Daily Score Blog

Today, Sightline released a primer on green jobs called Green-Collar Jobs: Realizing the Promise. Green jobs have been a much-discussed topic here and elsewhere. But what are they? Who has them? And how do we get more for Northwest workers?

A follow up to our popular Cap and Trade 101, Sightline's new primer explains what makes a green job, how investment in clean energy creates those jobs, and how Northwest leaders can build a green-collar workforce in our region.

Included in the primer:

Green-collar jobs are those held by employees who devote a substantial share of their work hours to activities that boost energy efficiency, increase the supply of renewable energy, or prevent, reduce, or clean up pollution.

The Promise

Green jobs can speed progress on three important challenges at once: economic recovery, job creation, and climate change. This is an enormous opportunity to ease our dependence on climate-warming fossil fuels while fostering lasting, broadly shared economic prosperity for local families.

The Plan

The biggest chance in the near term for green-collar job creation is in boosting energy efficiency in buildings. This is local work that saves energy. These are jobs that cannot be outsourced. Focusing on training programs for workers that lead to credentials or certifications and factoring training, employment, and formal education into career ladders will help grow a green-collar workforce that gets Northwest families on a track to prosperity in the clean energy economy.

Combining work training programs in fields like efficiency retrofitting or renewable energy with innovative financing programs will supply the workers, stoke demand, and secure funding for the green-collar economy--right here in our communities.

The Prize

Applying a comprehensive set of solutions can help the Northwest lead a green-collar economic recovery. Success won't be fully captured in higher quarterly earnings or a lower unemployment rate; it will be measured by whether the Northwest increasingly offers its residents a more sustainable way to live, with greater energy independence, fewer greenhouse-gas emissions, cozier buildings with lower operating costs, and good-paying jobs that provide paychecks with a purpose for local families.

Read more about the green jobs primer; check out profiles of northwesterners joining the green workforce; or DOWNLOAD the primer now.

Oregon’s Nike already publicly broke with the Chamber for this very reason. Nothing from Microsoft or Amazon yet. But a few others are peeling away. Just this week, New Mexico's largest utility made the break:

The Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) is dropping its membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over the business group's stance on climate change. Earlier this week, PNM criticized the Chamber of Commerce, saying, "We believe the science is compelling enough to act sooner rather than later, and we support comprehensive federal legislation to meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect customers against unreasonable cost increases."

See, that wasn't so hard!

Pacific Gas and Electric, a large California utility, said Tuesday that it is pulling out of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because it disagrees with the chamber's aggressive opposition to climate-change legislation...Chief executive Peter Darbee had written a letter criticizing the chamber's recent demands that the Environmental Protection Agency hold a "Scopes Monkey Trial" to prove the science behind climate change.

"We find it dismaying that the Chamber neglects the indisputable fact that a decisive majority of experts have said the data on global warming are compelling and point to a threat that cannot be ignored," Darbee wrote.

That's two big western utilities in a matter of days. Now, the question is, who's next?

Two new papers dig into the whys and hows of building higher-density communities, reaching useful and interesting conclusions.

First, the whys. The National Research Council's Transportation Research Board calculated the greenhouse gas savings if new housing was more compact and put homes close to jobs and other amenities. "Driving and the Built Environment:  Effects of Compact Development on Motorized Travel, Energy Use, and CO2 Emission," a report requested by Congress and published last week, determined that 57 million US homes will be needed by 2030 to accommodate population growth and replacement housing.

The group defined compact housing as construction that's twice as dense as current development, and assumed it would occur at the urban fringe and through some infill in cities (as opposed to focusing on making existing housing more dense).

So what are the benefits to the climate?

The stats from the Cash-for-Clunkers program sound so promising: more than 690,000 gas guzzlers taken off the road in exchange for more fuel-efficient models. About 84 percent of the trade-ins were trucks, while 59 percent of the new purchases were cars, according to Consumer Reports. The top three vehicles scrapped:

1. Ford Explorer 4WD
   
2. Ford F150 Pickup 2WD
   
3. Jeep Grand Cherokee 4WD

In exchange for:

1. Toyota Corolla
2. Honda Civic
3. Ford Focus

This had to be a big win for the environment, no? Well...not really, especially if you were hoping for a cost-effective win. University of California Davis transportation economist Christopher Knittel ran the numbers:

According to two news stories today, the contents of my fridge -- a six-pack, open bottles of wine, dregs from last week's farmers' market and leftover stir-fry -- might help power my house some day.

