The Washington Post has a good article yesterday on the explosion in the use of the term “green-collar” jobs. You will no doubt be hearing much more of this term since it is a favorite of Clinton and Edwards; Me and the Center for American Progress are on the bandwagon; and even the super trendspotting Tom Friedman has glommed onto it.
No, it’s not a perfect term. G-C jobs — my effort to coin the ultimate eco-buzzword — won’t get you a green uniform and green power-ring like the Green Lantern Corps, although you will, coincidentally enough, be promoting green power. As the Post notes:
… while white-collar and blue-collar bring distinctive images to mind — the mutual fund manager screaming into his BlackBerry, the coal miner coming home, coughing from a long day — such iconic imagery is hard to find with the green-collar worker.
Still, the term, popularized by social activists like Van Jones of the Ella Baker Center, does have a powerful ring to it [sorry about that], so I expect it will be around for a while. I will try to limit use to, say, once a month.
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
