Commentary

by Cathy Calfo, Executive Director, The Apollo Alliance

The oil-slicked beaches, out-of-work fishermen and devastated local economies along the Gulf Coast are a stark reminder of our nation's costly addiction to oil. While the Gulf States are now experiencing the most disastrous consequences, Americans nationwide bear the costs of this addiction.  Each day, we send more than $1 billion overseas to purchase oil, and the clean-up to oil spills like the BP disaster is an added financial burden to the American people.  Meanwhile, working people and their families here at home who live in communities without viable alternatives to cars and traditional fuels are dependent on oil and face the hardship of wildly fluctuating gas prices. This is not sustainable for our economy, and it's not sustainable for our environment.

As the world recovers from the current recession, and moves to lessen its dependence on carbon-intensive fossil fuels, the manufacture of advanced public transit and freight vehicles that utilize cleaner, more efficient technologies is emerging as a key growth sector in the new global clean energy economy. The goal of putting the United States at the forefront of the low-carbon economy, and assuming leadership in the design and manufacture of new world-class clean transportation systems, is yet another important reason for America to pursue new transportation policies that spur domestic demand for cleaner ways to move people and goods throughout our economy.

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By Bruce Katz

If there's a silver lining to be found in the Great Recession, it's that it has forced the nation to step back, take stock of where we've been, and begin to shift our priorities toward more productive, sustainable economic activities.  In the process, it has also brought long overdue attention to the older cities and metros of the country's industrial heartland, particularly those most impacted by the near-collapse of the auto sector.

On May 18, over 300 government, civic, educational, business, and philanthropic leaders from these communities traveled to D.C. to talk with members of Congress and the administration about how they can partner together to transform their long-struggling economies.  The Summit, entitled "Auto Communities and the Next Economy: Partnerships in Innovation" featured a stellar cast of speakers and panelists, and an audience eager to hear what they had to say.  The optimism in the room at the onset of the day was tentative (decades of economic decline tend to quell expectations).  By 5:00, however, the mood had radically changed. 

In their recent report, the Economic Policy Institute offered some particularly alarming data for workers in those hardest hit groups and their families. It forecasts that unemployment in 2010 could reach 18.1 percent for African American workers nationally and a staggering 27.8 percent for African American workers in Michigan. According to the report, these high rates of joblessness could leave half of all the country's African American children in poverty.

At the Surdna Foundation, while we stand ready to leverage short-term strategies to help America's workers, we are also committed to investing in advocacy, policy reform, practice, and programs that support a longer-term vision and address the core of America's economic and workforce challenges to ensure that we rebuild in a manner that helps us realize a more sustainable and just future for America's workers and communities.  To this end, we are investing in infrastructure and place-making efforts that will not only help put Americans back to work but also strengthen the foundation on which the next, more sustainable economy to grow. At the core of these efforts, it will be critical to make sure those most affected by the recession have access to these jobs, and that the jobs created from these investments are quality jobs that lead to additional opportunities for further skill-building and career advancement.

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by David Foster, Executive Director, Blue Green Alliance

Copenhagen, COP 15, was my fourth United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference and provided quite a contrast from COP 11 in Montreal in 2005. That year I was the only representative of U.S. labor with an interest in supporting the UN process. By comparison, in 2009, the seven Blue Green Alliance union partners sent 28 representatives, including two national presidents, Terry O'Sullivan from the Laborers' International Union of North America, and Mike Langford of the Utility Workers Union of America. The rest of the delegation included ranking officers and high-level staff of the United Steelworkers, Service Employees International Union, American Federation of Teachers, Communications Workers of America, and Amalgamated Transit Union.

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