Special Series
Green-Collar Jobs: Realizing the Promise
In a Series
Green-collar Stimulus 4
On October 1, the national Apollo Alliance announced a plan for clean energy and green jobs that would cost $50 billion a year. When the alliance was framing its proposal, I’m guessing it was shooting for the moon, setting an unreasonably high target in order to raise the sights of Congress and the next administration.
On October 3, the US Congress approved a $700 billion economic stabilization plan. In recent days, it’s discussing a new economic stimulus package that might run to $150 billion. The Apollo Alliance was apparently too timid by a factor of three.
Even more timid, at just $18 billion a year, was the much-more comprehensive, systematic, and – to my mind – brilliant energy plan called Winning the Oil Endgame that Amory Lovins and his Rocky Mountain Institute colleagues published in late 2004.
In short, a new green-collar stimulus could fully fund both plans. I’m not kidding.
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