The Greening of America Revisited: Can the U.S. Create High-Skill Green Jobs?

Florida voters lobby their legislators for green jobs, September 27, 2008.

Courtesy of Green For All

There have been very few silver linings to the Great Recession, but one of them has been the prospect of launching a new industrial revolution powered by renewable energy. In the absence of any other candidates, green industrial policies have been prioritized as a recipe for economic recovery and the key to job creation, whether for building and operating the new energy infrastructure, or weatherizing the existing built environment. The urgency of the climate crisis raised the stakes much higher. Shunning the call for sustainability would not simply be a missed economic opportunity. It would be tantamount to a death sentence for large portions of the world's population. The desperation of the jobless may have been the proving ground for green planning, but a humanitarian calamity of epochal proportions would be its final verdict if the transition from dirty to clean did not turn out right.

All previous attempts to jumpstart a green economy in the U.S. were effectively shut down by the decisive lobbying of the oil, gas, and coal giants. These efforts included the solar boomlet which prospered amid rising oil prices all through the 1970s, and the so-called "peace dividend" after the ending of the Cold War in the early 1990s. Both were nipped in the bud by policies long committed to regarding the safe passage of oil through the Straits of Hormuz as a matter of national security. In countries with their own fossil fuel supplies, it is often argued that the "resource curse" takes a heavy toll on democracy and environmental well-being. Though the phrase is usually applied to authoritarian nations like the Gulf States or Nigeria, the U.S. has its own version of the affliction, with a sizable number of state legislatures and congressional representatives in the pockets of the large energy combines. Labor, of course, has not escaped the curse. Over the years, unions in the energy and utility sector have dragged their feet, or actively opposed, any significant effort to tilt in a renewable direction.

When the Obama administration came into office, all the ingredients for a fresh start were in place. The pressing threat of global warming had taken up residence in the public mind. The bailout of the financial industry established an appetite for government Keynesianism that included warm federal support for sunrise industries producing clean electrons. Swayed by evidence of the long-term profitability of green capitalism, corporate and political elites looked to assuage the national shame at being left behind in the global competition for clean energy. Last but not least, green jobs were held up as the solution to rebuilding a national workforce hollowed out by offshore outsourcing, destabilized by the rise of temping, and knocked to the ground by the recession.

By the spring of 2008, there was talk of a new speculative bubble in clean energy—some were even calling it the Good Bubble.¹ Hot money, alienated from the collapsed real estate markets, poured into venture funds for backing alternative technology startups. In a highly-touted move, Al Gore (the original Atari Democrat) joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Silicon Valley's premier venture-capital firm, to oversee its "climate change solutions group." It was even reported that Heidi Fleiss (the erstwhile Hollywood madam) had dropped her plans to open a bordello for female clients in Nevada because she had decided to invest instead in renewable energy. When asked why, she echoed the famous words of bank robber Willie Sutton. "Because that's where the money is."²

Obama had already made campaign promises about "clean coal"—a euphemism cooked up by industry lobbyists to re-brand the fossil fuel as environmentally friendly. No less circumspect were the signals he sent, through appointing Steven Chu as Energy Secretary, about restarting the nation's nuclear energy program. But he campaigned most solemnly on the promise to create five million green jobs, and the renewable energy...