Daily Score Blog

Last Saturday, two stories about green jobs caught my eye. One was in the Washington Post and the other in the Seattle Times.  The Post article was a hand-wringing affair about the failure of energy efficiency efforts funded by stimulus dollars to create any of the promised green jobs. The Times article was a bit more positive, reporting about a training program I wrote about in a post titled Labor Sees Green Job Opportunity. The Times piece highlighted the first graduates of the program, created by the Laborers' International Union of North America (LiUNA) to train weatherization workers. But the Times piece also asked the crucial question of one of the graduates, “will you be able to get a job?”

The graduate, Ahmalik Claiborne, answered, "I'm sure I can get a job . . . We are at the start of something good." Not everyone is so optimistic. But it is important for our region’s problem solvers not to give in to pessimism. The fact is, our region is ahead of the rest of the country and getting green jobs right is better than getting them right now.

Early this week, President Obama gave a speech touting the $3.4 billion in grants the federal government has awarded to local companies, utilities and cities working to improve the country’s aging and outmoded electric energy grid. The awards will support “smart grid” technology that enables easier and more effective transmission of electricity from one region to another. One of the recipients is Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative (PNGC), a Portland-based electric generation and transmission cooperative owned by 16 Northwest electric utilities. The grant will fund installation of “95,000 smart meters, substation equipment, and load management devices that will integrate electric cooperatives across four states using a central data collection software system hosted by PNGC.”

But will all the smart grid money create green collar jobs?

Unfortunately—and surprisingly considering unemployment rates—according to a recent report by the National Commission on Energy Policy, smart-grid investment will require trained workers who aren’t yet available in large numbers.

Via Climate Progress, a transcript from Marketplace that is just riveting. It's about the bark beetle infestation and forest die-offs around Helena, Montana. Here's an excerpt:

JIM ROBBINS: This was all forest here. And now it’s a lot of smashed pieces of wood here and pine needles and occasional patches of weed that we’ll have to spray next year.

SAM: So Robbins says when people are faced with these kinds of images daily, in their own backyards, it becomes a lot harder not to believe in climate change.

ROBBINS: There’s a saying that there are no atheists in foxholes. I think there’s something along that line happening here. I mean, there are still some people who refuse to believe it. But I think there’s been an erosion of that disbelief and it’s changed pretty dramatically.

SAM: And a lot of people don’t want to call it global warming simply because it’s such a politically charged term. They basically equate it with Democrats like Al Gore. People they’d never vote for.

Helena’s Mayor Jim Smith definitely falls into that category. But Sarah, he told me something I’d never heard before. He said when your community is threatened, the political debate over climate change no longer matters.

SMITH: Whether this climate change is man caused or just the natural order of things, I don’t know and I don’t have a lot of time to ponder that important question. We just got to deal with the situation on the ground here regardless of what the cause is. So we’re doing that.

As you might expect, Joe Romm has much more to say, connecting the dots between climate change, bark beetles, and threatened forests in the West. And needless to say, this sort of thing stands to worsen if carbon emissions go unchecked.

As the US Senate begins to consider comprehensive climate policy, let's hope that certain powerful western senators -- cough, Max Baucus, cough -- are paying close attention to their home states. Turn your attention away from the airless hyperpolitics of DC lawmaking and you can see that there are serious dangers in failing to reduce emissions very soon.

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.

This Saturday, I will be speaking about energy efficiencies at the annual Wild Idaho North! Conference. Preparing for this presentation has given me a chance to zero in on the true potential of efficiencies for buildings and homes. I also used a recent gathering of Sightline supporters to help focus my thoughts. I had two minutes to talk about energy efficiency and here’s the gist of what I said

Efficiency programs and policies in Cascadia, if they are done well, can:

That tingling sensation you feel isn't ordinary excitement. It's the feeling that comes from living in the Northwest -- the place that is the gold standard for energy efficiency, renewable energy, ratepayer protection, and all around grooviness in the electricity sector. As it happens, we're now entering the heady period that only occurs once every five years: the updating of the Northwest Power Plan.

In seriousness, the Power Plan might sound dull or arcane, but it's hugely important. It marks out the the enery path forward for the Northwest -- and it has a giant influence over the behavior of public power agencies and private utilities alike. 

In many ways, the new draft plan is pretty darn good. It shows how the region can meet nearly all of the next 20 year's new power demand with no increase in greenhouse gas emissions and no new fossil fuel-burning plants. But in other ways, the plan is lacking: it doesn't lay out a strategy for reducing carbon emissions. And it doesn't point the way toward phasing out the coal plants that are the goliaths of the Northwest's emissions.

The Northwest Energy Coalition -- my go-to source for this kind of thing -- has an excellent summary of the good and the bad, as well as what you can do about it. And you really can do something about it. The Northwest's electricity sector didn't become amazingly progressive by accident. The Northwest Power and Conservation Council -- the planning body that develops these plans -- actually listens to citizen input and takes it seriously.

So go get yourself to one of the public hearings:

And write up some comments while you're at it. You can submit them here.

If you're in want of more information, go to the Northwest Energy Coalition's website, where you'll find background on the planning process, as well as a helpful FAQs (pdf), a talking points memo (pdf), and a public interest statement (pdf).

At  NPCC's site you'll find the full text of the Draft Sixth Power Plan is here. And you can find a full schedule of public meetings here.

