This may come as a big surprise: The U.S. commercial construction sector is facing a shortage of skilled workers.

After a period of steep decline in commercial construction stemming from the 2008 financial crisis — forcing mass layoffs throughout the industry — that seems like an absurd notion. But activity is picking back up.

By 2015, non-residential construction is projected to grow 73 percent compared to 2011, increasing demand for skilled workers.

With nearly half of all nonresidential activity by 2015 set to be “green,” workers with experience in energy efficiency, water efficiency, responsible site management, air quality, and green building certification will be the highest in demand. That’s according to a survey of industry companies conducted by McGraw-Hill Construction.

The boom in the green building space is good news. But will there be enough people to fulfill market needs?

The McGraw-Hill survey shows that companies fear a shortage of potential employees with in-demand skills over the coming years. The shortage will be caused by three main factors: A wave of retiring baby boomers; a decline in workers with experience due to mass layoffs after the recession; and a thinning pipeline of students.

More than 85 percent of engineering & design firms, and more than 90 percent of general contractors say it will be difficult to find skilled employees to meet the boom in demand for green projects. In October, McGraw-Hill reported that 35 percent of workers have green jobs in the sector; by 2014, 45 percent will have green jobs.

In order to find employees with new skills, meet demand for greener buildings, and make their businesses more competitive, McGraw-Hill urges companies to start building a plan immediately:

If an organization does not already have a green strategy, it needs to develop one. With green projects and green jobs already accounting for one third of the market and still growing, in order to stay competitive, all involved in the industry need to their approach to green, including finding green skilled workers, capitalizing on existing green enterprise and their internal green experts and emphasizing additional green training.

The companies surveyed agreed. According to McGraw-Hill, 71 percent of firms say having certified/accredited employees help increase competitiveness; 68 percent say having green certified employees will help them expand business.

In January, the Obama Administration came under fire because green jobs training programs supported by the stimulus were not placing workers at expected rates. Those criticisms were based upon a flawed report from the Inspector General that didn’t take into account “incumbent” workers or people currently in training programs.

Those problems aside, many of the worker placement programs didn’t ramp up like many supporters hoped. But this industry survey shows why a commitment to green workforce training is so important.

by Ruy Teixeira

Given today’s economic problems, you’d think the public would be in a surly mood about environmental protection, seeing it as a secondary and perhaps conflicting priority to jobs and economic growth. That’s certainly what conservatives are hoping as they continue to push their environment-wrecking agenda.

Turns out, though, the public didn’t get the memo. In the recently released poll from Yale University’s and George Mason University’s climate change communication programs, 58 percent of poll respondents said that protecting the environment improves economic growth and creates new jobs. Just 17 percent thought environmental protection hurts growth and jobs, and 25 percent thought there was no effect.

In the same poll, when asked to choose directly which was more important—environmental protection or economic growth—the public decisively favored protecting the environment 62 percent to 38 percent when there is a conflict between the two goals.

So no, the bad economy has not turned the public off to environmental protection. Conservatives, if they are wise, will factor that into their political calculations.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. This is a CAP cross-post.

Related Posts:

• Gallup: 65% of Americans Support ‘Imposing Mandatory Controls On CO2 Emissions’
• Poll: 75 Percent of Americans Support Regulating CO2 As A Pollutant, 60 Percent Support Revenue-Neutral Carbon Tax
• Polling Expert: Is Obama’s Reluctance to Mention Climate Change Motivated by a False Assumption About Public Opinion?
• Independents, Other Republicans Split With Tea-Party Extremists on Global Warming
• Democrats Taking “Green” Positions on Climate Change “Won Much More Often” Than Those Remaining Silent

by Jackie Weidman and Daniel J. Weiss

Last year, the House Republican majority cast 191 votes to weaken safeguards for our air, land, water, and climate. Their efforts to shred these protections continued yesterday when the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed two bills that would block protections from air pollution while allowing more oil drilling — all under the guise of “lowering gas prices.”

Both bills passed the committee on mostly party line votes.

The first bill was the Gasoline Regulations Act of 2012, H.R. 4771, sponsored by Energy and Power Subcommittee Chair Ed Whitfield (R-KY). This bill would eliminate the bipartisan mandate under the Clean Air Act that the Environmental Protection Agency set health standards for ozone (or smog) pollution based only on the best medicine and science. Instead, for the first time ever under this bill, the cost of pollution reduction would determine how much health protection to require. In other words, air pollution that triggers asthma attacks and respiratory diseases would only be reduced if the polluters could afford it.

