Climate Change
“Clean energy is too white and too rich”
Another speaker at the Summit, Jeffrey Wallace, President/CEO of LeadersUp, said "clean energy is too white and too rich." According to Wallace:
- The cost of using clean energy is too great for low-income Americans,
- Clean energy jobs mainly go to white workers, and
- Profits from clean energy businesses also go to mostly white, wealthy investors.
E2 report says more than 3 million work in clean energy
Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) has released a new report documenting the clean energy jobs in every Congressional district in the U.S. The report is one of a series released in recent years. E2 says “clean energy is a critical job creator in every state – employing 1 in every 50 American workers. More Americans today work in clean energy than as lawyers, police officers, farmers, firefighters, kindergarten teachers, and mail carriers combined.” However, a September 9, 2021, E2 report on diversity in the clean energy sector confirmed Jeffrey Wallace’s observations. "Lack of diversity in clean energy technologies threatens to cause women, Hispanic and Latino workers, and black workers, in particular, to miss out on one of America’s great economic expansions.”
When will we stop idolizing decadent lifestyles that contribute to climate change?
America Magazine, a Jesuit publication, in a November 11, 2021, story, questions how serious we are about climate change when we idolize decadent lifestyles. The story uses the wedding of Getty heiress Ivy Love Getty as an example. The festivities included “endless theme parties; the complete takeover and redesign of San Francisco’s City Hall; a wedding dress made entirely out of broken mirrors, and IV drips the morning after some events (no, really).” Ironically, “the wedding occurred not only as the COP26 climate change summit was taking place in Glasgow but on the Global Day for Climate Justice, during which hundreds of thousands of people all over the world marched to push leaders to do more about climate change.” The article concludes that “Ms. Getty’s dress-of-broken-mirrors couldn’t be more fitting. Obviously, this sort of decadence is exactly what the world cannot afford. The fact that the Getty fortune was built on the very oil consumption that is now in danger of extinguishing much of life on this planet only adds to the obscenity of it all.”
Beer drinker vows to quit - at the rate we are addressing climate change
This piece from The Shovel is hilarious and serious at the same time. The word “climate” doesn’t appear, but this story about a man who vows to quit drinking beer in 2050, when he will be 101, is the perfect corollary to how seriously (or not) we are addressing climate change.
