US green economy’s growth dwarfs the fossil fuel industry’s

Renewables, environmental, and efficiency industries grew 3x faster than fossil fuels.

Read the whole story

 

[Adam Starkey]

The correct way to view it that it costs nearly ten times as much manpower to generate our clean energy as our traditional energy requires.

That's not a meaningful metric. In nations with significant on-hand workers willing to work for marginal pay, it's probably cheaper to use people than robots. In developed nations where labor costs are high, it's typically going to be cheaper to use machines. Same job. Same machines. You can't just apply a number-of-man-hours as an axis on an efficiency chart. Either the product can be produced for less than a sane market value, or it can't. From a strict economics POV, the 'how' is irrelevant[1].

[1] Obviously not from a social POV, but in this case the facts actually seem to be rather favorable.

 

[albert911emt]

The democrats really are onto something here, and republicans are being left behind. The "Green New Deal" is looking more like a winner by the day.

 

[theSeb]

Misleading article starts with a misleading title.

US green economy’s growth dwarfs the fossil fuel industry’s

Sounds a lot more impressive than

US green economy’s growth rate dwarfs the fossil fuel industry’s

The overall growth was miniscule by comparison.

Besides overtly leaving out the numbers for overall growth in the Fossil Fuel industry, while including it for "green energy."

Things like

Our analysis also suggests that in the US, nearly ten times more people were employed in the green economy and its supply chains (9.5 million) than employed directly in the fossil fuel industry (roughly 1 million)

are overtly manipulative.

I mean, really? "Green economy and its" entire "supply chain" employs more people than are employed directly in the fossil fuel industry. You don't say? One industry has less direct employees than the entire supply chain for a different, but related industry?

A post by notyourusername has your concerns covered just above....

“ Is it just me, or is the article comparing apples and oranges here? I think a more oranges-to-oranges comparison would be to compare Renewable Energy and Fossil. According to this graph from the original article, the Renewable Energy sector makes for 308.77B USD and 2.9 million jobs, which is still more than fossil.”

 

[JustJohn777]

Our analysis also suggests that in the US, nearly ten times more people were employed in the green economy and its supply chains (9.5 million) than employed directly in the fossil fuel industry (roughly 1 million)

And I bet there's 10x the owners in the companies too, distributing the wealth a bit more. Which is why they're so against it.

I’m in favor of clean energy, but all this language is misleading.

The correct way to view it that it costs nearly ten times as much manpower to generate our clean energy as our traditional energy requires.

This language of referring to the $1.3 trillion as a benefit and not a cost is straight out of pork barrel politics. “My projects (diversions of resources) generated thousands of jobs (unnecessary politically appointed work)”

We need clean energy, but let’s not fool ourselves about the costs by using misleading language. The costs are worth because they slow glisbal warming and provide a clean environment.

Why does it cost 10 times more? Citation please.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/

80% of US energy is generated by fossil fuels (petroleum, natural gas, and coal).
Of the 11% generated by renewable energy, 23% of that is hydro power (not exactly a growth industry there).

Seems like it takes a LOT more workers to generate that 11% than it does to generate the 80%.
More jobs isn't necessarily a bad thing, in fact it is even good as long as they aren't subsidized by the taxpayer (like both fossil fuel and renewable energy).

Apparently you have to be of a certain age in order to truly appreciate the impact that various environmental regulations have made to our quality of life. A trip in 1998 to the former soviet union made it very clear to me, breathing the air near a main road gave me a deja vue experience, this is what the USA smelled like in the 1960s and 1970s. It made an impression on me, since the introduction of catalytic converters made the changes in the USA slow, and hard to notice.

That said, renewable energy sources are also limited in their impact and application due to problems with storing the energy for use WHEN it is needed. Solar power is cost effective currently due to government investment in the past. The problem is, it doesn't work at night. Before investing trillions of dollars in what is currently 11% of our energy supply, we might want to invest in technologies that allow us to use that energy when we need it. We need realistic investment, not knee jerk "it's green, must be good".

This entire discussion boils down to "lets use statistics to bash Trump". Guess what, some of know all about statistics (lies, damn lies, and statistics). Some of us would rather invest wisely, and not use politics as a deciding factor.

