Abstract

Mean Green Job Machine

The author argues that displaced manufacturing workers in the U.S. should be put to work in the environmental protection industry. We need an active, large-scale job-creation effort akin to a Green WPA. Job creation and environmental protection are far from irreconcilable, as many assume; in fact, this idea is feasible and practical. While the general public understands the classic environmentalism of saving whales and wildlife habitat, it remains largely unaware of how dependent on environmental management our economy has quietly become. Few would believe that, depending on what definitions are used, the environmental industry has begun to rival the military industry in economic importance, for both blue- and white-collar jobs, before the Reagan-era spike in defense spending and the recent post-9/11 buildup. Few also realize the jobs potential inherent in ongoing environmental investment, which creates blue- and white-collar jobs, directly and indirectly. Such jobs are created by pollution-control efforts, energy and water conservation and myriad other environmental improvements that villages, cities, states and nations would do well to undertake. Moreover, environmental jobs create twenty-first-century skills.