Grow Green Jobs

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/grow-green-jobs/

Nancy Folbre, who is an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, had a post this month on "Economix" about growing green jobs. Her point was that a way to deal with "sagging payrolls and global warming" simultaneously is to grow green jobs. She is quick to point out that there is a conservative backlash against the promotion of green jobs which is linked to skepticism about the threat of global warming. And certainly we would be a part of that "backlash". (See our year end 2009 post.)

But, who wouldn't want a cleaner planet with less pollution? So, Folbre has some thoughts that we like. She's leaned on a very thorough study by "The Pew Charitable Trusts" (Pew Finds Clean Energy Economy Generates Significant Job Growth - 6/09). The Pew Study estimated that green jobs grew nearly two and a half times faster than overall jobs between 1998 and 2007.

Frankly, we think the Pew Study performed a service in the sense that it produced a clear definition of the "clean energy" economy and conducted the first-ever hard count across all 50 states of actual jobs, companies and venture capital investments that supply the growing market for environmentally friendly products and services.

Pew found that clean energy jobs grew at a national rate of 9.1%, while traditional jobs grew at 3.7% during that 1998 thru 2007 period mentioned above. Certainly, that has potential.

Pew's definition of a clean energy economy comprises 5 categories: (1) Clean Energy, (2) Energy Efficiency, (3) Environmentally Friendly Production, (4) Conservation and Pollution Mitigation, and (5) Training and Support. This definitional framework provides a useful perspective for tracking jobs, investments and economic growth over time which, in turn, facilitates evaluating the effectiveness of policy choices and investments. Included in Pew's definition are jobs as diverse as engineers, plumbers, administrative assistants, construction workers, teachers and several others.

Venture capital investment in clean technology crossed the $1 billion threshold in 2005 and grew to $12.6 billion by the end of 2008.

Making investments in this area part of public infrastructure projects with a combination of public (federal loan guarantees) and private financing would certainly help cash-strapped state and local governments to improve energy efficiency at the ground floor while creating much needed jobs and tax revenue streams. But wait, that's a good idea so it's probably not politically palatable.

Of course, as Nancy Folbre points out, there's no need to spend money to create jobs or save energy if you think the market will take care of these problems on its own: "Likewise, you don't need to water your own garden if you're confident the rain will always come on time."

We like Nancy's perspective.