 

[theSeb]

And so they come crawling out of the woodwork

 

[Wickwick]

Disenfranchised steel or coal worker doesn't want to learn to code. That's for them odd folks in California. He wants to do what he used to do and feel proud about continuing to do so.

That's not entirely fair. That disenfranchised steel or coal worker might be smart enough to know that a 40yo with a two year 'certificate' behind them is not going to land a job in Software Engineering, and even if it could, they'd likely need to uproot their entire family, and get crushed on property value differentials.

We seem to be veering off topic. The post wick wick quoted mentioned that it would make far more sense for “coal workers” to be retrained in green energy stuff. I think we can all agree to that, apart from wickwick who appears to have not fully read the post he quoted.

No, I did but perhaps I didn't frame my reaction properly. Trump is banking on the dissatisfaction that former coal workers have in being told to "retrain" for a new job. Rather than push sound economic policy, Trump pushes the narrative that ingratiates him to target constituencies. Nobody likes to hear that the career they've spent their life doing is obsolete. Instead, Trump offers the promise that they can go right back to that same life.

 

[science is good]

In the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics stopped measuring jobs in the green economy in March 2013 due to budget cuts.

Well, that's very convenient. A Republican congress refused to allocate a relatively minor amount of money to enable BLS to track green jobs. . . just as the green economy started really growing. I'm sure it's totally coincidence. Also, totally driven by budgetary concerns. I'm sure that part of the BLS budget was definitely bankrupting the country and fleecing the taxpayer.

Fact check: Congress was spit in 2013 (2011 - 2015). The Democrats held the Senate and the Republicans held the House. Both the House and the Senate had to approve the budgets.

 

[mhalpern]

so in other words going green makes green...

 

[theSeb]

Disenfranchised steel or coal worker doesn't want to learn to code. That's for them odd folks in California. He wants to do what he used to do and feel proud about continuing to do so.

That's not entirely fair. That disenfranchised steel or coal worker might be smart enough to know that a 40yo with a two year 'certificate' behind them is not going to land a job in Software Engineering, and even if it could, they'd likely need to uproot their entire family, and get crushed on property value differentials.

We seem to be veering off topic. The post wick wick quoted mentioned that it would make far more sense for “coal workers” to be retrained in green energy stuff. I think we can all agree to that, apart from wickwick who appears to have not fully read the post he quoted.

No, I did but perhaps I didn't frame my reaction properly. Trump is banking on the dissatisfaction that former coal workers have in being told to "retrain" for a new job. Rather than push sound economic policy, Trump pushes the narrative that ingratiates him to target constituencies. Nobody likes to hear that the career they've spent their life doing is obsolete. Instead, Trump offers the promise that they can go right back to that same life.

Ahh, fair enough. But would you not agree that being retrained in jobs that they are more used to makes more sense than telling them to learn to write software? Also, i am not sure if people realise but coal mining is not going into a shaft with a pick axe these days.

 

[Reaperman2]

Our analysis also suggests that in the US, nearly ten times more people were employed in the green economy and its supply chains (9.5 million) than employed directly in the fossil fuel industry (roughly 1 million)

And I bet there's 10x the owners in the companies too, distributing the wealth a bit more. Which is why they're so against it.

I’m in favor of clean energy, but all this language is misleading.

The correct way to view it that it costs nearly ten times as much manpower to generate our clean energy as our traditional energy requires.

This language of referring to the $1.3 trillion as a benefit and not a cost is straight out of pork barrel politics. “My projects (diversions of resources) generated thousands of jobs (unnecessary politically appointed work)”

We need clean energy, but let’s not fool ourselves about the costs by using misleading language. The costs are worth because they slow glisbal warming and provide a clean environment.

Why does it cost 10 times more? Citation please.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/

80% of US energy is generated by fossil fuels (petroleum, natural gas, and coal).
Of the 11% generated by renewable energy, 23% of that is hydro power (not exactly a growth industry there).

Seems like it takes a LOT more workers to generate that 11% than it does to generate the 80%.