In addition, the bill would require endless study of other possible pollution reduction requirements, using “paralysis by analysis” to block additional health protections. H.R. 4771 would slash these safeguards even though “more than 40 percent of people in the U.S. still live in areas where air pollution threatens their health,” according to the American Lung Association.

The committee also passed the Strategic Energy Production Act, H.R. 4480, authored by Rep. Cory Gardener (R-CO).  This bill would force increased drilling on public lands any time reserve oil is released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The SPR was designed to supply oil in case of a supply disruption, though President George H. W. Bush and the 104^th Congress under Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) sold reserve oil in anticipation of a disruption that did not occur, and to reduce the federal budget deficit, respectively.

This bill might inhibit the president from selling reserve oil in the wake of supply disruption, but it does nothing to lower oil prices since they are set on a world market and controlled by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel.

In fact, the Associated Press analyzed 35 years of domestic oil production and gasoline price data and determined that there is “no statistical correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump.”

During the debate on these bills, Ranking Democrat Henry Waxman (D-CA) reminded committee members that even witnesses called by Republicans understood that this legislation would not reduce gasoline prices.  He noted that “every expert at our hearings on gas prices, including the Republican’s own witnesses – told us that gasoline prices are driven by world oil prices.”

Not surprisingly, the members who support these bills took millions of dollars from the oil and gas industry. The Energy and Commerce Committee members received almost $10.5 million in lifetime campaign donations from the oil and gas industry, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Over 75 percent of these dollars – $7.7 million – have gone to 31 of the 33 committee Republicans. On average, Republican committee members received three times the contributions from the oil and gas industry than Democrats in the 2011-2012 election cycle.

Read more

by Elaine Gallagher, via Rocky Mountain Institute

Where does your energy come from? Although I live in Colorado now, I grew up in East Tennessee, where many people still assume their power is fairly clean, dominated by 90-year-old hydroelectric plants. In truth, more than 50 percent of my family’s electricity was generated from coal, and still is. I didn’t think about it much.

What price are we paying for energy apathy? What price will our children pay? As a child, I watched coal-seamed mountaintops disappear in the face of an energy crisis. Potentially potable water now goes to the highest bidders for gas and oil extraction, despite recording-breaking drought. Last month marked the second anniversary of BP’s Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, and the Gulf Coast ecology and economy are slowly recovering. Deforestation, now contributing more to greenhouse gas emissions than transportation, is increasing in previously protected areas as a result of oil and gas exploration and extraction.

n an age of anthropogenic deforestation and wetlands loss, with only about 61 trees per capita on Earth, can we really afford to pay the price that this industry demands? Can we guarantee that our descendants will inherit a thriving planet? A recent survey says that only 24 percent of Americans are knowledgeable about energy. We know more about Kim Kardashian than about the energy that directly affects us, whether we want to or not.

To overcome energy apathy, the best remedy is knowledge. Understand the evolution of energy and its path from conservation of limited natural fuels such as whale oil, to the height of conspicuous consumption throughout the industrial age, to the innovation of 21st century clean energy, and finally to efficiency—beautifully engineered systems, buildings, cities, and machines.

Efficiency is yet a relatively untapped energy source—often forgotten in the face of shiny solar arrays and wind farms. RMI’s research for Reinventing Fire reveals $5 trillion (with twelve zeros) in U.S. energy efficiency savings sitting on the table waiting to be claimed—more if we can move more quickly toward efficiency. That’s $3,205 per person in today’s dollars unrealized—a high fiscal price to pay for energy apathy and just the tip of the iceberg.

We can choose not to pay that price.

Energy efficiency is a powerful economic driver in the face of a slow recovery. It has the potential to generate many jobs in a struggling construction sector. Deep energy retrofits increase property values and revitalize neighborhoods, because this requires a comprehensive approach to reducing energy while improving the owner and occupant experience. Efficiency drives research and innovation, resulting in new technologies with potential for increased American manufacturing and continuous job creation.

Well-engineered, efficient buildings, cities, and systems reflect the highest evolution of energy. They are beautiful and simple, often emulating nature’s own processes and improving quality of life. Energy efficiency isn’t only about high-tech air conditioners; it’s not just batteries and electrons. It is manifested in living and work spaces turned to the outdoors, walkable cities, bike paths that keep us connected physically and culturally, eating fresh and delicious regional foods, daylight pouring into a workplace where ideas bloom like the trees that shade the building.

Some say energy efficiency isn’t sexy, so it’s a hard sell. I think it’s very exciting, and it’s why I come to work every day. It carries tremendous potential for good things, including the potential to cure the world of energy apathy.

Elaine Gallagher is a Senior Consultant with Rocky Mountain Institute. This piece was originally published at RMI’s Solutions Blog and was reprinted with permission.

Research via the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization

Devastating extreme rain events are part of a growing trend in the Midwest, according to a new report looking at 50 years of storm data.

Over the last five decades, the types of deluges that washed out towns in Iowa, forced the Army Corps of Engineers to intentionally blow up levees to save Cairo, Illinois, and sent the Missouri River over its banks for hundreds of miles, have been increasing, according to analysis by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization (RMCO) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Big storms, leading to big floods, are occurring with increasing frequency in the Midwest, with incidences of the most severe downpours doubling over the last half century. The report’s lead author, Stephen Saunders, explained that “a threshold may have been crossed”:

“Global studies already show that human-caused climate change is driving more extreme precipitation, and now we’ve documented how great the increase has been in the Midwest and linked the extreme storms to flooding in the region.

In addition to region-wide trends, the report presents trends in the eight Midwestern states.  For the worst storms (three inches or more of rain in 24 hours) from 1961-2011, the report outlines the following state-level trends:  Indiana (+160 percent); Wisconsin (+203 percent); Missouri (+81 percent); Michigan (+180 percent); Minnesota (+104 percent); Illinois (+83 percent); Ohio (+40 percent); and Iowa (+32 percent).

Key findings include:

• Since 1961, the Midwest has had an increasing number of large storms.  The largest of storms, those of three inches or more of precipitation in a single day, increased the most, with their annual frequency having increased by 103 percent over the roughly half century period through 2011. For storms of at least two inches but less than three inches in a day, the trend was a 81 percent increase; for storms of one to two inches, a 34 percent increase. Smaller storms did not have a significant increase.

• The rates of increase for all large storms accelerated over time, with the last analyzed decade, 2001-2010, showing the greatest jumps. For the largest storms, in 2001-2010 there were 52 percent more storms per year than in the baseline period.

• The frequency of extreme storms has increased so much in recent years that the first 12 years of this century included seven of the nine top years (since 1961) for the most extreme storms in the Midwest.

• With more frequent extreme storms, the average return period between two such storms has become shorter. In 1961-1970, extreme storms averaged once every 3.8 years at an individual location in the Midwest. That is two to four times more frequent than a major hurricane making landfall at a typical location along the U.S. coast from North Carolina to Texas. By 2001-2010, the average return period for Midwestern extreme storms at a single location was down to 2.2 years—or four to eight times more frequent than landfalling major hurricanes.

The report also presents new evidence linking extreme storms in the Midwest to major floods, the region’s most costly regularly occurring natural disasters.

The new analysis shows that the two worst years in the Midwest for storms of three inches or more per day were 2008 and 1993, the years with the Midwest’s worst floods in some 80 years, which caused $16 billion and $33 billion in damages and rank,  among the nation’s worst natural disasters. The report presents new evidence linking the 2008 flooding to extreme storms, showing that in areas with the worst flooding 48 percent of the local precipitation came from extreme storms.

In 2010, which ranked fourth among years in regional extreme-storm frequency, Iowa alone had $1 billion in agricultural losses from extreme storms. In 2011, which ranked fifth, Midwestern flooding caused $2 billion in damages. This shows how the Midwest is increasingly vulnerable to flooding if extreme precipitation continues to increase with human-caused climate change, as scientists consistently project will happen.

This research brief was originally published at the Rocky Mountain Climate Institute.

A round-up of the top climate and energy news. Please post other links below.

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin on Wednesday signed into law the nation’s first ban on a hotly debated natural gas drilling technique that involves blasting chemical-laced water deep into the ground. [Associated Press]

Shumlin said the increased amounts of natural gas obtainable through hydraulic fracturing were not worth the risk to drinking water supplies.

In the coming generation or two, “drinking water will be more valuable than oil or natural gas,” Shumlin said.

“Human beings survived for thousands and thousands of years without oil and without natural gas,” he said. “We have never known humanity or life on this plant to survive without clean water.”

Apple plans to power its main data center entirely with renewable energy by the end of this year, taking steps to address longstanding environmental concerns about the rapid expansion of high-consuming computer server farms. [Guardian]

An advocacy group blasted Clear Channel Thursday for rejecting an advertisement aimed at countering a controversial Heartland Institute climate change billboard. [The Hill]

Texas saw a 13 percent increase in the amount of energy generated by renewable sources in 2011, according to a new report by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the grid operator for about 85 percent of the state. [CleanTechnica]

Japan’s domestic shipments of solar cells and modules surged 38 percent to 392 megawatts in the first three months of this year, the Japan Photovoltaic Energy Association said today. [Bloomberg]