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There's lots of buzz about green-collar jobs these days (sort of like blue-collar jobs, but with a sustainable edge) -- whether you're listening to Obama, McCain, or Clinton; Gregoire, Kulongoski, or Schwarzenegger.

You hear this kind of thing a lot: A study conducted by the RAND Corporation and the University of Tennessee found that producing 25 percent of all American energy fuel and electricity from renewables by the year 2025 would produce the following: "$700 billion of new economic activity, carbon emission reduction by 1 billion tons, and 5 million new jobs."

Fine and dandy, but, some might ask "where are those five million new jobs? When will we see them?" Some skeptics have begun to ask whether it's bordering on hype.

Big projections are just that - big projections. But there's nothing like local industry reporting 2000 new jobs here and 500 jobs there -- right in our neck of the woods -- and a steady stream of investment dollars to keep skeptics pondering the possibilities.

So, we're happy to report a real-live green-collar workforce is materializing in the Northwest, and it's likely the wave is just gathering strength. With more policy measures encouraging green-tech investments and training programs it could swell to something much bigger. Looking at Oregon's green-collar boom, Ted Sickinger of the Oregonian calls it a "small tsunami."

Some real numbers from Oregon and Washington: 

Always the critic. This 2-paragraph Globe and Mail squib has a shockingly high error-to-fact ratio.

B.C. life expectancy rises to more than 80

B.C. residents are living longer than ever before, and now have one of the highest life expectancies in the world, according to new statistics.

The province's vital statistics annual report shows that people born in 2006 can expect to live an average of 80.9 years, compared with 77.4 years for people born a quarter century ago.

Well, sorta...

Apparently we're not the only ones who've noticed:

U.S. drivers are doing something they haven’t done for nearly two decades — consume less gasoline....

There are indications that a fundamental shift in consumer driving habits may have started in December, when total miles traveled in the U.S. dropped 3.9 percent compared with the same month a year earlier. Miles traveled in the Midwest were down 5.8 percent.

The Kansas City Star made an interesting map of the regional driving trends.  Federal figures showed a 3.5 percent decline in driving in the US west, comparing December 2007 with December of 2006.  I'm not sure I buy it, but it's it's worth a quick click-through at least to look at it.  But at a minimum, it confirms the trend that we've been seeing -- higher gas prices are starting to change our outlook on transportation.

Is it a competitive streak, a sense of home-team loyalty, a clannish pride? Something about local climate triumphs gets us fired up -- and smart policy advocates in our neck of the woods are tapping into that spirit to build momentum for important regional policy measures.

I know because I just spent a few weeks poring over dozens of newspaper articles covering climate questions to better understand how journalists in the Northwest and beyond are covering policy solutions. We were looking at who's quoted and what spokespeople are saying -- in favor and against climate policy.

The good news is that there's a steady stream of coverage, particularly here in the Northwest where climate legislation is in play in city and county governments, state capitols, and on a regional level. The bad news: a lot of coverage plays up the political wrangling involved in any kind of big new policy direction, emphasizing partisan differences and a drawn out process.

But one theme that struck a chord for me as a momentum-builder was the invocation of local pride -- and local opportunities. Washington governor Christine Gregoire's constant refrain sums it up well: "The future of our economy, the future of our great state is at stake."

There was some hubbub a couple of weeks ago when researchers produced a carbon emissions map of the US. Using direct CO2 emissions, we saw this first-of-its-kind map:

Unfortunately, the map looks a lot like a population density map. That's for obvious reasons, since the larger share of cars, buildings, and industry tend to be where the people are. But by turning major cities red, it leads one to the wrong conclusion. Looking at the map, you might think that the northeast was the nation's big carbon problem, while the dessert West and the Rockies were doing something really right. And I suppose that's true on one level: there's not a lot of carbon being emitted in the wide open spaces of the West.

But check out what happens when the researchers added population density to calculate per capita carbon emissions. It's a completely different perspective:

On this reading, the real problem is the West. The nation's cool spots are the relatively densely-settled eastern areas.

Now, we all know that per capita emissions don't matter a whit to the atmosphere. All that matters is the total amount of carbon. But without understanding the population-based side of the equation, we're unlikely to understand how to fix our emissions problem. The key, as it turns out, is not for our economy to function like it does in West Texas or Wyoming, but more like it does in cities.

Links to bigger version and explanations are here.