In Support of a New (Green) Deal

Investing in clean energy could create four times as many jobs as investing in the oil industry, according to a report issued on Tuesday by the Sierra Club, United Steelworkers, the Blue Green Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council and Audubon New York. And clean energy investment would result in about three times the number of good-paying jobs, those that pay at least $16 an hour, according to the report, which was written by the Center for American Progress and the Political Economy Research Institute.

Clean energy, to help deter the effects of global warming, could help reduce New Yorkers' fears of rising temperatures and receding shorelines. The report encourages investment in six areas: 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.

Such jobs are based on the proposed investment of $100 billion over two years, through a cap-and-trade program like those sponsored last year in Congress that would “drive private investments into clean energy and raise public revenue through carbon permit auctions.” And spending $26 billion on retrofitting, for example, could save $5 billion in energy costs a year, for a net savings after five years or so, according to the report.

Robert Pollin, the lead author and a co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, said many elements of the recommended plan were already in place, in some form.

There are incentives for retrofits, tax and production credits for wind, solar and geothermal energy, and loan guarantees. I’m talking about ramping up dramatically the scale of these things. Why not do it now, because we know we have to do it sooner or later, and it’s also the most efficient single job program we could come up with.

Chris Neidl, advocacy coordinator of Solar 1, a nonprofit arts and education group in Manhattan, said new solar-energy-related jobs were inherently local. He said that of the six elements of the plan, retrofitting buildings to be more energy efficient could be the largest growth area and could address global warming most significantly.

"Job growth in that sector is hands down the most substantial," he said. "These are the types of jobs, building performance, retrofitting, energy auditing, that not not white-collar work, and kind of replenish an area of the economy that has been sinking."

His group runs a green-collar job training program at the Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day High School, teaching solar installation and, soon, building energy efficiency.

In May 2007, a report by a collaboration of New York solar power manufacturers, researchers and policy analysts estimated that if the state produced 2,000 megawatts of solar power, "3,000 direct installation or maintenance jobs and over 10,000 highly skilled manufacturing and integration jobs could be created over a period of 10 years."

But even without a major infusion of federal and private cash, green jobs are sprouting throughout the city, with the help of the nonprofit sector. For instance, the Doe Fund has hired or is training 15 people who were formerly homeless or incarcerated to collect used cooking oil from restaurants to be made into biodiesel. By next month the Doe Fund workers expect to be collecting oil from 700 restaurants in the city. By helping them earn their commercial driving licenses and gain work skills and independence, the program shows that people — as well as sunshine, wind and vegetable oil — can be renewable resources.