The White House welcomes back the labor and environmental movement

Every keynote speaker at the Good Jobs Green Jobs National Conference alluded to the fact that finally after eight long years, the labor and environmental movements are no longer enemies of the President.  It’s crazy to think that simply by acknowledging two of the most important political movements — movements that in every other democracy are kind of a big deal — President Obama is making great strides.

For example, this is from the Apollo Alliance’s weekly update (sign up for the updates here):

On Friday morning last week, two days after the House of Representatives passed an $819 stimulus package and sent it on to the Senate, Jerome Ringo joined a number of other national leaders at the White House for the formal announcement of the Obama administration’s Middle Class Task Force.

Like the other guests, Jerome was personally greeted by President Barack Obama. Jerome says that when he extended his hand and said, “Mr. President, I’m Jerome Ringo,” he was interrupted. “I know who you are,” said President Obama. “You’re president of the Apollo Alliance. You guys are doing great work. Keep up the great work.”

“Let me tell you,” Jerome said this week as he related the encounter, “the hair stood up on the back of my neck.”

3Qs with Myles Lennon of Urban Agenda

New York City has set ambitious plans for greenhouse gas emission reduction — 30% by 2030 (and 30% by 2017 for all city properties and the major universities).  But if all the initiatives involved in greening the city — energy auditing and retrofitting buildings, installing new lighting and heating and cooling systems, planting more trees, and upgrading public transportation, to name a few — if all those started tomorrow, there would be a crippling workforce shortage. 

Myles Lennon is working to make sure that when the city is ready to go green on a big scale, there will be a skilled and able workers to take on the challenge.  Lennon, a graduate of Brown with a background in organizing and international development, is the Senior Policy and Research Associate of Urban Agenda, an organization that applies action, research, and coalition-building to advance social, economic, and environmental justice.

“A couple years ago, it became apparent that green jobs were the jobs of the future,” Lennon said.  To that end, Urban Agenda convenes the local chapter of the Apollo Alliance, a national coalition of environmental, labor, and community activists that develop and advocate for sustainable energy policy.  And Lennon is one of the leaders of the Green Collar Jobs Roundtable, an impressive coalition that is creating a policy road map for workforce development and training in New York City.

1. What was your environmental epiphany?

I grew up in Queens right by the Long Island Expressway.  There were no trees and just a little park and two huge malls.  There was little green space and a lot of smog coming off the Expressway.  So ever since I was young, I was aware of environmental injustice.

Later, when I was working in Providence, I would pass through this bus station where there were many young people heading to and from public schools, and not a park in sight.  It was extremely dirty — I can’t even begin to describe it.  We were surrounded by buses, which are a symbol of good urban development, but they created so much smog.

For the young people of color who lived in this neighborhood, that was their environment, that was what they saw every day.  The bus ride that I took became a metaphor for the ride that so many others took from that dirty place to prison.  That’s poetic and abstract, but it was very real to me.  I saw the link of how people of color and young people are treated systemically in our society and how we treat our environment.

2. Who or what are you inspired by right now in the green movement?

I could easily name someone well-known — but my former roommate and good friend, Tom Lyons, was really critical about the way I consumed, and he inspired me early on, and continues to inspire me.

He made me conscious about the everyday things that I had never begun to think about, like the little plastic caps on cardboard orange juice containers.  I’d throw the whole thing into the recycling without making the effort to cut off the caps.  Or when I did the dishes, I’d run water and try to do it as quickly as possible, but he said, Why don’t you soap up the dishes before running the water?

The biggest thing was the temperature of our apartment.  In New York City, we don’t have control over the heat in our apartment.  The building I grew up in was terribly inefficient.  We’d have fans going and windows open in the winter because the heat was so set so high.  In fact, my parents still do.  I took the heat for granted.  When I moved to New England, I expected it to be warm inside when it was cold outside.  I hated Tom — he kept our place so cold.  He challenged the level of consumption that I was comfortable with and what I considered “normal.”  I realized that making those kinds of changes isn’t about making real sacrifices — it’s about changing what you believe is normal.

3. What are three ways you actively reduce your carbon footprint and one way you don’t?

I eat a local, vegan diet, so I’m not dependent on the inefficient dairy and meat industries.

I do not use any new plastic bags, ever — there are a few that I’ve been reusing for years now.

When I do the dishes, I soap them down first and don’t run the water while I’m washing.

And as for what I don’t do, I could make a much better effort at unplugging electronics when I’m not using them.

3Qs with Dr. Nancy Anderson of The Sallan Foundation

The Sallan Foundation, led by Dr. Nancy Anderson, is unique in the green movement.  As an operating foundation, it doesn’t give grants.  Instead, it promotes sustainable cities through education, outreach, and advocacy.  A sustainable urban environment has energy-efficient buildings, transportation, and infrastructure: in industry parlance, this concept is known as “high performance.”  The Foundation supports many events to foster the exchange of innovative ideas and best practices, and commissions research, including “Decoding the Code,” an in-depth examination of New York City’s 2007 “green” building code revisions.

