Green Jobs Provide Veterans with New Mission

[irishbobcat]

Green Jobs Provide Veterans with New Mission

From the Apollo Alliance

Last Wednesday was Veterans Day, and to honor our veterans and their service to our country, the Apollo Alliance published a feature story about veterans' role in the green economy. The article profiled two green jobs programs—Veterans Green Jobs of Colorado and the Veterans Conservation Corps of Washington state—and the recently launched "Operation Free" campaign that has veterans touring the country to call for federal action on climate change.
Veterans Green Jobs runs a 9-week "Home Energy Auditor Training" (HEAT) for veterans, using a rapid, hands-on "military" style of training and a curriculum that was developed in collaboration with community colleges and industry organizations. Upon completion of the training, graduates receive college credits as well as a home energy efficiency certification. The first class of trainees graduated in June, and another class just began in October.
"We think veterans are uniquely qualified to lead the environmental restoration here at home," said Kirsten Maynard of Veterans Green Jobs. "Not only have they seen environmental destruction across the world; they also have technical skills and other kinds of work skills that allow them to do the really tough work that needs to be done - like go into homes and crawl in the attic and the basement. They've been trained by the military to do it, and they actually feel comfortable being in that kind of environment."
The Veterans Conservation Corps, which is run out of the Washington Department of Veterans Affairs, puts veterans to work on habitat restoration and protection projects across Washington state. The program has been in existence for four years but has faced challenges recently because state budget cuts eliminated the stipends the program paid veterans for their conservation efforts. The Veterans Conservation Corps has also inaugurated a new program, called Veterans Corps, which is modeled on the AmeriCorps program.
"It's a revitalization of a mission they had in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Mark Fischer, who runs the Veterans Conservation Corps. "Once they left the military, that mission is gone, and it's a big loss. When they lose that purpose it can be disheartening and disorienting. We try to create a meaningful job - for a purpose-driven life."
Operation Free is a new campaign by national security and veterans organizations to draw attention to the national security threat created by climate change. "The reason why national security organizations are taking this as a serious threat is that not only are we [the United States] dependent on oil, but the conflicts that arise from famines, floods and droughts [caused by climate change] multiply the threat of current conflicts and create instability," said Alex Cornell du Houx, an Iraq war veteran and participant in Operation Free. Operation Free held an inaugural event in Washington, D.C., in September, which was followed by a bus tour by veterans in October.
To read the full article and learn more about these green jobs and climate change advocacy efforts by veterans, visit the Apollo Alliance website.
Manufacturers Gather to Discuss Climate and Clean Energy Policies
Today, the Apollo Alliance and the Center for American Progress (CAP) sponsored an event in Washington, D.C., for manufacturers to discuss the Senate clean energy and climate bill. The strategy session was hosted by former Sen. Tom Daschle, who is now a distinguished senior fellow at CAP, and was attended by Dow Chemical, ClearEdge Power, Infinia Corporation, SunRise Solar and other manufacturers. The participating businesses represented supply chains from throughout the country, including in Michigan, Washington, Indiana, California, New York, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The event included a roundtable discussion about the manufacturing provisions in the Kerry-Boxer clean energy and climate bill and other pieces of legislation that address clean energy manufacturing, like Sen. Sherrod Brown's Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology (IMPACT) Act. The business leaders also addressed additional measures that would support domestic manufacturers during the transition to a clean energy economy. After the roundtable, Sen. Daschle and several of the manufacturers participated in a telephone press conference.
The interests of manufacturers are critical to the climate and energy bill debate. On the one hand, carbon-intensive manufacturers will need assistance to become more energy efficient so they can compete with foreign manufacturers that are unencumbered by restrictive climate change measures. On the other hand, there is excitement about the potential for clean energy manufacturing to create high-quality jobs in the states that have been hit hardest by the recession—if policymakers implement measures to prevent new jobs from going overseas.
The manufacturers who attended today's event share two common beliefs. First, that setting a limit on carbon pollution is the key to driving investment in clean energy technologies and incentivizing investment in efficient and sustainable manufacturing processes that will increase the long-term competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing. Second, that federal policymakers should strategically invest in the domestic manufacture of the products and services of the clean energy economy.

To learn more about manufacturing and the clean energy economy, read the Apollo Alliance's Green Manufacturing Action Plan.
Learn How to Promote Equity in the Green Economy
This week, the Applied Research Center published a Green Equity Toolkit to help communities fight for green jobs for women and people of color; good jobs with living wages and union representation; and career pathways that lift people out of poverty and into upwardly mobile, middle-class lives.
"The Toolkit highlights green equity success stories and provides practical steps for how labor and community advocates can create equity and inclusion in the green economy," said Yvonne Liu, senior research associate at the Applied Research Center and coordinator of the Green Equity Toolkit. "The green promise means those communities most devastated by the recession -- women and people of color – can mobilize to ride the green wave."
The toolkit provides guidance for designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating initiatives that establish green-collar jobs. It can be applied to the public and/or private sector, in both for-profit and non–profit organizations.

Go to the Apollo Alliance website for more details.
Dennis Spisak
Mahoning Valley Greens
Ohio Green Party
www.Ohiogreens.org
www.votespisak.org/thinkgreen/