by Jorge Madrid and Adam James

Green Goods and Services (GGS) accounted for 2.4 percent of total U.S. employment in 2010, with almost a third of all jobs supporting the badly hit construction and manufacturing sector, says a new analysis released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The vast majority of these jobs were in the private sector (2.3 million) while the public sector accounted for 860,300. While the GGS sector certainly got a boost in 2010 from the stimulus, considered the “Most Important Energy Bill in American History,” a similar analysis of the clean economy by the Brookings Institution finds that this snapshot is part of a wider trend showing green jobs is on the rise.

The BLS has also taken a stab at defining green jobs:

• Jobs in businesses that produce goods or provide services that benefit the environment or conserve natural resources. Green goods and services fall into one or more of five groups: energy from renewable sources, energy efficiency, pollution reduction and removal, natural resources conservation, and environmental compliance, training, and public awareness.
• Jobs in which workers’ duties involve making their establishment’s production processes more environmentally friendly or use fewer natural resources. These workers research, develop, or use technologies and practices to lessen the environmental impact of their establishment, or train the establishment’s workers or contractors in these technologies and practices. These technologies and practices fall into one or more of four groups: energy from renewable sources, energy efficiency, pollution reduction and removal, and natural resource confirmation.

The BLS spent over a year analyzing and accounting these figures, at times fighting through bitter criticism and resistance from political opponents and their supporters from Big Oil.  We suspect that we have not heard the last from them.

But for now, while many interesting storylines can be fleshed out from this new data, here are our top 5 takeaways:

1.    Green Jobs Are Supporting Two of the Nation’s Hardest Hit Industries:  At the peak of the recession in 2009, construction and manufacturing sectors reported unemployment rates of 19 percent and 12.1 percent respectively.  Collapse in these industries put massive numbers of hardworking Americans out of work, and bolstering them should be high priority for economic recovery.  We’ve see that green building accounted for 25 percent of all new construction ventures in 2010, including energy efficiency retrofits which create jobs at 3 times the rate of oil and gas investments.  Likewise, we know that 50 percent of parts for wind turbines are American-made, along with 90% percent of energy efficiency materials like HVAC systems, siding, and refrigerators.

2.    Green Jobs Out-Number Fossil Fuel Jobs 4 to 1:  CAP analysis of 2010 BLS figures found 575,000 jobs in the oil and gas sector, including extraction, refining, and other support activities – even with oil and gas production reaching an 8-year high under the Obama Administration.  Adding mining and related activities to the mix brings 2010 fossil fuel jobs to 783,000, nearly 4 times smaller than the total Green Goods and Services category.  According analysis by the Brookings Institution, green jobs outpaced the job growth in the greater economy by a factor of 2 to 1 during the peak of the recession (2008-2010), and pay an average of $7,000 more than other jobs across the greater economy.

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Outside group spending is up 1600 percent this election cycle, given the rise of Super PACs. But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce claims it still peddles the most influence in politics, as the radical right-wing industry group plans to spend a record amount of more than $50 million for 2012 this campaign cycle.

U.S. Chamber Political Director Rob Engstrom dubbed the Chamber’s role in elections as an “old-school Super PAC“:

We’re the old school Super PAC. Brand matters and message matters, but messenger matters as much or more in my opinion… at some point relatively soon people are going to turn off if it says “Concerned Citizens for Change.”

“Engstrom maintains that the Chamber’s donor base — largely big business corporations —that fund the political operation are ‘very motivated’ and that having enough funds to get the job done won’t be an issue,” Politico writes.

Engstrom is right that the Chamber doesn’t lack in cash, and it has already committed to spending a record amount of over $50 million in federal races this year. For instance, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) has faced almost $2.5 million in ads against him for voting to end Big Oil tax breaks. The Chamber is the largest lobbyist, spending over $132 million in 2010.

Super PACs have been funneling money to often-nasty attack ads, and as an “old school Super PAC,” itself, the Chamber doesn’t mind flaunting how it is trying to drive the election.

This week, Crossroads GPS announced a $650,000 nationwide television ad campaign called “Deflect.” The 30-second spot falsely blames Obama administration actions for the rise in gasoline prices since 2009.

Crossroads GPS is a tax-exempt 501(c)(4) group, affiliated with the American Crossroads super PAC. Karl Rove has been linked to both groups.

The spot begins by noting gas prices “then and now” — going up from the unusually low prices of January 2009 to the higher prices of today. A narrator asks what has made the difference.