Some new-ish Census figures on commuting habits in 2008 suggest that Washington may be the Northwest's leader in alternatives to driving. Or possibly Alaska, depending on how you count.

Driving alone is still the dominant mode of commuting, but all five Northwest states have less solo driving than the national average.

When it comes to carpooling, the region's leader is Idaho. But again, all five Northwest states have more carpooling than the national average.

If Idaho's leadership in carpooling is surprising, perhaps it shouldn't be. Very often, states with driving-centric transportation systems tend to perform well on carpooling, which can be the most practical way for commuters to avoid solo driving.

But in public transportation, Washington is the only Northwest state that does better than the national average.

Washington's ranking here is probably due in large part to the fact that the state is more populous and urbanized than other US Northwest jurisdictions. Obviously, transit ridership tends to be higher in places where there are robust transit systems, which in turn tend to be located in urban areas.

I've got no big-picture analysis here, I just thought it was interesting. And somebody should explain Alaska to me.

I spoke with Ken Robinette this week head of Idaho’s fourth largest community action agency, the South Central Community Action Partnership. He updated me on the latest work going on to spend stimulus funds for weatherization in Idaho and nationally. Robinette attended the national conference of community action agencies in Indianapolis last month where leaders in weatherization gathered for trainings and updates on stimulus funding. The news from Idaho is about the same as from other parts of the region [link]: Davis-Bacon—a measure intended to ensure fair wages—continues to be the most significant roadblock to spending stimulus dollars.

The Davis-Bacon act is a depression era law that ensures workers get adequate wages for work on public projects. Unfortunately it doesn’t fit well with efficiency and weatherization projects. Here’s why. Davis-Bacon bases pay standards on the nature of work done, and up to this point it has not had categories for the kinds of work involved in weatherization projects. Retrofits are a lot different from construction. Here’s how that’s playing out on the ground:

With loaded claims coming from both sides of the reintroduction debate, it was nice to see some good, science-based reporting from the Billings Gazette this morning (more coverage of the study here). A study by Montana State University takes a look at the wolf-elk relationship that’s developed in the Greater Yellowstone area, where wolves were successfully reintroduced in the mid-90s.

After reintroduction, elk populations dropped from around 18,000 to around 6,500. This year, the numbers are slightly over 7,000. Various explanations were given, from drought to over-hunting, but wolf predation on calves was seen as the most likely cause. However, the new study says scat evidence and radio-collar tracking shows relatively few elk calves have been killed by wolves.

The real culprit?

A new, nonprofit investigative news site officially launched this week. InvestigateWest aims to:

"provide high-quality investigative journalism about environmental, health and social justice issues across the West. InvestigateWest is a nonprofit investigative journalism studio that will distribute its work online, in print and on radio and TV stations." 

This is great news for the region given the shrinking number of news publications and the always-diminishing numbers of staff at the outlets that remain.

I once said that if I had to marry a search engine, I would be willing to make a commitment to Google. For some reason, people thought I was speaking hyperbolically, but I was not. (Sorry, Jill.)

If that sounds crazy, consider:

Behold, Google's display of state-level trends in unemployment! (Go play with it; it's fun.)

I know, I know, it's no big thing. Google has all kinds of stuff like this and the data are derived from some other source. (From the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in this case.) But that's what kills me: it's so clear and easy-to-use and, well, beautiful. I love it.

And holy cow, is Oregon's employment situation ugly.

H/t to my BlueOregon

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."

If you live in Montana and you just can't stop thinking about cap and trade and climate policy, then you're in luck! 

I'll be speaking in Helena on Thursday evening. Here are the details:

Clean Energy and Climate Solutions:  A panel discussion -- Join regional and Montana leaders in Helena May 7 for an informative roundtable discussion on how upcoming national climate and energy policy can build a more sustainable, healthier and economically viable Montana. 

Gregg Small with Climate Solutions, Eric de Place of the Sightline Institute, and Gloria Flora with Sustainable Obtainable Solutions will share their expertise about costs of inaction, how a federal carbon cap works, and the complimentary policies needed to keep our economy on track in the 21st century.

Free and open to the public.  Bring your friends!

WHEN: Thursday, May 7th, 7:00 – 9:00 pm
WHERE: University of Montana – Helena, College of Technology Donaldson campus, 1115 N Roberts, Room 002

Sponsored by Montana Audubon, Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund, Sierra Club, Climate Solutions, NRDC, and Montanans for a Healthy Climate, along with the UM-Helena College of Technology.

Via Andrew Sullivan, here is a fascinating study (pdf) in academic psychology that appears to show the presence of a fairly distinct Northwest personality. The researchers ranked the 50 states plus DC according to the presence of each of five personality traits: extraversion; agreeableness; conscientiousness; neuroticism; and openness.

Northwest states are among the most open and least neurotic places you can find, but we are also among the least extraverted. Not surprisingly, Oregon and Washington perform almost identically on every measure. More interesting, perhaps, is that Alaska, Idaho, and Montana are also very similar in some respects (though quite different in some others).

First, the bad news. If you're looking for extraverts, you've come to the wrong place. Oregon is the most extraverted state in the region, but it ranks only an unfriendly 44th most extraverted. Remember, this is the state who's governor famously said: "Come visit us again and again... But, for heaven's sake, don't come here to live."

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.