The GREEN DMV Report
April 2010
A New Green Economy
Contributing Writer: Kathleen Rogers

As climate change is the most important environmental issue of our time, we are in a race to discover new technologies that will radically reduce CO2 emissions. At the present, our entire industrial and energy systems are built on carbon-based technologies.  But we need to be willing to bring new ideas to that system.  We have to be willing to help create a post-carbon economy – not to undermine the advances of industrial society but to create a new, high technology green revolution. A green economic system can be a force for creating wealth and an abundance of green jobs – jobs in industries like solar and wind and new automobile technology.  Jobs that are sustainable, and will last well into the future. 

According to The Carbon War Room, it is time to reinvent our economic systems.  Entrepreneurs can do a lot to stimulate this new green economy with speed, agility and good ideas.  Whoever leads will reap the rewards. We need a spirit of innovation to create sustainable practices across our entire post-industrial system.  This revolution will also take the spirit of individuals whose contributions are equally important as we build a new global economy.
 
Economic growth, quality jobs, and energy independence are not mutually exclusive, but together can help build a new green economy.  We need a transition to this new economy and we need new technology to help create more renewable energy, sustainability and robust markets.  Job creation can be spurred by entrepreneurship.  More than 5-million jobs have been lost in Fortune 500 companies in the last thirty years.  At the same time, the US economy has seen job growth – nearly 34 million new jobs. 

We should examine a wide definition of green jobs, one that encompasses a wide range of occupations, from working in organic farming, or in demolition recycling, to teaching in green schools.

According to studies gathered by the Environmental and Energy Study Group, a Washington, DC energy think tank, energy efficiency now employs 8 million, and renewable energy 450,000, in the U.S. Renewable energy creates more jobs per megawatt of power installed, unit of energy produced, and dollar invested than fossil energy.

Generating 20 percent of U.S. electricity from new renewable energy by 2020 will add 185,000 new jobs, while cumulatively reducing utility bills by $10.5 billion.   
We must prove that environmental growth is not an oxymoron.  The future of economic growth must be based on green opportunities.

Earth Day Network is joining the Carbon War Room and the Clean Economy Network in holding the Creating Climate Wealth conference in Washington, DC on April 21 and 22, to gather top entrepreneurs to address the notion of green economic opportunity. 

A national framework that caps carbon emissions and promotes sustainability will give businesses and innovators the certainty that they need to spur investment in new technology.  Instead the federal government is playing catch up to our cities, and to our states, and to countries like China and India. 

We are at the precipice of a new revolution.  Unlike the industrial revolution before us, which launched an era of environmental degradation, Congress can help spur a new green revolution, one that exports advances in environmental technology, brings about green jobs, and launches a new green economy. 

Kathleen Rogers, President of Earth Day Network, has worked more than 20 years as an environmental attorney and advocate, focusing on public policy, international law, litigation, and community development. Under Kathleen's leadership, Earth Day Network has taken the lead in defining the "new environmentalist" of the 21st century, transforming EDN into a dynamic team of year round activists that is reaching out to new constituencies, including young people and people of color, and integrating civic participation into each of our programs and activities.

During her tenure as Chief Wildlife Counsel for the National Audubon Society, Kathleen directed several programs including its international trade, migratory species and biodiversity policy initiatives. While with National Audubon, Kathleen was Environmental Representative on the United States Delegation-Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). She was also responsible for bringing the first citizen complaint before the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, the tri-national agency formed to oversee North American environmental issues.

Kathleen has held senior positions with the Environmental Law Institute, Piedmont Environmental Council, two U.S. Olympic Organizing Committees, and the United Nations Conference on Women. She has also worked for Garth Associates in New York City and the Beveridge & Diamond law firm. Kathleen was editor in chief of the law review at the University of California-Davis, and clerked for the Honorable John Pratt at the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

In June 2008, Kathleen was featured as Power Player of the Week on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.