The narrator then claims the reasons for higher gas prices are:

– “President Obama’s administration restricted oil production in the Gulf”

– Limited development of American oil shale

– Obama personally lobbied to kill a pipeline bringing oil from Canada

Watch the spot:

Unlike candidate ad spots, television stations are under no obligation to run ads by outside groups, especially when the ads are factually wrong. This one is.

The non-partisan FactCheck.org outright calls the ad’s claims “bogus.”

Some important points to keep in mind:

– U.S. gas prices do not correspond with domestic oil production. Decades of statistics show domestic gas prices correspond with global gas prices.
– The President is not to blame for rising gas prices. Oil companies, whose profits go up an estimated $800 million a year, every time the price of gas goes up a penny, and speculation are the key reasons for the cost increase.
– Gas prices were unusually low in January 2009. Though prices were much higher at other points during the Bush administration, they were artificially low when President Obama took office because the world economy was reeling from the Wall Street meltdown.
– The temporary moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico came because of the BP oil spill. The Obama administration put the moratorium in place to ensure that new safety precautions could be implemented after the worst oil spill on record poured about 4.9 million barrels of oil into the gulf (millions of barrels that might otherwise have been refined for gasoline).
– The Obama administration has not stymied development of American oil shale. As FactCheck.org notes, “production of petroleum from shale formations is booming. What the administration slowed down were plans for experimental development of ways to produce oil by heating kerogen-rich rocks, something that is years away from becoming commercially feasible.”
– President Obama did not lobby to kill the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. He has supported building part of the pipeline — what has opposed are efforts by Congressional Republicans to deny his administration the time necessary to do a thorough review of the plan. And much of the oil delivered via the proposed pipeline would likely be exported after refinement.

Are the deceitful ads funded by Big Oil? By Keystone XL? Crossroads GPS isn’t telling — they do not publicly disclose their donors. But viewers — and television station executives — would be wise carefully scrutinize this dishonest content, even if they cannot scrutinize the motivation of the people paying for it.

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is calling for an end to oil tax breaks, with plans for a procedural vote on Monday. While the American public wants an end to the billions of dollars in Big Oil handouts, the latest House Republican budget plan once again delivers massive tax breaks to the richest 1 percent and preserves the huge giveaways to the oil industry.

With gas prices skyrocketing — they reached their highest record in the month of March — and oil companies raking in a record $137 billion in profits in 2011, will the Grand Oil Party stand up for the American families bearing the burden of high gas prices or the oil companies bankrolling their campaign coffers?

The Big Five oil companies made a record $137 billion in profits in 2011 while continuing to benefit from high gas prices

• The big five oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell—combined to make a record-high $137 billion in profits in 2011—up 75 percent from 2010—and have made more than $1trillion in profits from 2001 through 2011.
• Oil companies are reducing the supply of gasoline available for U.S. markets by closing refineries in the East. According to the Energy Information Agency, ConocoPhillips and Sunoco have closed two refineries in the Philadelphia area, with another expected to close later this summer. Additionally, a major Caribbean export refinery that supplies the East Coast closed last year.
• A recent CAP analysis found that for every penny more consumers pay at the pump Big Oil profits increase by another $200 million.
• A Congressional Research Service report released in May 2011 found that the repeal of five key oil industry tax breaks would lead to little or no increase of gasoline prices.

Despite claims of the “drill here, drill now” crowd, domestic production of oil is up, domestic demand is down, yet gas prices continue to rise

• In 2011 U.S. oil production reached its highest level in eight years, yet gas prices continue to rise.
• For the first time in over a decade, imports accounted for less than half the oil consumed in America in 2010. In 2011 import dependence fell to its lowest level in 16 years.
• A recent Associated Press Fact Check analysis found no correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump.