Yes, putting new infrastructure in place takes more workers and money than running & maintaining existing infrastructure. Brilliant deduction. That doesn't mean it takes more "to generate."

This really isn't rocket science. Building a new car -- or literally anything else -- from the ground up also takes more money and workers than simply re-using an old model.

That's why many of the numbers in the article, as others have pointed out, are comparing apples to bananas.

 

[science is good]

A few graphs from the original article which weren't included here (presumably for license reasons):

(Hotlinking is legal, at least under EU law)

The big question is what is included in those categories.

 

[Lexomatic]

In the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics stopped measuring jobs in the green economy in March 2013 due to budget cuts.

Well, that's very convenient. A Republican congress refused to allocate a relatively minor amount of money to enable BLS to track green jobs. . . just as the green economy started really growing. I'm sure it's totally coincidence.

Actually, it was a casualty of "sequestration", the across-the-board federal budget cuts (a consequence of the 2011 debt-ceiling crisis). It was one of several casualties at BLS, as detailed here; also at the BEA and more generally.

There's certainly an impulse among some lawmakers to reduce the federal government's statistical programs, as noted in this opinion piece, but it's not limited to those that measure the "green" economy.

 

[scenario_dave]

Fun fact: The number of coal miners in the US is miniscule. 50,000.

But the number of people whose family were coal miners and developed their whole identity around being coal miners is much, much larger.

 

[Reaperman2]

Disenfranchised steel or coal worker doesn't want to learn to code. That's for them odd folks in California. He wants to do what he used to do and feel proud about continuing to do so.

That's not entirely fair. That disenfranchised steel or coal worker might be smart enough to know that a 40yo with a two year 'certificate' behind them is not going to land a job in Software Engineering, and even if it could, they'd likely need to uproot their entire family, and get crushed on property value differentials.

We seem to be veering off topic. The post wick wick quoted mentioned that it would make far more sense for “coal workers” to be retrained in green energy stuff. I think we can all agree to that, apart from wickwick who appears to have not fully read the post he quoted.

No, I did but perhaps I didn't frame my reaction properly. Trump is banking on the dissatisfaction that former coal workers have in being told to "retrain" for a new job. Rather than push sound economic policy, Trump pushes the narrative that ingratiates him to target constituencies. Nobody likes to hear that the career they've spent their life doing is obsolete. Instead, Trump offers the promise that they can go right back to that same life.

Ahh, fair enough. But would you not agree that being retrained in jobs that they are more used to makes more sense than telling them to learn to write software? Also, i am not sure if people realise but coal mining is not going into a shaft with a pick axe these days.

I live in a state (Nevada) that's littered with the remains of towns that used to be thriving mining towns and are now just shells of old buildings. I myself grew up in coal country, and left my dirt-poor family behind 30 years ago to build a life elsewhere. Meanwhile my family that remains *still* complains about how they're not getting enough government help. The coal mining towns are never going to be anything but welfare magnets.

An honest politician would tell these people the truth: Their towns are dead, and they need to GTFO if they ever want to be happy. This is how it's always been; it's how it will always be.

 

[Wickwick]

Disenfranchised steel or coal worker doesn't want to learn to code. That's for them odd folks in California. He wants to do what he used to do and feel proud about continuing to do so.

That's not entirely fair. That disenfranchised steel or coal worker might be smart enough to know that a 40yo with a two year 'certificate' behind them is not going to land a job in Software Engineering, and even if it could, they'd likely need to uproot their entire family, and get crushed on property value differentials.

We seem to be veering off topic. The post wick wick quoted mentioned that it would make far more sense for “coal workers” to be retrained in green energy stuff. I think we can all agree to that, apart from wickwick who appears to have not fully read the post he quoted.

No, I did but perhaps I didn't frame my reaction properly. Trump is banking on the dissatisfaction that former coal workers have in being told to "retrain" for a new job. Rather than push sound economic policy, Trump pushes the narrative that ingratiates him to target constituencies. Nobody likes to hear that the career they've spent their life doing is obsolete. Instead, Trump offers the promise that they can go right back to that same life.

Ahh, fair enough. But would you not agree that being retrained in jobs that they are more used to makes more sense than telling them to learn to write software? Also, i am not sure if people realise but coal mining is not going into a shaft with a pick axe these days.

