Renewable energy investment is not only for energy deployment and world ecology management, it is also for jobs. Nations can choose ruthless economic growth when economic growth is never accompanied by democracy, empowerment and human rights or fruitless economic growth when growth is accompanied by reducing job opportunities.

Throughout the world availability of good jobs is the cheapest way to create human development, enlarging peoples choices to live a long , decent and productive life. Renewable energy technologies create more jobs per megawatt of power generated, and per dollar invested in construction, manufacturing and installation as compared to coal or natural gas.

Wind energy creates 27% more jobs than coal and 66% more jobs than natural gas plant per kilowatt hour generated. In renewable energy development, construction employment rate is 2.57 per MW for wind and 7.14 per MW for solar photovoltaic, operating employment rate range from 0.12 jobs per MW to 2.28 jobs per MW being for landfill gas digesters.

If a company invests in 100 MW wind farm, 257 jobs will be created in construction and 180 jobs in operation. Investment in 100 MW solar utility plant will create 714 new jobs in construction and more jobs in energy production.

A study in California USA found that clean energy can produce 652,000 jobs in 10 years and 1.4 million jobs will have been created by 2025, reducing California unemployment rate by 14 %. The United States of America is pursuing aggressive development of the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries, this if done could generate up to US $ 4.5 trillion in revenue and creating 40 million new jobs by the year 2030. Clean energy development not only helps to mitigate the twin challenge of climate change and fossil fuels dependency, it holds great promise to addressing the pressing need for quality jobs with pathway to sustainable careers , the green economy. All nations are making jobs in renewable energy investment, for nations that will achieve renewable energy targets in 2020 they shall have made jobs for their citizens.

Joshua Okomo is Proprietor of Environment Stores & Logistics.

By: Yvonne R. Davis, M.S. M.A., P.C., Chief Operating Officer and Director of International Relations, True North Bridged Technologies, Inc.,  Sacramento, CA

More than participating in “Going Green” initiatives around the globe, or becoming a member of an elite clique of high minded Green Revolutionaries who now more-than-ever pro-actively engage in sustainable capitalism, the crisis we face is that time is no longer on our side to convince the masses to make an attitude adjustment towards authentic social consciousness for change. The clock has struck Midnight.  Our base level of existence is in jeopardy.  According to the United Nations Environment Agency within 50-years over 3-billion humans will be in dire straights because they will have limited or no access to water. Inclusive of the developed world, food nsecurity will continue to rise and take a poll position in the lives of children and families.  Abraham Maslow’s first hierarchy of need – food, shelter and clothing is a dying luxury.

The world as we have known it is crumbling. A revolutionary world shift is taking place. The so-called smart people or those in authority have no grasp on what is really happening. No one wants to admit that there is no assured answer on why the world markets have run off the rails of an already crazy train. There is certainly a fear that if anyone would just tell the truth and admit “they don’t know,” the masses will lose their minds to the reality that stability will not be in the distant future.  In the most technologically advanced time of our lives we live in a Hobbesian State of Nature.

What about nature?  It seems our nonchalant, narcissistic and nihilist approach to a woman called Environment more powerful than humanity has rebelled fiercely with her revolt – hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, fires and tornado devastation.  A woman scorned, she has no forgiveness for the never kept promises to respect, honor and nurture her. All that she has received was lip service and inaction by her Homo sapiens partner.  The fidelity of our planet is lost.

Those with the economic where-with-all and dexterity pretend they are gliding through the massive turbulence, make believe they have enough currency to shield them, but it is a mask covering their ojida.  Many in depressed states are in the same life raft as  most of the less fortunate teetering on the edge of a destiny no one asked to be a part of, but certainly helped to create.

For those of us who are called to evangelize, invent and innovate as sustainable social entrepreneurs giving the world responsible technologies, a concentrated effort must be made towards social consciousness raising in people.

Social consciousness in green requires all of us to let go of traditional archetypal ways of thinking that have dominated and frankly controlled our culture.   Recognizing the need for a greater social consciousness is to facilitate the awareness that where we are headed right now is an injustice to humankind.  This social consciousness awareness is facilitated by praxis (speech and action simultaneously).  We must talk about what it means to be socially conscious, but more importantly fully engage, demonstrate and teach others how to really do it.

We can no longer create a product, give a service, and prove to consumers it is superior and will never corrode or have less carbon footprint, if we don’t challenge the consumer to internalize a change in their mind set.  Like a tobacco warning label on a cigarette pack, we must make a declarative statement and embrace a green culture means our survival, and having a new mental model is a moral imperative.

Einstein stated, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” We need a revolutionary paradigmatic shift that will forever change how we live in our “civilized” societies; social consciousness in green will do just that.

We challenge everyone who says they are committed to the “Green Revolution,” that more than altruism towards our earth, we must make a visceral commitment to testify as long as the planet remains on loan to us (we do not own it ladies and gentlemen), our jobs must be to lead others think and act differently. It is a matter of our future. It is a matter of life and death.

At this point, I would like to introduce you to the Bermuda Electric Light, Power & Traction Company or BELCO – the power utility that is wrestling with a great number of alternatives to fossil fuels: solar, wind, tidal, etc. I invite you to read the reports of the vendors that have been asked to create proposals for five different green technologies. As you read these documents, perhaps you’ll be thinking along the same lines that I am: How many do they really need? Isn’t one better (probably FAR better) than the other four?

I’m always amused by the pundits who say that we in the US need to blend many different alternative fuels. Outside of politics, exactly why? Given the configuration of our land mass vis-à-vis the sun’s path, our predominant wind patterns, the location and depth of our subterranean pockets of heat, the flow of our rivers, and the nature of our ocean currents, isn’t there one best solution? I think so.

More on this soon.