December 2, 2008
Renewable Energy is Generating Job Opportunities Across the Country, New Web Feature Shows
"Faces of Renewable Energy" showcases people behind the nation's growing clean energy sector
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) today debuted a new Web feature, "Faces of Renewable Energy," which profiles Americans across the country who are part of the nation's burgeoning renewable energy industry. While economists, pundits and even President-elect Barack Obama have been touting green jobs as a way to pull the country out of its current economic crisis, UCS's Web feature shows that many Americans already are working in a wide range of high-wage green-collar jobs and that the sector holds great promise for generating jobs and cutting the pollution that causes global warming. (For "Faces of Renewable Energy," go to: http://www.ucsusa.org/faces.)
"We wanted to put a human face on the exciting world of renewable energy by giving the people doing path-breaking work the opportunity to tell their own stories," said Jeff Deyette, a clean energy analyst at UCS. "This feature shows that renewable energy jobs are here and now, and that this growing sector is one of the few bright spots in our economy."
The feature offers an interactive map with brief profiles of 20 Americans working in the renewable energy industry. Each profile is accompanied by a photo and audio quote. UCS will periodically add more profiles to the feature.
Among the "faces" in this first installment are Olaf Roed, president of a Florida-based company producing wood pellets for coal-powered plants, which burn them to generate electricity and cut coal pollution; Sherry Phillips, the mayor of McCamey, Texas, who has played a key role in making her city the state's "wind energy capital;" and Leon Bontrager, who started selling solar panels in Indiana 10 years ago.
UCS has been promoting a national renewable electricity standard requiring utilities around the country to generate at least 20 percent of their electricity by 2020. Such a standard would create 185,000 new green-collar jobs, slash residential and commercial electric bills, and dramatically reduce global warming pollution, according to a 2007 UCS analysis. Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia have enacted similar standards, but a federal standard would help ensure these benefits are fully realized nationwide.
(For the UCS analysis, which explains how individual states would benefit from a national standard, go to: www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/solutions/renewable_energy_solutions/cashing-in-on-clean-energy-a.html.)
"Calling for federal investment in green jobs isn't just political rhetoric," said Deyette. "Increasing our reliance on clean, homegrown sources of energy will create hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs, boost our failing economy, strengthen national security, and cut global warming pollution at the same time."
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading U.S. science-based nonprofit organization working for a healthy environment and a safer world. Founded in 1969, UCS is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also has offices in Berkeley, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
