Oct 02 2008

The Green Economy Starts Here

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Everyone these days is talking about the potential for new jobs in sectors that promise to help the environment.

The latest example is a new study commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which projects that investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency will create 4.2 million new "green" jobs over the next three decades, making it perhaps "the fastest growing segment of the economy."

But those jobs won't all just happen automatically. The city of Oakland is jump-starting the process by contracting with three organizations to inaugurate the Oakland Green Job Corps, described by the Oakland Tribune as "an ambitious plan to lift at-risk youths out of lives of poverty and violence and place them into jobs helping the environment."

The training will start with general job readiness skills and basic construction practices, followed by modules on topics like solar installation, hazardous waste recycling and energy efficiency practices. The program will train about 40 students the first year and then seek to place them as apprentices with various Bay Area employers.

The city plans to tap three non-profit institutions--Laney College and Cypress Mandela, Inc. of Oakland, and Growth Sector Inc. of San Francisco to design and operate the program for its first eight months.

Funding comes from a national green-job training program authorized by Congress after the idea was championed by Van Jones, founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland and chief executive of Green for All.

© 2008 Pacific Gas and Electric Company. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms

"PG&E" refers to Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation.