Over the past year, both labor and environmental protections have undergone an assault, seemingly from all angles. What were once occasional rhetorical attacks from a few have now become an onslaught of attempts to weaken any and all protections for working Americans and protections for the environment.
Now more than ever, we must stand together against these attacks, because fighting for clean air and clean water creates jobs and improves working conditions, and fighting for good-paying, American jobs works for the environment. This Labor Day is a good reminder of that.
More than just a long holiday weekend and the unofficial end of summer, Labor Day is dedicated to recognizing the social and economic achievements of American workers: stronger occupational safety standards, health insurance for workers, paid vacation and sick days, collective bargaining rights and more. It's not only union members who have achieved these benefits for themselves; they've achieved them for a significant proportion of the working population regardless of union affiliation. Combining efforts of a broad coalition to achieve these goals brings them closer to reality.
Environmentalists are an important and necessary voice in the labor movement for many reasons. For example, decreasing our dependence on foreign oil by diversifying our domestic energy supply with renewable wind energy has over the years contributed to a surge in manufacturing and wind turbine construction, and creating good, union jobs. Raising fuel efficiency in vehicles to the highest levels in a generation is likewise reducing our dependence on foreign oil, at the same time raising production at facilities like that of the GM Lordstown Assembly Plant in Ohio.
Outside of cleaner energy or the auto sector, regulating and making dangerous chemicals safer and greener will spur innovation and revitalize the U.S. chemicals industry and streamlining the use of limited resources such as water is employing more people than ever.
There are innumerable benefits to a greener labor movement. No doubt that also the debates ahead demand both voices engage in these tough discussions.
The looming challenges ahead include improving transportation efficiency and accessibility, expanding sources of renewable energy, engaging in the national discussion about the impacts of climate change, and working to make our economy more efficient and competitive. Additionally, ongoing attacks against labor unions and environmental standards -- including attempts to weaken clean air and clean water standards -- pose a threat to all that we've achieved. They would be setbacks that threaten public health and safety, unnecessarily.
Despite the obstacles of these challenges, we continue to fight for a higher standard of living, higher environmental standards, more fair wages and better working conditions because there is no other way. There's no going back, only forward, together.
Follow David Foster on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bgalliance
Jeremy Hays: Want Jobs? Fix America's Water Crisis
Douglas LaBier: Green Leadership -- Learning It and Doing It
Jeannie E. Javelosa: Global Summit of Women
Don Tapscott: The Seven Imperatives for Highly Successful Business Revolutionaries
until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989.
The withdrawal of Soviet aid meant that 1,300,000 tons of chemical fertilizers,
17,000 tons of herbicides, and 10,000 tons of pesticides, could no longer be
imported, according to the report.
One of Cuba's responses to the shock was to develop "urban agriculture,"
intensifying the previously established National Food Program, which aimed
at taking thousands of poorly utilized areas, mainly around Havana, and turning
them into intensive vegetable gardens. Planting in the city instead of only in the
countryside reduced the need for transportation, refrigeration, and other scarce
resources.
The plan succeeded beyond anyone's dreams. By 1998 there were over 8000
urban farms and community gardens run by over 30,000 people in and around
Havana.
Urban agriculture is now a "major element of the Havana cityscape," the Food
country,
with production growing at 250-350% per year. Today, food from the urban
farms is grown almost entirely with active organic methods, the report says.
Havana has outlawed the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture within city
limits.
Martin Bourque, Food First's program director for sustainable agriculture, said
the goal of the National Urban Agriculture program is to produce enough fresh
fruits and vegetables for everyone, and that some cities have surpassed this. He
added that farmers are some of the best-paid people in Cuba, and "organic foods
are for all Cubans, not just for the rich."
http://www.organicconsumers.org/Organic/cubagarden.cfm
Green makes sense if ... it makes sense. It does not make sense to distort a market to produce wind or solar etc when it is uneconomic.
Since reunifcation in 1992,Germany has cut its consumption by 50% with energy efficiency and renewable energy measures. Per capita fossil fuel consumption is less than 50% of the U.S. now.
The Munich region is already down to only 30% per capita fossil fuel consumplion of any comparable U.S. region. Order books are full for fuel saving tech or upgrades, and unemployment is down to about 2.5 % expected for this year. That is the payoff of the tie up between sustainability and labour. Jobs! Jobs in the clean tech- green sector!
