The Nation's Pulse
About Those Green Jobs…
So where are they, amid all the promises?
In early October the federal government released its monthly employment statistics. The numbers were stunningly dismal. According to the Labor Department, the economy lost 263,000 jobs in September, and unemployment ratcheted up to nearly 10 percent. The jobs report included an additional bit of bad news: a revision of the numbers from March 2008 to March 2009 revealed the economy had lost 800,000 more jobs than previously thought.
So where are all the green jobs we have been promised? It wasn't enough that the Obama Administration claimed that passing the massive stimulus bill in February was necessary to prevent unemployment from reaching as high as nine percent (if only!). But the White House and its supporters also assured us of an employment boom coming from a government-sponsored transition to a post-fossil-fuel economy. Well, the government sponsorship is in evidence, thanks in large part to the stimulus bill authorizing more than $60 billion for energy and environmental projects. A green-shooted economic recovery, however, so far is not.
One of the problems with the green economy is that there is no accepted definition of what constitutes a green job. A report issued by Vice President Biden says green jobs are "employment that is associated with some aspect of environmental improvement." But because this definition is so broad, the report states, "it is impossible to generate a reliable count of how many green jobs there are in America today."
Is your job green? The guy weatherizing your house has a green job, as does the scientist in the lab cooking up the next alternative to oil. But so might the truck driver in the fuel-guzzling 18-wheeler who is carting mammoth wind turbine parts along hundreds of miles of Texas highway. As well as, arguably, the United Nations official who jets all over the globe to hector about climate change.
Not having any baseline to start from doesn't stop advocates from predicting the number of jobs that their enlightened policies will create. The president himself has promised to create five million green jobs by spending $150 billion over ten years. The Center for American Progress suggested that federal outlays of $100 billion over a two-year period would create 2 million green jobs. The Apollo Alliance said $500 billion would be necessary to create 5 million green jobs. (Asked by the Wall Street Journal to explain the vast discrepancy between President Obama's expensive jobs figure with the Apollo Alliance's three-times-more expensive figure, an official with the organization replied, "Honestly, it's just to inspire people.")
The obvious dilemma with these estimates is that they depend on government action to spring these jobs into being. This makes clear that the economy otherwise does not value them enough to create them as part of a robust economic climate. Green jobs don't really exist in the free economy. The green economy is, in essence, an artificial construct, legislated into existence by politicians unbothered by the costs involved. The jobs boom of the Reagan years was never predicated on how much money the federal government would shell out. The coming green boom is. And it isn't just the money that federal and state authorities will shower on everything from weather-stripping to smart meters to biofuels production. Government also wants to guarantee the markets for uneconomical green-energy sources, as with so-called renewable portfolio standards that mandate the amount of costly green power that utilities must provide.
Yet another absurd example of the government "creating" green jobs was New York City's breathless announcement last week that it would double citywide green employment -- from 6,500 to 13,000 jobs -- by establishing itself as the center of the global carbon permit trading market. These are jobs that will exist only by virtue of Congress passing an onerous and economically debilitating cap-and-trade bill. In much the same way that every new set of regulations brings more work for lawyers and accountants, cap-and-trade will require clerks and financial experts and other functionaries to ensure the smooth operation of a scheme that the market neither wants nor values. Forget all the harping on Wall Street and the financial community over the past year's financial crisis; the "greed-is-good" brigade will be doing the Lord's work when it starts trading credits in an artificial market created by politicians.
Still, those jobs are in the future. Most green jobs seem to be. Though the stimulus bill was passed in February, and billions of dollars started being dispersed months ago, green jobs proponents don't point to any progress on their part in combating the economic downturn. The jobs they promise are always yet to be created.
At the Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas a few months back, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced, "Today, August 10th, here in Las Vegas, we're firing the first shots of a new revolution to regain that prosperity and restore that leadership -- a clean-energy revolution that will create millions of jobs across America." The first shots? Then what was the $60 billion gift to the renewable energy industry in the stimulus bill?
It turns out that the green jobs promise can mean all things to all people. And all pressure groups. The Women's Economic Security Campaign, for instance, is turning its focus to green jobs as a pathway out of poverty for low-income women. Inner-city poverty groups likewise think the green jobs express can revitalize the ghetto, and can also help return ex-cons to the mainstream. For groups like these, green is the new uplift.
For others, green jobs is a vehicle for interest groups to get theirs. Labor wants the newly created green jobs to go to union members to help pad dwindling rolls. The American Public Transportation Association claims that spending on their projects is a surefire way to create green jobs. Well, of course they do.
Meanwhile, none of the news coming out of Washington about jobs in the real economy is encouraging. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act appears to have been far less stimulative than advertised. In time, one imagines, employment figures in the green economy will head north. How can they not, given the fact the government is guaranteeing them? So we will have our green job boomlet. But there's a hitch, which is that those green jobs come with a hefty price tag. They'll cost us a bundle, and will be worth a whole lot less to society than what the government paid for them.
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Pingback| 10.26.09 @ 7:25AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : About Those Green Jobs… [spectator.o links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Big J| 10.26.09 @ 8:50AM
For a glimpse at the true cost of a "green job", one has only to look at the example set by Spain.
For every so called green job, 2.5 "regular" jobs are lost. Even liberal math cannot dispute this.
