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Health & Fitness

Taking Stock of Clean Jobs on Labor Day

Domestic job growth is happening with the help of government programs aimed at increasing energy efficiency.

In the spring of 2011 when my husband and I went through Sustainable Works program to have our home weatherized and the furnace replaced, there were at least a dozen employees involved from beginning to end of the project. Our intent was not to create jobs, but that was a happy byproduct of reducing our energy consumption.

Our gas consumption was reduced by 50% and electricity went down significantly as well. (We replaced a very old, inefficient refrigerator with an Energy Star model in August of this year, so we expect to see further reductions in electricity consumption.)

According to the federal Energy Department's weatherization project director, Gil Sperling, as reported in the New York Times December 2008, weatherizing a million homes annually would create about 78,000 jobs for a year.  According to the Department of Energy 750,000 homes were weatherized over the last three years through a government program saving consumers an average of $400 a year on their heating and cooling bills.

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Clean energy jobs are on the rise throughout the country. In the first quarter of 2012, there were 28,866 new jobs created in the clean energy sector in the United States, according to a report by Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2). New jobs were reported in 42 states, with the largest numbers of jobs in Connecticut, Illinois, Tennessee and Iowa. 

Over half of the new jobs were in power generation, with wind and solar in the lead. Manufacturing made up the bulk of the rest of the jobs, with transportation and energy efficiency a distant third. You can see the whole report on the E2.org website.

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"The jobs announcements over the three months feature a wide range of companies: major multinational corporations like GE, Nissan, and General Motors, as well as small entrepreneurial start-ups." Federal, state and local governments played a critical role in creating jobs. 

"The City of Chicago announced plans to spend as much as $225 million to make all city buildings more energy efficient; Retrofit Chicago will target more than 1,000 city buildings, saving up to $20 million annually in energy costs, and be an employment opportunity for 2000 construction workers." 

"Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) is a national community of business leaders who promote sound environmental policy that builds economic prosperity."

As we relax this Labor Day, perhaps we can consider writing a letter to our elected leaders to suggest that deployment of resources to energy efficiency and infrastructure replacement projects would help boost the US out of its recession.

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