-income people - while honoring the Earth. If you can do that, you just wiped out a whole bunch of problems."

Meanwhile, job training for millions of green-collar jobs has to happen right away. Infrastructure needs to be set up for training and funding has to come from somewhere. Funds could come from a tax on pollution, or revenues could come from a cap-and-auction system where heavy polluters buy pollution rights and that money is used to fund green-job training centers.

Jones's Apollo Alliance helped raise $250,000 from city government to create a union-supported training program that will teach young people in Oakland how to put up solar panels and weatherize buildings. Jones is partnering nationally with other environmental activists like Majora Carter from Sustainable South Bronx for congressional support of $125 million to train 30,000 young people a year in green trades.

"You can make more money if you put down that handgun and pick up a caulk gun," says Jones to our nation's youth.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Ask Congress to support a "carbon tax" and "cap-and-auction" system to make big polluters fund our transition away from fossil fuels. Go to www.1Sky.org for more information.

Ask your town board to mandate EnergyStar guidelines in the building code, and follow Cambridge's example, setting up an energy alliance. Go to www.cambridgeenergyalliance.org

Create a national Clean Energy Corps - expanding national service opportunities within AmeriCorps, Senior Corps and Learn and Serve America - to combat climate change. Go to www.greenforall.org for more information.

Shawn Dell Joyce is a sustainable artist and writer who lives in a green home in the Mid-Hudson region of New York.

© Copley News Service

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