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The Growth in 'Green-Collar' Jobs
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Apr 09, 2008 03:05pm |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Magazine - Newsweek |
| News Date | Tuesday, April 8, 2008 09:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Even in a shaky economy, there are expanding opportunities in environmentally friendly industries.
By Karen Breslau | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Apr 8, 2008 |
Paul McAnally never planned on becoming a "green-collar" worker. A former Navy shipbuilder, McAnally, 47, lost his job with a plumbing contractor when the housing market slumped. The Pennsylvania father of six was on unemployment benefits when he heard about Gamesa, a Spanish-owned wind energy company that two years ago started making turbines at a former U.S. Steel plant near Philadelphia. He was hired to build nacelles, the giant structures that house turbines' electricity-generating equipment. When he took his children for a factory tour recently, says McAnally, "they were expecting to see a windmill from Holland" and were amazed instead to see colossal steel towers 300 feet tall and sleek fiberglass blades. "I was able to tell them, 'We're making these turbines for your future'," says McAnally. "'So you can have clean energy'."
The presidential candidates all tout green-collar jobs like McAnally's as part of their plans to combat climate change-and to buoy the sagging economy-by investing heavily in energy sources such as wind and solar that do not generate greenhouse gases. As they crisscross Pennsylvania before its Democratic primary this month, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama stopped in at Gamesa, which has hired 1,300 people in the state in the last two years, to pitch their plans for boosting the alternative energy sector. (Obama even autographed a 130-foot windmill blade.) John McCain will hold his own climate-change-and-jobs tour on the West Coast next month. |
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