The Green Jobs Now National Day of Action at the City University of New York

Green jobs are an easy sell.  “They’re good for the planet and good for people,” I told nearly 100 students at two CUNY campuses, Baruch College and Bronx Community College (BCC), on Thursday and Friday.  Developing a green workforce is about taking the steps we need to mitigate the effects of global warming while creating and “up-skilling” jobs that can support working and middle class families.

“People don’t have the same options these days,” I told many of the students, “My grandpa was a mechanic and he raised eight kids. They went to college. That’s not possible now.”  Teenagers and young twenty-somethings looked me right in the eye and nodded with recognition.  I found that humbling and inspiring, how readily they understood what is missing in America’s economy.

With strategic collaboration between labor, workforce and community development organizations, coupled with long-term support from local, state, and federal government, we can put hundreds of thousands of people to work in the emerging sustainable economy. Worldwide, the UN predicted that 12 millions jobs will be created by 2030.

Today, the Green Jobs Now campaign rallied 100,000 people at more than 660 events in all fifty states. If you haven’t already done so, sign the petition to law-makers to ask them to make good on the promise they made when they passed the Green Jobs Act in 2007.

If you want to learn more…

• Read about the CUNY Building Performance Lab’s Intern Energy Project, which places students on projects helping to make New York City’s existing buildings more energy-efficient and sustainable.
• Green For All has created a green jobs clearinghouse.
• Check out an earlier 2050ad.org post about green jobs in New York state, and another post on a coalition that I’m a part of that is working on policy recommendations for New York City’s next administration.

The photo mosaic at the top is of BCC students and staff (photo set here); the mosaic below is from Baruch (photo set here).