GREEN JOBS: THE NEW ECONOMY

Now with the health care bill passed, the economy is again the number one issue on everyone’s minds. People want to know when the economy will pick up again. People used to come to America in droves because it was the land of opportunity. America was a place where people could have a better life for themselves with hard work and drive. The American dream today has changed. The jobs people came to America to seek has gone overseas to people who will work long hours, for barely any pay. America is powerless unless we change how we operate. Our economy is different now. There is a global economy that we have to compete against. This is a horse race and we haven’t even left the gate.
We must start with energy independence. We have the resources in America to be able and sustain ourselves. With energy independence, there would be no need to be fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Once weapons of mass destruction were not found, we continued to fight for one reason in my opinion: oil. We think we need something from these countries so we stay there in pursuit of their resource. We should be focusing our billions of dollars poured into a war and use it to explore our own countries wind, solar, bio-fuel, and natural gas power. These are some of the building blocks for a more secure, stable, and lower carbon energy future.
Green Jobs are the key to bringing our country back to a real global power economically again. Right now there are white collar jobs and blue collar jobs. It’s time to add another sector to this group with green collar jobs. People who have green collar jobs are able to save our environment and make a good living doing it. This can be the salvation for the middle class that is disappearing everyday. We can revitalize the shrinking middle class by educating people in green technologies that will save our planet from climate change (an issue for another day) and bring our country out of debt. We have to provide training that will turn blue-collar 20th century jobs into 21st century green collar jobs. In 2006, renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies generated 8.5 million new jobs and nearly 970 billion in revenue.
We are at a crossroads unlike ever before in our nations history. People are still getting laid off in records numbers, the housing market remains weak, college graduates aren’t guaranteed anything but their diploma, and the stock market is fragile.
Over the next few weeks, Congress is going to attempt to pass financial regulation so that companies like Goldman Sachs can’t scam people out of their money for its own financial gain. In the mean time, the American people need to be creative and work with this administration to put the pieces in place to provide education and training for green jobs. Putting regulations on the greed of Wall Street is part of the solution to the problem, but not the entire solution. Employers are and still will be afraid to hire workers in the months ahead. The pool of jobs that was supposed to be available for my generation fresh out of college has all but dried up. The baby-boomers who were about to retire now have to work more years to recover money lost out of their pensions and 401k. The 10 percent unemployed, the thousands of people who were reduced to part-time work, and college grads who can’t find work can take a stand. We can say enough. The phrase “Going-green” is thrown around a lot, but its importance can not be overlooked. Going green can save our middle-class and bring our country back to prosperity.