Commentary—

Reducing Fuel Use Increases Job

By Carl Pope

No wonder Americans are so hungry for change. We are being squeezed by record gas prices that are also driving up the costs of food and anything else that is transported to stores. Home energy bills are rising. Oil companies continue to reap record profits and get huge tax breaks from the US government. We continue to rely on foreign countries for oil. The economy is tanking and people are losing their jobs.

Switching to clean energy represents the type of big change that America is looking for. People are ready to move beyond oil and coal, to use renewable wind and solar power and to become more energy efficient. Americans recognize and accept clean energy as a driver that will transform our economy, create and keep good jobs, and generate new investment and opportunities. At the same time, this economic transformation will allow us to free ourselves from the big oil companies and foreign countries and it will cut air, water, and global warming pollution.

This win, win, win approach is not some pie-in-the-sky, next generation solution. We can do it now.

We can start saving money on energy right now. Energy efficiency technology already exists and many people are already realizing the savings and reaping the benefits. According to the US Department of Energy, the cost of heating, cooling, and lighting our homes and workplaces could be cut by up to 80 percent or more just by using the “off-the-shelf” technologies available today.

Turning down the thermostat one degree in the winter can save you three percent on your electricity bill. Drying clothes on a line or rack can save you $80 in a year, increasing to more than $500 over five years. Replacing ten regular light bulbs in your home with compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) would net you savings of $92 in one year.

Governments can save money with energy efficiency as well. The City of Denver now saves $218,000 annually after it replaced all traffic lights with LEDs. Dane County, Wis., now saves $150,000 each year after installing more efficient lighting and heating systems in its government buildings.

American ingenuity and innovation can lead the way when it comes to improving clean, renewable energy technologies and fighting global warming. If we can have one industrial revolution — why can’t there be another? We have the sun and the wind, we have the technology and the ingenuity, and we have the same can-do spirit that transformed our economy during World War II and won the war. We must focus our investment and initiative on the challenge of building a clean energy economy and dealing with the problem of global warming.

Investing in clean energy is already creating jobs around the United States. In Pennsylvania, Governor Ed Rendell said investments in clean energy have created 3,000 new jobs in the renewable energy sector since 2003.

That’s just one state; a study from the Blue-Green Alliance reports that requiring 20 percent of our country’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020 would create 820,000 jobs across the country. According to a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, if the United States had that kind of renewable electricity standard, it would create $94.3 billion in new capital investment, income to farmers, ranchers, and rural landowners, and in new local tax revenues.

This Earth Week, learn how we can do it, how others are already changing their energy, cutting costs, making money, and saving the planet, and how to spread the word. Together we can build a clean, renewable economy with the help of our allies in the faith, union, and business worlds, and with the contributions of our friends and neighbors.

We can increase the use of affordable renewable energy, we can make our homes, cars, and buildings more energy efficient, we can save money, boost the economy, and create jobs — and we can reduce global warming, leaving a planet that’s safe and clean for our children.

 

(Carl Pope is executive director of Sierra Club, America’s oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization. )