Big Oil makes record profits, then doles out millions in campaign contributions to Republicans, who then vote to protect Big Oil handouts

• The big five oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell—combined made a record-high $137 billion in profits in 2011.
• Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry has already contributed over $20 million in federal campaign contributions this election cycle, with 88 percent of all Big Oil contributions going to Republicans.
• Oil and gas companies spent $146,017,552 on lobbying last year, making them the third-highest spending industry.
• Last year the Senate failed to end billions of dollars in oil tax breaks by a vote of 52-48, with the Big Oil backers receiving $21 million in career oil contributions compared to the $5.4 million received by those who voted to end these Big Oil handouts.
• Since 2006 Senate Republicans have taken $13,818,359 from the oil and gas industry compared to the $3,332,251 received by Democrats. On average, Senate Republicans have taken four times the amount in Big Oil contributions of Democrats.
• Since 2006 the Senate has received $17,240,960 in Big Oil money and $30,116,264 in career contributions, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

Listed below are oil and gas contributions from PACs and individuals giving $200 or more to Senators between the 2006-2012 election cycles and over their career, using data from the Center for Responsive Politics:
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by Rick Smith and Andrew Light

Last September Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper referred to the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline as a “no-brainer” for the United States. The pipeline would bring tar sands oil from Alberta to refineries in Texas. Nonetheless, the Obama administration rejected the pipeline’s cross-border leg starting in Alberta based largely on concerns about its possible environmental impact on the Ogallala Aquifer in Nebraska should a spill occur. Congress made repeated attempts to reverse the decision to no avail.

The Canadian government has upped the ante by publicly highlighting its efforts to build an alternative pipeline aimed at delivering tar sands to Chinese markets. Proponents of the Keystone XL point to this alternative as a reason to accelerate its approval. On a state visit last month, Prime Minister Harper openly courted the Chinese with the promise of tar sands oil. China, ever hungry for sources of coal and oil to fuel its booming economy, was receptive. Chinese businesses also have been buying into Canadian tar sands projects for some time now, with Petro China most recently buying out its partner on an Athabasica Oil Sands Corporation project for $674 million to take full control.

But on inspection the China-bound alternative to the Keystone XL—the Enbridge “Northern Gateway” pipeline—faces hurdles as big if not bigger than Keystone XL. Some groups in Canada call the fight over its approval the “defining environmental battle” of modern times, potentially determining which limits will be placed on the Canadian federal government’s energy and environment policies. The pipeline is now in the midst of a Canadian federal environmental assessment that will go at least to late 2013. This is later than the original approval process the U.S. State Department would have taken before Congress forced the Obama administration’s hand to reject the Keystone XL last January.

Here’s a look at the rough road ahead for the project.

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The warm winter followed by the freakish March heat wave that turned the start of spring into summer has started a record allergy season with a “blast of tree pollen” across the United States:

The surreal heat that’s baking much of the central and eastern USA has unleashed an unusually early and intense blast of tree pollen, making life miserable for tens of millions of people who suffer from seasonal allergies. Forecasters and allergists blame the unseasonably warm weather, and few cold snaps, for causing plants to bloom weeks earlier. Atlanta, for example, smashed an all-time record with 9,369 particles of pollen per cubic meter on Tuesday, coating the city with a thin, yellow layer of pollen.

Atlanta’s previous record was a pollen count of 6,000 — 1,500 is considered high. Allergist Stanley Fineman, president of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, told USA Today “his allergist colleagues elsewhere in the South as well as in parts of the Northeast and Midwest are all reporting patients with severe allergy symptoms, due to the recent warm weather.”

The “surreal heat,” scientists agree, was fueled by the greenhouse pollution that is transforming our planet into a hotter, more dangerous place to live.

The political gaffe of the year is now the gift that keeps giving, literally.

On Wednesday, Romney strategist Eric Fehrnstrom was asked about how his boss’s politics might change after he gets the nomination. “I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign,” he said, “Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.”

As the columnist Michael Kinsley’s defined it, “a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth.”

How unintentionally powerful was Fehrnstrom’s metaphor? NPR reported this morning:

The high-profile gaffe wasn’t good for Romney.  It was good for Etch A Sketch. Sales increased by 1,500 percent and Ohio Art, the company that owns the toy, saw its stock price nearly double.

So that should put an end to the debate about whether Romney can create jobs or not.

More seriously, I’m interested in the gaffe for two reasons. First, climate and energy are two of the major areas where Romney has shaken his position and started again — see “Another Etch A Sketch Moment: In 2006, Romney Supported High Gasoline Prices To Discourage Consumption.”

Second, my forthcoming book on rhetoric and communications examines effective messaging, political gaffes, and the role of the figures of speech.