I agree and said as much. I said retraining makes more economic sense, but the political reality is that it's advantageous to play on fears rather than push retraining. It's not directly the coal miners that are being targeted with that mindset. A large swath of the Midwest and Northeast, predominantly white men that felt disenfranchised with the direction our economy has gone in the past 30 years were being targeted with the pledge to support coal. That one industry was symbolic of the "honest days' work" mentality for auto, steel, coal, and other industrial workers. A group that feels they have not benefited from the transition of the US economy to primarily service-based.

 

[traumadog]

Courting "green power" doesn't endear Trump to disenfranchised middle-class white men in rust belt and coal-producing states. Higher growth in renewables is of no political advantage for him.

Which is a shame because many rural "Red States" could actually benefit from this. Heck, Texas is a leading wind producer, and you can't get anywhere in Iowa without seeing a windmill either.

Pitch power generation as a financial backstop to farmers, and it's a winner.

 

[IntellectualThug]

Disenfranchised steel or coal worker doesn't want to learn to code. That's for them odd folks in California. He wants to do what he used to do and feel proud about continuing to do so.

That's not entirely fair. That disenfranchised steel or coal worker might be smart enough to know that a 40yo with a two year 'certificate' behind them is not going to land a job in Software Engineering, and even if it could, they'd likely need to uproot their entire family, and get crushed on property value differentials.

We seem to be veering off topic. The post wick wick quoted mentioned that it would make far more sense for “coal workers” to be retrained in green energy stuff. I think we can all agree to that, apart from wickwick who appears to have not fully read the post he quoted.

No, I did but perhaps I didn't frame my reaction properly. Trump is banking on the dissatisfaction that former coal workers have in being told to "retrain" for a new job. Rather than push sound economic policy, Trump pushes the narrative that ingratiates him to target constituencies. Nobody likes to hear that the career they've spent their life doing is obsolete. Instead, Trump offers the promise that they can go right back to that same life.

Ahh, fair enough. But would you not agree that being retrained in jobs that they are more used to makes more sense than telling them to learn to write software? Also, i am not sure if people realise but coal mining is not going into a shaft with a pick axe these days.

I live in a state (Nevada) that's littered with the remains of towns that used to be thriving mining towns and are now just shells of old buildings. I myself grew up in coal country, and left my dirt-poor family behind 30 years ago to build a life elsewhere. Meanwhile my family that remains *still* complains about how they're not getting enough government help. The coal mining towns are never going to be anything but welfare magnets.

An honest politician would tell these people the truth: Their towns are dead, and they need to GTFO if they ever want to be happy. This is how it's always been; it's how it will always be.

Seems like those remote towns would be good places to develop wind power, to me.

 

[science is good]

Courting "green power" doesn't endear Trump to disenfranchised middle-class white men in rust belt and coal-producing states. Higher growth in renewables is of no political advantage for him.

But it should. Unlike "teaching coal miners to code" retraining those disenfranchised blue-collar workers for jobs in the green energy industry would be more viable due to; greater availability of jobs in this sector across the nation (everyone needs electricity whereas tech hubs tend to be in coastal blue states), skills are more translatable/equivalent than coding, (you're already working with your hands), not to mention, being energy independent is good for national security. Also, as mentioned in the article, it's great for the economy, along with the world at large.

That being said, I do realize that the reason many of these environmental initiatives were rolled back is due to lobbying money. Also not naive enough that the current administration would do an about-face regarding green policy v fossil fuel policy.

The above if the messaging future candidates of both parties should adopt. This is why the green-new-deal is so appealing. Democrats are finally tweaking their marketing in the right direction, although they do have some more work to do to appeal to a wider base of swing voters.

Disenfranchised steel or coal worker doesn't want to learn to code. That's for them odd folks in California. He wants to do what he used to do and feel proud about continuing to do so.

Functionally, yes it would be a better investment to provide retraining. But that doesn't get you electoral college votes.

This isn't unique to steel and coal work. People in general have a hard time adjusting to different jobs, especially when those jobs require a completely different skill set. Teaching a coal worker to be a programmer would be about as successful as teaching a programer to be a coal worker.

