BLOGS

About nine months ago I wrote an op ed piece for the Hamilton Spectator pointing out the great potential of Hamilton’s north end industrial lands to site windmill manufacturing and assembly. It looks like that potential may soon be tapped.

I’ve been at CanSIA’s Solar Canada conference the past two days. I quite enjoyed it, so much so that I want to share some of the key themes I heard while there.

Here goes:

I've been an environmentalist for quite some time. Not surprisingly, my environmentalism has matured over the years in tandem with, or perhaps as a result of, some developments in the broader environmental movement.

A strange article appeared in the Vancouver Sun recently. I say strange because the article was based on a paper issued by the progressive think-tank, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, but at first glance, it appeared to be arguing that claims that green energy can create good jobs are overblown.

Hamilton is setting the pace in the race to reduce green house gases.

Today October 17th the Hamilton Climate Change Charter was introduced. I have been helping on the Climate Change Working Group that prepared the charter. So of course I signed it.

Readers of the Globe and Mail no doubt noticed Margaret Wente’s column of last week which argued that most green-jobs schemes are failures. To be sure, she has cobbled together a list of facts and examples that support her position. However, these facts are not representative of the bigger picture. Rather, they are the exceptions to the rule and, contrary to Ms. Wente’s assertion, green jobs have been created the world over.

On Thursday August 11, Hamilton City Council declared “its continuing support for the development of the Green Economy as a set of effective economic development strategies that achieve complimentary environmental and energy benefits while creating jobs and healthy communities.”

This was part of a resolution presented by Blue Green Canada. It recognized the under-reported but significant achievements of the city in encouraging good green job creation through brownfield restoration, support for LEED construction, and targeting green manufacturers to locate in Hamilton.

Here at Blue Green Canada, we spend a lot of our time monitoring the growth of the green economy and tracking green jobs. One of the things we've realized is that it's not a simple task.

(cross posted from Huffpost Canada)

As a green jobs activist I am often asked if working to raise workers’ level of understanding of the green economy and green jobs is worth the effort.

The answer: Yes.

The other day, I was in the Steelworkers Centre in Hamilton when a worker who volunteers there came in with a small town newspaper he had picked up when camping. He had marked several stories about the “hazards” of wind turbines and the “wasteful” Green Energy Act. He then proceeded to debunk them.

If you read the Globe and Mail yesterday morning, you may have come across an article that argues that green jobs are shrewd PR, but poor economics.