Dr. Anderson, the Foundation’s founding Executive Director, has created an excellent website that is rich with topical information on emerging green issues.    She is one of the best advocates for high performance urban systems in the nation’s biggest city.  A constant presence and frequent speaker at green events, her commitment and enthusiasm is infectious. 

Her passion for the city runs deep: she was raised in Brooklyn and has lived in Manhattan ever since.  She serves on the Steering Committee of the New York City Apollo Alliance, which brings together environmental, labor, and community activists to develop and advocate for sustainable energy policy in the US, and she chairs the CUNY Building Performance Lab’s Stakeholder Consortium, a cross-sector coalition that was convened to address the sustainability of New York City’s buildings.

Before joining the Foundation, Dr. Anderson spent twenty years in New York City government, most recently as an environmental adviser to city comptrollers.  She also worked in the city’s Sanitation Department, where she worked with communities to decide on locations for waste management facilities and sewage treatment plants.  “I got the real benefit of witnessing the interface between communities and city government,” she says, “and I saw how communities and government can work together.”

1. What was your environmental epiphany?

When I first came to work in the city government at the Sanitation Department, which was part of the newly formed Environmental Protection bureau, I told all my friends, “I have this great new job!”  People would look at me funny.  “Environment?  City?  How can you put these two words together — environment in the city?”  That was a fair question.

There were two things that I realized.  First, environment is everywhere — air, water, natural resources.  And second, most people live in cities and the environmental impact of cities on the planet is big.  And it goes the other way: it is absolutely necessary for cities to have clean air and water. In New York City’s case, overwhelmingly our drinking water comes from other parts.  Also, what the city does with its waste materials is important — we send most of ours elsewhere.  That was my epiphany: that environmental protection matters for the city.  The French poet Rimbaud said, “Life is elsewhere.”  I learned the opposite.  Environmental life is right here.

2. Who or what are you inspired by right now in the green movement?

I’m inspired by governmental scientists like Jim Hanson, who has taken what he has learned as a scientist and stepped out of his role as a government bureaucrat in a bureaucracy that has been very hostile and has become a global source of information and encouragement to do the right thing.  And he has done so facing real potential negative risks for himself and career.  It think that is admirable and very brave.

I’m also inspired by [New York] Mayor Bloomberg.  He didn’t come in as an environmental champion.  He got it on the job.   He was willing and has been able to mobilize resources to say, “I got it now and I’m going to do something about it.”

3. What are three ways you actively reduce your carbon footprint and one way you don’t?

I don’t own a car and I wouldn’t buy a car.

I don’t use air conditioning at home unless it gets above 90 degrees, and then I give up and turn it on.

I love to travel and when I travel to faraway places, I take a plane, and I know that adds to my footprint.  But on the good side, if my destination is less than 500 miles from home then I use alternative transportation — I usually take the train.

To learn more about some of the things Dr. Anderson spoke about, check out:

• My post about “Trashin’ the Big Apple,” a short documentary that looks at the life cycle of waste in New York City.
• Dr. James Hansen, the climate scientist and head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia professor, who was censored by NASA.
• Mayor Bloomberg’s policy road map for New York’s sustainable future, PlaNYC 2030.

Apollo and Upward

“Al Franken is fighting for green jobs in his home state of Minnesota. He’s proposing a national ‘Apollo project’ to fuel the development of new technologies in clean and renewable energy.”

— Al Gore in an email to MoveOn supporters.

This morning, I attended the second general meeting of a large-scale collaborative process to create a “road map” for policy recommendations on green-collar jobs in New York City.  The process was initiated in June by Urban Agenda, a workers’ advocacy organization that is spearheading the NYC Apollo Alliance.

I read the MoveOn email when I was at the meeting (bad habit!), and I was excited by the serendibity of the moment.  (I should note that I find any news about Franken interesting because I remain a registered Minnesota voter.)  I thought that Franken was proposing to team up with the national Apollo Alliance, “a coalition of business, labor, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution in America to reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, cut the carbon emissions that are destabilizing our climate, and expand opportunities for American businesses and workers.”

Then I looked at Franken’s website.  No mention of the Apollo Alliance, though I did learn that both the candidate and the organization were inspired by the Apollo space program.

Whether or not the twin name was intentional, Franken’s proposed project lines up pretty neatly with the goals of the Alliance.  What he’s missing, though, is any mention of green-collar jobs (“high-tech, high-paying jobs” are not pathways out of poverty).  From his website:

This “Apollo project” should provide financial support for research into new forms of renewable energy and development of currently-identified sources to make them more efficient. Of course I’m talking about corn ethanol. But I’m also talking about cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels. I’m talking about solar power. And, especially here in Minnesota, I’m talking about wind power. We live in a windy state!

It’s going to be a huge project, but it will pay off in so many ways:

• We’ll dramatically improve our environment.
• We’ll finally be taking steps to address global warming.
• We’ll make our nation more secure and less dependent on an uncertain global fuel economy.
• We’ll revitalize our manufacturing sector. The Ford plant in St. Paul that’s closing down should be making wind turbines, and we should be putting them up all over Minnesota.
• We’ll create high-tech, high-paying jobs in conservation and R&D.