Green jobs should top our economic recovery list

President-elect Barack Obama should prioritize green jobs in his economic recovery plan.

In discussions on Capitol Hill, he has talked about doubling the production of renewable energy and making government buildings more fuel-efficient. That's a start, but he has the ability to be much more ambitious. During the campaign, he said one of his goals was to create 5 million new green jobs. But his current plan sets a mark for creating or preserving about 3 million jobs, whether green or not.

The beauty of green jobs is that they are not only ecologically sound, but they are also economically prudent. These jobs, by their very nature, will not be able to be outsourced, and their potential is vast. Two million jobs can be created within two years in retrofitting alone, according to a University of Massachusetts study.

The number of under-insulated homes in the U.S. is nearly 80 million, according to estimates by Owens Corning Inc., an Ohio-based maker of insulation. Other easily identifiable green jobs include manufacturing, installing and maintaining solar panels, retrofitting the heating and cooling systems of commercial and residential buildings and recycling and repurposing industrial materials.

The green-collar sector is a huge growth industry. Worldwide, businesses invested $117.2 billion in alternative energy in 2007, according New Energy Finance, a U.K. research company. Over 3,400 U.S. companies are in the solar energy business, including manufacturers, installers, distributors, developers and suppliers.

The global market for environmental products and services is projected to double from the current $1.37 trillion per year to $2.74 trillion by 2020, according to a 2008 report co-sponsored by the UN Environment Programme and several international labor organizations.

This green boom is coming just in time.

Millions of Americans are out of work. Many of them have the skills necessary to turn the economy green.

Obama is providing overdue leadership on this issue. But he has the public support to do more, and he should. We would all benefit from it — economically and ecologically.

Juleyka Lantigua-Williams is a journalist whose writings have appeared in books, magazines and newspapers around the country. She can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.