 

[GlockenspielHero]

This highlights what I really don't understand about green energy resistance. We're going to undergo a large scale transition in power sources/storage over the next 50 years- pretty much anyone who studies this in depth realizes that. This process is going to make a lot of people very, very rich simply due to the size of the market and the sheer amount of stuff that will be built.

The people in America today who are very, very rich based on fossil fuels could be the group that's just as rich in 50 years if they are smart. Or they could cry and kick their feet, try to delay as long as possible and end up watching other people get very, very rich.

 

[mhalpern]

Courting "green power" doesn't endear Trump to disenfranchised middle-class white men in rust belt and coal-producing states. Higher growth in renewables is of no political advantage for him.

But it should. Unlike "teaching coal miners to code" retraining those disenfranchised blue-collar workers for jobs in the green energy industry would be more viable due to; greater availability of jobs in this sector across the nation (everyone needs electricity whereas tech hubs tend to be in coastal blue states), skills are more translatable/equivalent than coding, (you're already working with your hands), not to mention, being energy independent is good for national security. Also, as mentioned in the article, it's great for the economy, along with the world at large.

That being said, I do realize that the reason many of these environmental initiatives were rolled back is due to lobbying money. Also not naive enough that the current administration would do an about-face regarding green policy v fossil fuel policy.

The above if the messaging future candidates of both parties should adopt. This is why the green-new-deal is so appealing. Democrats are finally tweaking their marketing in the right direction, although they do have some more work to do to appeal to a wider base of swing voters.

Disenfranchised steel or coal worker doesn't want to learn to code. That's for them odd folks in California. He wants to do what he used to do and feel proud about continuing to do so.

Functionally, yes it would be a better investment to provide retraining. But that doesn't get you electoral college votes.

This isn't unique to steel and coal work. People in general have a hard time adjusting to different jobs, especially when those jobs require a completely different skill set. Teaching a coal worker to be a programmer would be about as successful as teaching a programer to be a coal worker.

there's factory work and jobs related to installing and maintaining renewable power plants, manual labor jobs to other manual labor jobs.

 

[Renzatic]

The people in America today who are very, very rich based on fossil fuels could be the group that's just as rich in 50 years if they are smart. Or they could cry and kick their feet, try to delay as long as possible and end up watching other people get very, very rich.

It seems like so much unnecessary effort when all you have to do is buy some legislators. Why think about tomorrow when you're rich now?

 

[IntellectualThug]

This highlights what I really don't understand about green energy resistance. We're going to undergo a large scale transition in power sources/storage over the next 50 years- pretty much anyone who studies this in depth realizes that. This process is going to make a lot of people very, very rich simply due to the size of the market and the sheer amount of stuff that will be built.

The people in America today who are very, very rich based on fossil fuels could be the group that's just as rich in 50 years if they are smart. Or they could cry and kick their feet, try to delay as long as possible and end up watching other people get very, very rich.

Being rich doesn't make you immune to myopic stupidity in the face of the inevitable.

 

[mhalpern]

This highlights what I really don't understand about green energy resistance. We're going to undergo a large scale transition in power sources/storage over the next 50 years- pretty much anyone who studies this in depth realizes that. This process is going to make a lot of people very, very rich simply due to the size of the market and the sheer amount of stuff that will be built.

The people in America today who are very, very rich based on fossil fuels could be the group that's just as rich in 50 years if they are smart. Or they could cry and kick their feet, try to delay as long as possible and end up watching other people get very, very rich.

They can and probably will be, at least a good portion of them, but they want to make money off of their soon to be stranded assets for as long as possible, so they have more money to invest in later generation, more cost effective renewables when the time comes.

 

[Renzatic]

The fact remains, it takes a LOT more man hours for the green energy, correct? Or perhaps you dispute that fact? Please show where it takes less man hours (your original show me the numbers knee jerk reaction).

Are you basing your man hours estimate solely upon how often the machinery has to be maintained and replaced?

 

[kaleberg]

Good. As quiet as it seems, keep leading by example, America.

