 |
“What I find exciting is that the solutions to the ecological crisis can be the solutions to the economic crisis …” Naomi Klein, author of “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” said at a recent panel hosted by The Nation magazine.
The Sierra Club couldn’t agree more. That’s why it will sponsor Good Jobs Green Jobs conferences this year in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Detroit that seeks to underscore the job-creating potential of a green economy. Each regional conference will explore the “character, challenges and opportunities” unique to its area.
Good Jobs Green Jobs West in Los Angeles will take place March 15 and 16 at the downtown Westin Bonaventure. It offers two days of plenaries, receptions and workshops that bring together community leaders, union members, environmentalists, business leaders and elected officials to discuss how the West is, and could be better at, building the foundation for a green economy.
During the conference, more than 40 workshops will look at an emerging green economy through transportation, workforce and economic development, and clean energy and manufacturing — things like building wind turbines, retrofitting commercial buildings, weatherizing homes and producing cleaner, safer chemicals.
The registration fee is $195 per person but will be waived for Sierra Club members willing to work at the conference. Volunteers are needed to help register participants and to direct them to workshops and other events. To find out more and to register, visit the Green Jobs Conference website or contact Joan Jones Holtz.
The conferences take place amid a continuing unemployment crisis when creation of good, family-supporting jobs should be a top national priority. These jobs would shape a sustainable economy and protect the environment for future generations.
The Sierra Club chose to partner with labor unions because they are an important part of the vision for a safer workplace — one without threats to health, safety and the environment — and a more experienced workforce. It’s no secret that unions have lost ground in the past three decades; about 24 percent of nonsupervisory U.S. workers were represented by union contracts in 1973, a number that fell to 12.5 percent by 2005. Wages for most of those same workers in the same time period went nowhere even though production increased by 75 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
As for Klein, she sees climate change and the current high levels of unemployment “as a single crisis born of a single root, which is unrestrained corporate greed that can never have enough … a mentality that trashes people and that trashes the planet…” Economic solutions have to focus on the ecological crisis front and center, Klein points out, which could mean millions of jobs building massive public transit systems, a smart energy grid and green cooperatives. For more, go to the Green Jobs Conference website.