"A Phoenix Rising From GM's Ashes"

Shout out to Green for All’s new leader Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins for her blog yesterday where she argues, in a compelling narrative of the General Motors bankruptcy, that green jobs are the jobs of the present and the future. She writes:

Are we a country whose economy runs on batteries from China and oil from the Middle East? Or will we manufacture our own clean energy in the United States, creating green-collar jobs for American workers?

The promise of American economic growth and jobs still remains in manufacturing, though the products we make must change.

Our industrial manufacturing economy has relied on unregulated consumption of fossil fuel for too long– consumption which steadily destroys our air, our communities, and our planet.

We should not salvage the gas-guzzling U.S. auto industry. But that does not mean the factories in Flint, Michigan, should stay shuttered. Instead, the manufacturing industry in the United States must be revitalized to build the infrastructure for a clean energy economy.

Imagine America’s 'Rust Belt' transformed into a green belt of clean energy manufacturing. Imagine the factories of Detroit making wind turbines and solar panels to power America.

The rest of the world is already racing to implement clean energy solutions. The U.S. must catch up and blaze a new trail.

China spends 12 million dollars per hour to develop its own energy sources. Germany has already created 250,000 jobs in the clean energy sector through government investment and incentives.

As a nation, it is time to make a choice.

Read the whole thing at Anderson Cooper's 360 blog.