As for the climate change naysayers and the fossil fuel supporters, I wonder if part of the problem is this romanticized vision they have of salt-of-the-earth people heading down into the depths of the mines with strong workers at their backs, hewing the source of wealth and energy from the very bones of the earth. Or maybe the lone rigger on horseback in the American deserts, chewing thoughtfully on that stem of wheat and gazing at the drill whirling endlessly in the light of the setting sun, before heading home to a quiet life of satisfaction in the lives they help to make all the better?

If so, we should start something similar for renewable energy....hard-faced, competent, solve-any-problem wind farmers chivvying the windmills across the endless prairies or hardworking, solid folk harvesting the sunlight to power Jimmy and JuQu's long-distance relationship across the nation? Maybe that might help?

Ah, the romance of District 12. Hunger Games touched a reactionary nerve in all of us. (I mean, what's with the nuclear powered coal mines and reaping wheat with a sickle after dark with night vision goggles?)

 

[JustVisitingThisPlanet]

Hmm, a bit disconcerting. I thought coal production cost was increasing and not worth it anymore...

 

[wagnerrp]

I’m in favor of clean energy, but all this language is misleading.

The correct way to view it that it costs nearly ten times as much manpower to generate our clean energy as our traditional energy requires.

The correct way to look at it is it costs nearly ten times as much manpower to build out new infrastructure as it does to maintain existing. We're building new wind and solar installations. We're not building new coal plants. These are manufacturing and construction jobs, not operations jobs.

 

[mhalpern]

Hmm, a bit disconcerting. I thought coal production cost was increasing and not worth it anymore...

China's energy demands in the last decade have spiked, coal was easiest to up scale to meet immediate needs, in the last couple renewables have started to overtake

 

[Fancy Internet Person]

A growing sector, especially a capital-intensive one, will employ more people than a shrinking sector.

Wind power production has roughly tripled in 10 years. PV solar has grown more rapidly.

The people working in the sector are mostly building and installing new capacity, not operating facilities.

If wind power and solar power were not growing and deploying new capacity, they wouldn't employ so many people.

That's why coal employs few people. It isn't worth it to build coal plants.

For all the concern trolls about employment numbers, two replies.

1) Employing people is good. The labor market is relatively tight, and indicators are that these jobs offer competitive pay.

2) The first relevant efficiency number is always LCOE. You can combine other data with LCOE if you want, but if you're not starting with LCOE when talking about efficiency, you're lying.

 

[Apotheoun]

Disenfranchised steel or coal worker doesn't want to learn to code. That's for them odd folks in California. He wants to do what he used to do and feel proud about continuing to do so.

That's not entirely fair. That disenfranchised steel or coal worker might be smart enough to know that a 40yo with a two year 'certificate' behind them is not going to land a job in Software Engineering, and even if it could, they'd likely need to uproot their entire family, and get crushed on property value differentials.

We seem to be veering off topic. The post wick wick quoted mentioned that it would make far more sense for “coal workers” to be retrained in green energy stuff. I think we can all agree to that, apart from wickwick who appears to have not fully read the post he quoted.

No, I did but perhaps I didn't frame my reaction properly. Trump is banking on the dissatisfaction that former coal workers have in being told to "retrain" for a new job. Rather than push sound economic policy, Trump pushes the narrative that ingratiates him to target constituencies. Nobody likes to hear that the career they've spent their life doing is obsolete. Instead, Trump offers the promise that they can go right back to that same life.

Ahh, fair enough. But would you not agree that being retrained in jobs that they are more used to makes more sense than telling them to learn to write software? Also, i am not sure if people realise but coal mining is not going into a shaft with a pick axe these days.

I live in a state (Nevada) that's littered with the remains of towns that used to be thriving mining towns and are now just shells of old buildings. I myself grew up in coal country, and left my dirt-poor family behind 30 years ago to build a life elsewhere. Meanwhile my family that remains *still* complains about how they're not getting enough government help. The coal mining towns are never going to be anything but welfare magnets.

An honest politician would tell these people the truth: Their towns are dead, and they need to GTFO if they ever want to be happy. This is how it's always been; it's how it will always be.

Very similar here, UT/CO border area.