Yet the wizards of smart in Washington D.C. would have us believe that this is the road to recovery. Hogwash, horse hockey, BULL!
Any energy source that must be subsidized by tax dollars is not a viable energy source.
Most rational adults could apply 3rd grade logic and deduce that.
Uh...| 2.3.11 @ 10:31AM
Anyone with a basic understanding of math can dispute this. How did this study calculate what jobs were lost AS A RESULT of the green jobs? There are so many factors- job loss to asia, global economic downturn, housing market crash, etc. There is no way one can say that just because Spain was losing jobs at the same time as gaining green jobs that there is a direct correlation here. It's an absolutely bogus number.
And you say "An energy source that must be subsidized by tax dollars is not a viable energy source?" The U.S. gov subsidized fossil fuels 70.2 Billion Dollars in tax benefits and direct spending from 2002-2008 (http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1012/subsidize-this/flat.html). Does that count?
Karen| 10.26.09 @ 9:38AM
Many of these green jobs are now starting to hire in significant numbers. For information on salaries being paid by companies, SalaryFor.com http://www.salaryfor.com/
has a huge database of real salaries that companies are paying for different positions as well as career advice and job listings. You can post your own salary or view others for free.
Donaldo| 10.26.09 @ 12:56PM
That's great, Karen. However, are these jobs that will truly have a future once the Federal spigot is turned off, or the money simply runs out. The free market, unencumbered by excessive regulation and fueled by financial resources available because the Federal government DOES NOT suck up all available capital through massive "stimulus" bills is far and away the best arbiter for job creation, resource allocation, and the growth of a real economy. Not this - it does not, has not, and will not work. It will crush any recovery.
JP| 10.26.09 @ 3:51PM
Karen is a spam robot.
Alan Brooks| 10.26.09 @ 7:15PM
Karen, you're commenting in the wrong blog.
We here are right-wingnuts who want to cut down all the forests, and then club baby seals.
Jim Hlavac| 10.26.09 @ 10:49AM
The best green jobs would be to tear down the walls of Washington (all those fed-buildings) and rip up the concrete, and get rid of the hot air, and then sod it over with good American grown sod. Also, plant a few thousand trees in one big memorial circle to the folly of government.
You know, one from every country and climate zone, to show how multi-horticultural we can be.
Stimulus?
"Give me twenty bucks," says Uncle Sam, to nephew citizen.
And the twenty is given for we trust our Uncle.
"Here's $17. There I've stimulated you. Oh, and here's how to spend it," says Sam.
"Hey, where's the other three?" says nephew citizen.
"That's to pay me to write the rules on how you should spend the $17 I gave you."
"But that's my $20 you took."
"What, you're anti-family? We're all in this together you know. So just be patriotic and give me your money so I can tell you how to spend it."
"Geez, what a bum."
"Now your being seditious."
Yes, rip 'er down and plant it over.
Chidemont| 10.26.09 @ 1:49PM
If only the Uncle's take was 15%. Try "Give me $20. Here's $11. Don't you feel stimulated now?"
Mean Sign Holder| 10.26.09 @ 11:06AM
Liberals need a crisis, and when they ran out of oppressed minorities they turned to the environment, because who could possibly be against cleaning up the environment? Well, we have come a long way from Lake Erie catching on fire. I wish instead of entering this arguement on the defensive, conservatives would stand up and say name ONE person who is FOR pollution and waste.
Uh...| 2.3.11 @ 10:35AM
We've come a long way since Lake Erie catching on fire because of necessary regulations passed by our government. Now, as we continue to face environmental threats, various regulations are necessary to respond to the next issue- CO2 emissions. Our smog-filled skies and changing global climate may not be as evident as a lake on fire, but may be an even more pressing threat.
Louis Jenkins| 10.26.09 @ 1:14PM
The only thing green that our beloved Messiah in Chief ever created was twisting up a number while he was doing post high school education, perhaps even before then. Even with all the money that we have, including printing more, you cannot create a massive green energy economy over night with such infantile science as we now have. There has to be a method to bring such energy to the market quickly, and cheaply. All else is a pipe dream. So perpare to fork over your hard earned dough and your national sovereignty. Copenhagen is only a few short weeks away, and although it is said that Obama will not sign the treaty, can we afford to believe that he won't?
Oldefarte| 10.26.09 @ 1:48PM
These 'green jobs' are nothing but """""WELFARE"""", pure and simple, and will not stimulate the economy. In addition, current and future taxpayers will be burdened with the government's tax bill for same!!!!!!!!!!
Tim| 10.26.09 @ 2:22PM
Green Jobs. Sustainable. Climate change. Carbon footprint.
BINGO!
JP| 10.26.09 @ 3:52PM
The promise of Green Jobs are like rainbows - very promising from a distance, but always hanging just over the horizon.
Pete| 10.26.09 @ 4:29PM
Just saw this in the mainstream media - guess they are waging a new campaign in advance of us signing away our sovereignty in Denmark.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/.....3.html?x=0
daddio| 10.26.09 @ 4:41PM
There never were any green jobs. There never will be any. If green were such a great thing someone would have figured out a way to make money on it long ago. That no one has to date is telling.
Deb| 11.17.09 @ 2:01PM
good thing you werent around when tech jobs were created or we wouldnt have that either.
Pingback| 10.26.09 @ 4:41PM
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