Articles by Jon Rynn

Fast action on climate change

This is a guest post from Ted Glick, a long-time progressive and climate activist. More information and contact information can be found at tedglick.com Tomorrow, April 20th, I and over 200 other people around the country and from several countries will be fasting. We’ll be doing so to make a statement that it is long […]

Every job can be green, part two

This is part two of my chapter, “Green jobs in a sustainable economy”, published recently in the book “Mandate for Change”.  You can also read part one, in which I discuss the first three ways in which to create an environmentally sustainable economy. Fourth, in the United States today, about two-thirds of our electricity and […]

Every job can be green, part one

Fortunately for your humble correspondent, Van Jones was so busy when the editors of the new book, Mandate for Change: Policies and leadership for 2009 and beyond, were looking for an author for their chapter about green jobs, that they turned to me instead.  This is part one of three posts that will serialize my […]

The economy needs to be green to be 'fixed'

As is often the case, The New York Times serves as a good example of the mistaken assumptions underlying conventional wisdom. In his Sunday Magazine cover story, "The Big Fix," Times economic columnist David Leonhardt combines many of the misconceptions surrounding the idea of "green jobs." As I fretted in a previous post, some writers, including Leonhardt, seem to be setting up some sort of cosmic battle between green jobs, cap-and-trade, and economic growth:

Of the $700 billion we spend each year on energy, more than half stays inside this country. It goes to coal companies or utilities here, not to Iran or Russia. If we begin to use less electricity, those utilities will cut jobs. Just as important, the current, relatively low price of energy allows other companies -- manufacturers, retailers, even white-collar enterprises -- to sell all sorts of things at a profit. Raising that cost would raise the cost of almost everything that businesses do. Some projects that would have been profitable to Boeing, Kroger or Microsoft in the current economy no longer will be. Jobs that would otherwise have been created won't be. As Rob Stavins, a leading environmental economist, says, "Green jobs will, to some degree, displace other jobs."

Later in the article, he kinda sorta argues that this might all be necessary in the long-term .. but first, let's deconstruct his arguments.