Your Place in the New Economy...

Your Place in the New Economy: Tools and Opportunities for Jobs and Economic Development (featuring Majora Carter)

This past week I had the great privilege of travelling through eastern North Carolina with Majora Carter on a series of workshops titled “Your Place in the New Economy.” This was put on by the Elizabeth City State University Center for Green Research and Evaluation, which is partnering with the Majora Carter Group to craft a plan for developing a green economy in Eastern NC. The three workshops were held in Elizabeth City, Tarboro and Henderson, NC and were an opportunity to bring a message of economic recovery through green jobs to the people who need it most.

Eastern North Carolina is one of the most impoverished areas in the country, and for years has dealt with industries packing up and taking their jobs overseas, but leaving a legacy of environmental devastation behind. Adding to that are some outrageous utility and energy costs--families have seen their rates rise 35% in the last two years and, in some cases, are forced to make decisions between paying their utility bills and feeding their families.

The tour was focused on showing this community that “green” wasn’t all about polar bears and spotted owls; instead we were talking about the green that you can put in your wallet. In fact, one area of the green economy that really caught on was energy efficiency. What many people are now calling “weatherization” is simply making your home or business more efficient so that it wastes less energy. This not only saves people money by lowering utility bills, but also puts people to work as energy auditors, weatherization technicians and crew leaders.

We also stressed the need for bold federal action on clean energy jobs legislation. While the jobs that have been created in NC through the policies of President Obama’s stimulus plan are great and necessary, what we need is a long term and far-reaching investment in clean energy and green jobs that will create hundreds of thousands of new green jobs here in NC, and up to 5 million new green jobs nationwide.

The tour was a great opportunity to take the message and the theme of the 1Sky Campaign out of the realm of the merely theoretical and into developing and implementing practical solutions for a struggling community.