It seems clear already that this gaffe will have legs, as they say.  Here’s why:

1. As columnist Chris Cillizza explains, “Gaffes that matter are those that speak to a larger narrative about a candidate or a doubt/worry that voters already have about that particular candidate.” The Etch-a-Sketch gaffe “is likely to linger in the electorate it speaks to a broader storyline already bouncing around the political world: That Romney lacks any core convictions and that he will say and do whatever it takes to win.”
2. This gaffe comes before the nomination fight has been settled, which means it will be used by both sides — Democrats and the conservatives who don’t trust Romney. Indeed, the use of the Etch a Sketch gaffe by Romney’s opponents will make it easier for Obama to use it in the fall.
3. It is a metaphor, and nothing is more powerful in political messaging than a metaphor, good or bad. Artistotle wrote, “The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor.” Modern cognitive research confirms this: “Studies reveal that virtually all of our abstract conceptualization and reasoning is structured by metaphor.” Few things endure like a metaphor: Churchill’s “iron curtain” metaphor lasted for a half century.
4. Relatedly, it is a visual metaphor that everyone knows. The reason metaphors are so powerful is that they connect something we understand and can describe easily (how an Etch a Sketch works) with something we can’t (how Romney works). If a picture is worth 1000 words, then a good metaphor is worth 2000.
5. Etch a Sketch is itself a figure of speech — a rhyme — which makes it an even more memorable phrase. Rhymes, like the best figures, work because they aid memory. Indeed, the figures of speech were essentially developed by the great bards like Homer precisely because they made it easier for them to remember epic poems and because they stuck in the listener’s ears.
6. You can hold in your hands. It can be used as a prop. Romney’s opponents, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have already done events holding Etch a Sketches.
7. Cartoonists and others can draw something with the Etch a Sketch, giving the gaffe endlessly variety.
8. The company itself, Ohio Art, has a motivation to keep pushing the metaphor to boost sales. Ad exec Jordan Zimmerman says, “It will help resurrect the brand and drive sales. If they are smart, they will parlay this.” And in fact, the Detroit Free Press reports that Ohio Art is already “sending a big box of Etch A Sketches to the presidential campaigns to say thanks for the publicity and a boost in sales.”

On the Chris Matthews Show last night, NBC news political director Chuck Todd said he asked people who were in DC to see the cherry blossoms whether they had heard of the gaffe and, to his surprise, they had. He said, “It’s penetrated the public consciousness because of the symbolism.”

Precisely. This Hall of Fame gaffe will prove far, far harder for the Romney campaign to erase than the Etch a Sketch itself.

Texas Agronomists have revised estimates for the cost of Texas’ devastating drought, finding that it cost the agricultural sector $2 billion more than originally thought.

According to the Texas AgriLife Extension Service, the Texas drought has caused $7.62 billion in damages to crops and farming operations. That’s up from $5.3 billion reported last August.

Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon explained last September:

Warmer temperatures lead to greater water demand, faster evaporation, and greater drying-out of potential fuels for fire. Thus, the impacts of the drought were enhanced by global warming, much of which has been caused by man.

Nearly every single agricultural sector in the state was hammered by the record-breaking drought that began in 2010, causing a ripple effect through global commodity markets. With livestock, cotton, peanut and even pumpkin crops hit hard, shortages of product is driving prices up and putting a squeeze on farmers in the state

“When you are one of the biggest agricultural producing states in the nation, a monumental drought causes enormous losses,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples said in a statement this week after the new damage figures were released. Other agricultural experts weighed in on the devastating impact to Texas farmers:

“2011 was the driest year on record and certainly an infamous year of distinction for the state’s farmers and ranchers,” said Dr. David Anderson, AgriLife Extension livestock economist. “The $7.62 billion mark for 2011 is more than $3.5 billion higher than the 2006 drought loss estimates, which previously was the costliest drought on record. The 2011 losses also represent about 43 percent of the average value of agricultural receipts over the last four years.”

“No one alive has seen single-year drought damage to this extent,” said Dr. Travis Miller, AgriLife Extension agronomist and a member of the Governor’s Drought Preparedness Council. “Texas farmers and ranchers are not strangers to drought, but the intensity of the drought, reflected in record high temperatures, record low precipitation, unprecedented winds coupled with duration – all came together to devastate production agriculture.”

Like a baseball hitter on steroids, climatologists say that the likelihood of the Texas drought was increased due to the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Scientists at NASA, including climatologist James Hansen, said in January that analysis of 50 years of temperature data show that the Texas drought was “a consequence of global warming because their likelihood was negligible prior to the recent rapid global warming.”