Unfortunately, getting people to uproot their families and move is extremely difficult. Especially in lesser educated/manual labor fields. Living paycheck to paycheck, advancing your career and income in a field with few transferable skills, constantly worrying about whether or not you'll have a job tomorrow, and working yourself to exhaustion every day are prime conditions for staying stuck where you are.

Not to mention the cost of relocating an entire family. I like to move around a lot for the sake of advancing my career, and I'm pretty sure that I've solo financed the local UHaul branches by myself. Having to set aside 5-6k for a move isn't out of the ordinary for my family of 4 (Moving costs, Deposit+First+Last month rent, moving supplies, etc), but is probably literally impossible for lots of families.

My current position is in a fracking town, and when that eventually goes the way of coal, basically everyone I know will be unemployed, and I'm pretty sure a good number of them won't be able to handle it. I'll be fine since I'm in IT and can go anywhere, some of the management types and engineers will be fine, but most of them will have their entire resumes nullified overnight. Even ye olde Walmart worker will have to look into relocating, since there will no longer be an economy to support retail purchases.

I mean, I'm not here to support the continuation of fields that we know should be phased out, but it's a hard pill to swallow when the human cost is so high to people you know and love. Moving away from fossil fuels is the right thing to do, but it's gonna hurt some people a lot more than others.

 

[wagnerrp]

As someone else said a 2-year cert is enough to land you a job as a glorified bug tester or call center drone for $13 an hour. That's a far cry from the wages of a union mining or millwright job.

Not a whole lot of work for mining, outside of mining, but a competent millwright can find work anywhere.

 

[Jeff S]

In the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics stopped measuring jobs in the green economy in March 2013 due to budget cuts.

Well, that's very convenient. A Republican congress refused to allocate a relatively minor amount of money to enable BLS to track green jobs. . . just as the green economy started really growing. I'm sure it's totally coincidence. Also, totally driven by budgetary concerns. I'm sure that part of the BLS budget was definitely bankrupting the country and fleecing the taxpayer.

And a Democratic Congress has had 6 years to fix it...

That statement is completely wrong. Democrats haven't had a majority in both houses of Congress simultaneously since 2011. They didn't have a majority in the House (where spending bills originate), from 2011 until 2019.

Would you like to revise your statement?

 

[giddy-idiot]

Fossil fuel industry announces plan to increase growth with introduction of gasoline powered cell phones. Laptops and other devices to follow.

 

[Deleted member 553147]

China, for example, has emerged as a global climate leader in the wake of Trump’s determination to pull out of the Paris Agreement.

Some leader! China's actions speak louder than words. They are literally blowing smoke! The US has actually reduced carbon emissions. By the way, critizing China's record is not an endorsement of the US position.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/19/global-man-made-co2-emissions-1965-2018-bp-data/

Or maybe they are heavily burning coal etc WHILE investing heavily in the green tech that will take over? China, while a horrible regime, plan and act long term. The US plan and act with a horizon of 2-4 years. I wonder who’ll come out best 10 years from now?

 

[johnsonwax]

Fun fact: The number of coal miners in the US is miniscule. 50,000.

Another fun fact: the number of green energy jobs just in California is over 500,000.

But we don't vote the way the Ukraine Clown Posse wants us to.

 

[wagnerrp]

Why does it cost 10 times more? Citation please.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/

80% of US energy is generated by fossil fuels (petroleum, natural gas, and coal).
Of the 11% generated by renewable energy, 23% of that is hydro power (not exactly a growth industry there).

That's a really bad chart, bordering on a lie. These numbers would make Mark Twain blush. They're not measuring energy generated by fossil fuels, but rather energy consumed. They're multiplying total fuel consumption by the fuel's heating value, completely ignoring the efficiency of whatever happens to be using that fuel. They're effectively tripling the amount of energy attributed to fossil fuels.

Seems like it takes a LOT more workers to generate that 11% than it does to generate the 80%.

What you're seeing is front-loading of labor. All that fossil fuel infrastructure already exists. All that construction labor has already been spent. Now it's just operational labor which only requires a fraction of the people. We're still building renewable infrastructure.