As the Los Angeles Times reports, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur has invented a system that makes ethanol out of old beer, wine and other waste kitchen products. My favorite part: the still doubles as a fuel pump for your car!

Also in the Bay Area, a pilot program is using leftovers to make electricity. Food scraps from 2,300 restaurants and grocery stores are collected and pumped into tanks at a local wastewater treatment plant, where microbes do their stuff. The decomposing food releases methane, which is used to make electricity. (A catch: Forks, oysters, and plastic bags are big problems.)

But since I don't eat out that much, I was more interested in the beer-to-energy solution.

Cities in Cascadia should be feeling pretty good right now. This month the Natural Resources Defense Council released its ranking of Smarter Cities in the US and our area scored well.

For large cities, this region dominated the top three spots with Seattle at No. 1, San Francisco at No. 2, and Portland at No. 3. Cascadia also did well for medium cities, and for small cities Washington's Bellingham landed the top spot and Mountain View, Calif., located outside of SF was just behind it (see highlights of how NW American cities placed below).

This was much more than a feel-good popularity contest. The folks at NRDC attempted a really thoughtful, detailed analysis for the rankings, sifting through more than 600 cities to find those that are leading the nation in their sustainable ways.

If you want to get folks to cut their energy use, you don't necessarily have to raise rates or hand out fluorescent light bulbs. Just let them know how much juice the Joneses are using. An article in the Atlantic Monthly reports that giving utility customers information on how much power they used compared to their neighbors drives down consumption.

The strategy was devised by Robert Cialdini, a social psychologist from Arizona State University and expert in tweaking human behavior through what he calls "peer information" (as opposed to peer pressure). 

A company called Positive Energy, at which Cialdini is the chief scientist, has created software that measures energy usage by neighborhood. Here's how it's used:

Results are sent to consumers on behalf of their local utility, praising you with a row of smiley faces (you’ve used 58 percent less electricity than your neighbors this month!) or damning you with none (you used 39 percent more electricity than your neighbors in the past 12 months, and it cost you $741 extra).

In Positive Energy’s reports, a once-intangible bit of social information—how much energy you use relative to your neighbors—is made tangible. Now you can find out not just what people in the same city are doing, but what people in your neighborhood, living in the same-size houses, are doing...

The approach was tested in Sacramento. How'd it work?

The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill passed the House narrowly on Friday. The epic, historic, landmark (insert favorite, happy superlative here) piece of legislation that sets limits on greenhouse gases and invests in renewable energy passed narrowly with a 219 to 212 vote. Even President Barack Obama made last-minute calls to get this thing approved. So how did lawmakers vote in the Cascadia region? 

The tally was an even split for and against--10 to 10, mostly down party lines. But there were a couple of surprises thrown in.

Dude, if you are still trying to figure out exactly what this whole cap and trade thing is about, dude, you owe it to yourself to check out this awesome primer from NPR!

From robotic farmhands to new software, today's news highlights technological innovations that are saving money and energy. 

Several stories detail the unveiling of Hara, a Silicon Valley startup that aims to help companies navigate a "post-carbon economy." It allows them to measure energy use, water consumption and carbon footprint, then figure out which improvements are best for the planet and the bottom line. Companies spend lots of money on consultants to track greenhouse gas emissions. Do-it-yourself types may muddle through on Excel. But that approach won't cut it when carbon becomes a regulated and tradeable commodity, The New York Times reports.

But the real story -- often buried below headlines like "Eco-Wars" -- is how these two camps of environmentalists are already working together to reconcile the critical need (and indeed the opportunity) to transition to clean energy to combat global climate change with the need to stick to their guns when it comes to environmental protection and sensitivity to critical habitats.

In fact, just yesterday The Oregon Natural Desert Association released a mapping project that determines optimal sites for responsible wind development in the Oregon desert. They worked with Audubon Society of Portland, Defenders of Wildlife, Hells Canyon Preservation Council, Oregon Sierra Club, and WildEarth Guardians to put it together.

