Employing Americans With Climate Solutions
One of the great triumphs across the country has been the realization among city and community leaders that climate change is real, it is happening now, and it is caused by human activity. More difficult though has been the task of getting leaders to act. For years, the common refrain in the discourse on taking climate action is that it will either hurt the economy, or cost jobs. However, neither of these has to be true. More and more cities are realizing the benefits to their local economies that follow investments into clean energy, retrofitting infrastructure, and providing blue collar jobs.
For mayors across the country, the long-term economic gains of climate action can sometimes be difficult politically. But job creation is always popular. Growing evidence shows that fighting for climate action is fighting for job creation. What’s more, the jobs created are often those that are needed most—well paying, stable, blue collar jobs.
Mayors and community leaders must learn to effectively communicate the employment benefits of climate action. By joining with coalitions of like-minded leaders, sharing success stories, and developing climate action plans, they can better serve and empower their communities. Get started today by visiting Path to Positive Communities.
The fight for the environment and the fight for blue-collar jobs are one and the same
By Van Badham | City Lab | March 29, 2016
The Great Australian Bight is a pristine marine environment. It’s a haven for humpback and sperm whales, blue whales and beak whales. It’s Australia’s most significant seal lion nursery and said to be the world’s most important southern right whale nursery. It sustains huge fishing and tourism industries – and BP is planning to drill it for oil.
Yes, that BP – BP of the “Deepwater Horizon” oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico back in 2010, in which a well exploded and sank, killing 11 people and creating the biggest oil spill disaster in US history. BP of that leak, 1.6km below the ocean surface, that took three months to fix. BP of the 100,000 barrels of oil leaked into the ocean per day, every day, for 87 consecutive days. BP now paying out $US18.7bn in claims to 400 separate local government entities damaged by a disaster that decimated the fishing and tourism industries of the five US gulf states.
Their shores, six years later, still receive the bodies of poisoned dolphins, whales and other dead creatures.