Of all of the promises that America’s elites—from academia to the higher echelons of government—make to American youth, none may be quite so suspect as the promise of a greener future, in every sense of the word, if the young will only train for jobs of a similar hue.
At a recent Center for American Progress (CAP) conference, U. S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis touted her agency’s training programs for such positions. “I’ve never seen so much assistance available,” gushed the former congressional representative.
She doesn’t mention the private sector jobs lost when the government goes full speed ahead with its environmental job creation program, and not just in Spain and Germany. “A major example of this dilemma occurred in Newton, Iowa, where President Obama visited on Earth Day to tout green jobs at a new wind turbine plant,’ Sens. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, and Kit Bond, R-Mo., reported on April 27, 2009. “During the visit, the President noted that new green jobs replaced manufacturing jobs where a Maytag plant closed.”
“However, he did not mention that only 700 jobs paying $13 per hour replaced the 1,800 jobs paying $20 an hour plus health care.” Sens. Inhofe and Bond are ranking minority members of the U. S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.
If you would like to comment on this article, e-mail mal.kline@academia.org