The savings not only amortize the investments, they leave more margin for reinvesting in more fossil fuel energy consumption and cost technologies. There is a huge global demand for energy saving tech. For example, a 20 billion order for veryenergy efficient Airbus planes by American Airlines, or massive orders for the comparatively energy efficient- common rail diesel engined- Leopard II main battle tanks (another 16 billion.)
it is the sustainability sector-- broadly defined as a wide synergy of energy saving and renewable energy technologies- now at 12% of the G.D.P. pulling ahead of the automtoive industry and which is expected to be 20% of the German G.D.P,. and exports by 2020.
Building insulation systems, building power management systems, automotive and aerospace eficency systems, heat-hot wate - air conditioning building energy management systems, efficient production line drive systems with power management ystems (50% more energy efficient, Combined Heat Power- long distance heat systems, sewage methane recapture-urban waste incineration (withlong distance heat) combined cycle GaS gas and steam systems. Solar heat, concentrated solar, solar p.v., wind systems, hydro electric upgrades, in building CHP systems replacing heating oil units...Build out of high sped rail, upgrading urban transit (subways, light rail with brake energy recycling, common rail diesel electric-hybrid busses, converting nuclear to deep geothermal p.g. with added Stirling motor p.g. and hook up to long distance heat-hot water grid. build out of agrarian septic tank -manure methane recapture power generation. The list can go on and on. Sustainability. urban sustainability systems. Agrarian region sustainability design.
Oe point to come.
After constructing a large rainwater collection system at his new dealership to use for washing new cars, Miller found out that the project was actually an "unlawful diversion of rainwater." Even though it makes logical conservation sense to collect rainwater for this type of use since rain is scarce in Utah, it's still considered a violation of water rights which apparently belong exclusively to Utah's various government bodies.
"Utah's the second driest state in the nation. Our laws probably ought to catch up with that," explained Miller in response to the state's ridiculous rainwater collection ban.
Salt Lake City officials worked out a compromise with Miller and are now permitting him to use "their" rainwater, but the fact that individuals like Miller don't actually own the rainwater that falls on their property is a true indicator of what little freedom we actually have here in the U.S. (Access to the rainwater that falls on your own property seems to be a basic right, wouldn't you agree?)
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/029286_rainwater_collection_water.html#ixzz25Eug3gsC
But these days, Jackson County, Oregon says it owns YOUR rainwater, and the county has sentenced a man to 30 days in jail and fined him over $1500, for the supposed "crime" of collecting rainwater on his own property.
The man's name is Gary Harrington, and he owns over 170 acres of land in Jackson County. On that land, he has three ponds, and those ponds collect rainwater that falls on his land. Common sense would say Gary has every right to have ponds with water on his 170 acres of land, but common sense has been all but abandoned in the state of Oregon.
Much like California, Oregon is increasingly becoming a collectivist state. You didn't build that! The government built that! You don't own that! The government owns that! That rainwater that just fell on your land? That's the government's rainwater, and you're going to jail if you try to steal from the government!
That's the explanation from Jackson County officials, who initially granted Harrington "permits" to build ponds back in 2003. Yes, in Oregon you actually need to beg for permission from the government just to have a pond on your own land. But the state of Oregon revoked his permits a few years created the ponds, thus putting Harrington in the position of being a "water criminal"
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/036615_Oregon_rainwater_permaculture.html#ixzz25GPcEugZ
It is vitally important to distinguish between jobs that are a net loss on investment and jobs that give a net return on investment. When we reduce energy consumption by increasing efficiency, we may realize a net gain even after accounting for what the jobs actually cost in terms of resources removed from the productive private sector. That is an INVESTMENT - it gives us net gains. We should be investing billions on better energy infrastructure, but doing so wisely and selectively.
But at some point it becomes all too easy to create jobs, usually on a political or ideological basis, that are a net loss to the overall economic gains of the economy after unseen costs are factored in. That is pure SPENDING - it gives us net losses. We really can't afford more net losses at this time.
Consider the following brand names-
Daimler Group: Mercedes Benz, Smart, Mercedes trucks and Busses, (and White trucks- Ul'S.) Neoplan busses (airport busses)
BMW- Group- B.M.W. - (mini-Cooper, Land Rover- Rolls-Royce- England)
(The big one) VW-Porsche-Group- VW- Porsche- Audi - M.A.N. (trucks and busses-Germany) -SEAT (spain) SKODA (Czcech Republic- Slovakia etc) Scania- (trucks and busses - Sweden and Netherlands) Bentley,(Great Britain) - Lamborghini- (Italy) Bugatti- (France) (Just behind Toyota - Nr. 2 biggest car maker in the world.)
Ford Germany
GM Germay OPEL - which developed the technology that went into the Chevy volt.
plus all the suppliers.
It was the biggest sector in the booming German industrial economy. But there is something bigger now, creating jobs, and lowerig unemployment rates. (cont´d)