Talking up green jobs

With the stock market tanking and bank after bank failing, lots of people are peeing-their-pants scared right now. The haves are trying to figure out how to get richer with the bailout and, failing that, how to recover their losses. The have-nots are trying to figure out how to pay the rent and the heating bills this winter, keep the lights on and the kids in shoes that fit.

Most of us between are wondering how to protect ourselves. If the haves have stolen our retirement funds, and if it's true there aren't enough workers to provide social security for the baby boomers, now that the government has borrowed against our SS funds for the next three hundred years or so, will we spend our declining years begging for handouts on the streets?

How bad will it get before it gets better? More importantly, what can possibly make it better?

Part of the answer lies in green collar jobs.





Green for All sorts the talking points for green collar jobs this way.

• Green collar jobs rebuild a strong middle class
• Green collar jobs provide pathways out of poverty
• Green collar jobs require some new skills (and some new thinking about old skills
• Green collar jobs tend to be local jobs
• Green collar jobs save Planet Earth

Now that's an Ordinary solution. For more depth on each of these points, go to Green for All now.

What did you do on Green Jobs Now Awareness Day?

All over the US last Saturday, everyday folks hosted and participated in hundreds of Green Jobs Now events.

Image courtesy Green Jobs Now

Events ranged from Guy Marsden's in Woolich, ME, where he showed two people how to make thermal window inserts; to the Green Jobs for All rally in Minneapolis, where more than one hundred job-hungry people showed up to take action and talk with elected officials; to a forum in New Orleans, where congressional candidates were grilled on their commitment to green jobs and environmental recovery.

As of this writing, organizers of 250 of the nearly 700 events have reported on their success.

"Together we proved that America's #1 resource is people, not oil," says Green Jobs Now.

You can be part of the green jobs revolution. Begin by signing the Green Jobs Now petition (text below) and learn about next action steps.



Were you part of a Green Jobs Now event Saturday? Tell us all about it in a comment below.

Can green jobs help save the economy as well as the planet?

Next Saturday is
Green Jobs Now
National Day of Action





More than 800,000 workers lost their jobs in the last four months, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary. More than half of those, 417,000 breadwinners, lost their jobs just last month.

Both presidential candidates support green jobs as a way to stimulate the economy, help workers and solve some of our energy problems. Green Jobs Now and the organizations that support it aren't waiting until January 20 for those jobs to appear. They're taking action now.

So can you. Watch this video, then jump to Green Jobs Now and check out what's happening in your neck of the woods. Better still, sign up to host an event or take an action yourself. The key is to let our civic and national leaders know we're all looking for green jobs now.



How exciting is it, to know that so many ordinary people, in so many ordinary places, are looking for jobs that give back more than a paycheck--jobs that help us all build a more Ordinary kind of future?

I'd love to hear what you're doing to promote green jobs this week. If you can do nothing else, share this post with people you know.