What's a 'green collar' job anyway?

There has been a lot of attention recently to green collar jobs. From President Obama to Governor Kulongoski, leaders are calling for the creation of green jobs. But what are green collar jobs? 

Generally, this refers to jobs that come from preventing global warming and investing in clean energy economy. These jobs could range from installing solar panels, weatherizing homes and retrofitting buildings to make them more energy efficient, constructing transit lines, refining waste oil into biodiesel, erecting wind farms, building hybrid cars, designing and building green buildings, for example.

But as New York Times writer Thomas Friedman points out the issue isn't "green" cars, "green" buildings, or "green" jobs, but cars, buildings and jobs that are efficient, technologically innovative, provide the highest return on investment, help us protect our natural resources and the planet that sustains us, and builds lasting value. This isn't a special interest of environmentalists and smart growth advocates – it's a patriotic, mainstream American agenda, in everyone's interest. Yes, we should create jobs, but let’s just make sure that they are not just any job. Let’s create jobs that are helping us build a more sustainable society.

With the passage of the economic stimulus package, the emphasis has been on making investments in ‘shovel ready’ projects. The risk we face now is will we shovel money into projects that will not help us build a sustainable society or green economy.

That is why the Oregon Environmental Council has called for a ‘fix it first’ approach. Every part of the country has crumbling, neglected roads and bridges that are hazardous, increase congestion costs and global warming pollution. Let’s fix them first, before we build new ones.

And before we build new roads, let’s first invest in a new public transportation infrastructure which generally creates more jobs than investing in new highway and bridge infrastructure – about 19% more. During an economic downturn, we need public transportation more than ever. Growing numbers of Oregonians have no choice other than to take transit.

We can't afford to spend money on bad ideas; we can't afford to waste energy, add to our greenhouse gas emissions or plan for the past instead of the future. Every investment we make has to meet the real needs of our cities and towns, and create opportunity for everyone. Let’s invest in green jobs and recognize that what we are talking about are simply good jobs of the future.