We'll likely see more and more of this kind of cooperation. As Johanna Wald, a senior lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council put it in the Washington Post, "There is no free lunch when it comes to meeting our energy needs," She added, however, that the renewables boom "offers a chance to do it right."

"We want to do it differently compared to how we did oil and gas development."

From Northern California electronics manufacturer C. Crane comes a new LED light bulb -- dubbed the Geobulb -- that cuts electricity consumption by more than 87 percent, compared with a standard incandescent bulb.  And it lasts for about 10 years before it needs to be replaced.  (See the news report here.) 

The Geobulb doesn't come cheap, though: a single bulb runs about $120, which means that at this point it's mostly for enthusiasts and special uses.  But in some cases, the expense can be worth it:  for sockets that are hard or dangerous to reach (think recessed bulbs or hanging light fixtures on a high ceiling ) the Geobulb can be a real convenience, since changing bulbs takes so much labor and effort.

Regardless, as manufacturers gain more experience and economies of scale with LED light bulbs, I expect that prices will come down -- holding out hopes for even more energy savings, as well as a bigger boost for the region's electronics manufacturers.

When it comes to regional climate policy, things are not moving as fast as we'd like. But as my colleague Eric de Place pointed out last week, the regional conversation about energy policy -- and cap and trade in particular -- has leapt forward at an astonishing pace.

A year ago -- even a few months ago -- cap and trade was a relatively unfamiliar concept among NW legislators and journalists. Today, a range of leaders -- from faith organizations to ed boards and top NW businesses to utilities and legislators -- truly get it.

Of course there are those who aren't yet on board, and the legislative roadblocks have been frustrating, but the fact is, we've witnessed (and been part of) a major shift in the conversation.

Let's stop and take stock of some of the ground that's been gained -- especially in WA and OR. Here it is from NW leaders and journalists themselves. (Of course, you might say we're cherry-picking here, but the fact is, this isn't even an exhaustive list -- there are plenty more examples of NW opinion leaders calling for cap and trade. Too many to list here.)

So, in no particular order; emphasis mine:

Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial board, January 30, 2009:

Lawmakers and the governor should look beyond the painful necessities involved with budget tightening to the opportunity to put the state in position for a robust recovery that is environmentally and socially healthy.

There are encouraging signs. Two bills that [Gregoire] requested, HB1819 and SB5735, would move the state ahead significantly on creating a cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

President Obama has made it clear that he will work with Congress to develop a national cap-and-trade program. At the federal level, a greenhouse gas program is coming. If Washington leads, we are at the table shaping the program.

An interesting report from the EPA came out yesterday listing the top 25 cities ranked by the number of energy efficient buildings (in 2008). LA topped the list, and we were happy to see a few Northwest cities make the list. Seattle came in at number 10, and Portland tied for 18th.

The report also noted how much each city saved in energy spending in 2008. Seattle saved $16.3 million (or enough energy to power almost 20,000 homes), and Portland saved $8 million. Not exactly small potatoes; it's a good reminder of the money easily saved by making smart, efficient building choices. Plus, that's money that won't go to feeding our dirty energy addiction.

In October, the Center for American Progress released a report by economists at the University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute called, “Green Recovery.” The report (definitely worth a close study) showed that a $100 billion green economic investment could create 2 million US jobs in two years -- not to mention the wonders it would do for breaking our dangerous fossil fuel addiction and cleaning up the climate.

A groovy new map on the CAP website illustrates how allocations to 34 states from this "green recovery program" would translate to net job creation and the dent this would make on each state’s unemployment rate (based on September 2008 unemployment figures). 

The CAP program proposes to boost public investment (and leverage private capital through loan guarantees) in six energy efficiency and renewable energy strategies: retrofitting buildings to improve energy efficiency; expanding mass transit and freight rail; constructing “smart” electrical grid transmission systems; wind power; solar power; and next-generation biofuels.

It would create 42,689 new jobs in Washington, reducing unemployment by 22.9 percent (from 5.3 to 4.1 percent).

In Oregon, 27,306 jobs would be created -- cutting unemployment by 23.7 percent.