January 10, 2023
ALL THAT AND CHEAP ABUNDANT POWER TOO...:
The Green Jobs Boom Is Benefiting the People Who Need It Most: As the US races toward climate resilience, a hiring bonanza is taking hold in communities that rarely see one. (Michelle Ma, January 10, 2023, Reasons to be Cheerful)
Before he joined the Civilian Climate Corps, Robert Clark assumed building and electric work was all low-skilled labor, akin to "working at McDonald's," he said. That was before he learned to install electric heat pumps, maintain electric vehicle charging stations and perform 3D image modeling of spaces about to get energy upgrades.The apprenticeship program has been life-changing, Clark said. Before joining, he struggled to find work, in part because of a felony conviction for burglary. "It's a no-brainer," he said of joining the Civilian Climate Corps, which pays him $20 per hour to learn skills and receive the certifications that he needs to get work. He hopes to go back to school to become an engineer.Clark is one of 1,700 New Yorkers who has gone through the Civilian Climate Corps, which was developed by BlocPower, a Brooklyn-based building electrification startup, and the city of New York.The program, launched in 2021 with $37 million from the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, has a heady dual mandate: develop a workforce that can help the city meet its ambitious climate goals and bring those jobs to neighborhoods affected by gun violence."The labor supply is a big problem, but it's also a massive opportunity," said Donnel Baird, CEO and founder of BlocPower. Baird grew up in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, where he said many Black and low-income families like his own would turn on their gas stoves in the winter to make up for inefficient heating systems."We are going into the lowest-income communities, where folks are at risk of gun violence -- personally, their families, their communities -- we're training them on the latest, greatest software to install green infrastructure in urban environments, in rural environments," Baird said in 2021. "That's going to solve not only crime rates in low-income communities in New York City," he added. "It's [also] going to solve the business problem of the shortage of skilled construction workers across America."
Posted by Orrin Judd at January 10, 2023 12:00 AM