Green jobs: The jobs of the future

An economy that runs on clean energy needs green jobs. There have been questions about the most basic terms: what are "green jobs" and how will they affect low-income families, blue-collar workers, or the private sector. Critics of the Waxman-Markey energy and climate draft bill label it as “a huge mistake” that will "increase the cost of living and maybe kill jobs." But Big Oil and Dirty Coal supporters at last week's draft legislation hearings didn't offer a strong argument against green jobs as a way to re-grow the economy.

The Center for American Progress answers a few basic questions and dispels some myths about green jobs in Seven Questions About Green Jobs. Authors Bracken Hendricks, Andrew Light, and Benjamin Goldstein explain why a clean energy economy will "drive innovation and lay the foundation for sustainable, long-term economic growth."

Green jobs are not a new set of specific job classifications, but instead are like 'blue-collar jobs' in that they represent a broad category of work to be done in a range of productive activities. Green jobs, in short, are the 'person-hours' involved in realizing the clean-energy transformation.

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Green jobs mean private-sector innovation and market transformation ...job creation will be driven by private capital. Policies that shift incentives away from environmentally harmful activity and toward new clean-energy technologies will drive innovation in technology, services and business models.

Learn more about how we support green jobs on our 1Sky Solutions page.