Texas A&M, climate scientist Andrew Dessler asserted last August, “there is absolutely no way you can conclude that climate change is not playing a role here. I’m quite surprised that anyone would even suggest that.”  Texas climatologist Katherine Hayhoe recently explained, “our natural variability is now occurring on top of, and interacting with, background conditions that have already been altered by long-term climate change.”

Just as we see during the current heat wave shattering high-temperature records throughout the U.S., climatologists and meteorologists are consistently saying that these extreme weather events are being influenced by extra energy in the atmosphere (see March Madness: ‘This May Be An Unprecedented Event Since Modern U.S. Weather Records Began In The Late 19th Century’).

“It is highly unlikely the warmth of the current ‘Summer in March’ heat wave could have occurred unless the climate was warming,” said Dr. Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground in a scientific analysis of the phenomenon.

As the rest of the country catches up to Texas, farmers in the state continue to incur billions in damages — a sign of the economic costs to come.

Related posts:

• With No End in Sight for Texas Drought, ABC News Explains: “Every Farmer in the World Will Be Affected by Climate Change”

• Warming-Enhanced Texas Drought Is Once in “500 or 1,000 Years … Basically Off the Charts,” Says State Climatologist

by Greg Hanscom, reposted from Grist

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is about as green as they come. Since his election in 2005, Villaraigosa has instated a massive climate action plan, slashed air pollution at the Port of Los Angeles, pulled more than 2,000 diesel trucks off the roads, retrofitted more than 64,000 street lights with energy-efficient LEDs, enacted some of the nation’s strictest green building standards, championed the restoration of the L.A. river, created 51 new parks, slashed the city’s water use, increased recycling, and started work on an ambitious mass transit expansion in a city that is famously enamored of the automobile.

Granted, Villaraigosa has a tendency to lay plans that will have no chance of coming to fruition before he is term-limited out in 2013: Build 1,600 miles of bikeways! Plant a million trees! And now he wants to wean L.A. from coal power by 2025. But at a time when most cities are struggling just to meet residents’ basic needs, he can be forgiven for being overly ambitious.

One of Villaraigosa’s policy centerpieces has been Measure R, a voter-approved tax that will raise $40 billion over 30 years to fund transportation infrastructure. Almost half of the money will go to mass transit. And to speed progress, Villaraigosa has convinced Democrats and Republicans in Congress to support a plan called America Fast Forward, which would allow L.A. to get the work done in 10 years, rather than 30 — and similarly reward other cities that are taking on ambitious transit projects.

At press time, America Fast Forward is tied up in Congress, where the House and Senate are engaged in a high-stakes game of chicken over passing a new transportation bill. But political high jinks in Washington aren’t stopping Villaraigosa from dreaming big. He says he’ll move forward with or without help from Washington.

We caught up with Villaraigosa this week to see how he’s managed to stay green in a time when, as a famous frog once lamented, it’s anything but easy.

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North America’s freakishly warm and dry winter caused millions of birds to change their migration patterns, citizen scientists found. Participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC), thousands of bird watchers “recorded the most unusual winter for birds in the count’s 15-year history”:

“The maps on the GBBC website this year are absolutely stunning,” said John Fitzpatrick, executive director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “Every bird species has a captivating story to tell, and we’re certainly seeing many of them in larger numbers farther north than usual, no doubt because of this winter’s record-breaking mild conditions.”

Unprecedented findings included more than two million Snow Geese in Missouri and “high numbers of waterbirds such as Mallards, Ring-necked Ducks, Hooded Mergansers, and American Coots, that either never left or came back early to lakes, rivers, and ponds that remained unfrozen.”

Other stories below: Army invests $7 billion in renewable energy; Climate Change: The End of Sierra Skiing?

Daily Times: Climate change to cost Pakistan up to $14 billion annually

Climate change could cost the economy of Pakistan up to $14 billion each year for natural disasters and other losses, which is almost 5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, this was stated by Former Federal State Minister for Environment Malik Amin Aslam.

He was addressing a seminar titled ‘Outcomes of Post Durban Climate Change Negotiations’ organised by Centre of Excellence, Environmental Economics and Climate Change, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) here on Thursday to discuss the implications of these negotiations on Pakistan as climate change is directly impacting the economy of Pakistan….

Talking about its implication on Pakistan he said that Pakistan is a very low emitter but one of the worst victims of climate change, as according to Germanwatch places Pakistan as ‘most affected’ for 2010 and in top 10 for 1990-2010.

Related Post:  Juan Cole: The media’s failure to cover “the great Pakistani deluge” is “itself a security threat” to America

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