Global Warming In the News

Despite overwhelming evidence that growing the green economy is the way out of recession, industry front groups continue their attempt to roll back California’s landmark clean energy laws.

The potential for green job growth is clear, as California is already seeing the benefits of our environmental policies and innovation beginning to pay off. According to a new report by Next 10, green job growth has outpaced job growth in other sectors over the last 15 years, even in rural areas. Between 1995 and 2008, green businesses increased 45 percent; green jobs grew 36 percent, while total jobs in the state grew only 13%. From 2007 to 2008, while the overall California economy suffered job losses, the green job sector kept expanding – increasing by 5 percent in that year.

The cover story in Monday’s Sacramento Bee highlights how government regulations and incentives are helping to drive this job growth. For Sacramento, $127 million in federal stimulus funds will translate into jobs building a state-of-the-art smart grid, improving electricity distribution from the region’s numerous solar rooftops. According to the managing director of Portland-based consulting firm Clean Edge, “simply being in California improves Sacramento’s clean-tech prospects, because the state is by far the national leader in the sector – thanks in large part to the aggressive renewable-energy, efficiency and greenhouse-gas policies coming out of the Capitol and state agencies,” the article continues.

Yet the state’s largest polluters are looking to undercut California’s clean-tech advantage and stall green job growth right when it’s starting to build momentum. Under the misleading name of AB 32 Implementation Group, a coalition of California’s dirtiest industries, including oil and gas companies, large utilities, cement manufacturers, and chemical companies, released a bogus poll claiming that Californians don’t care about fighting climate change.

The group refused to provide information about how the poll was conducted or to release a copy of the complete survey. Instead, they offered reporters only a brief summary memo and press release.

The press release names a few members of the AB 32 Implementation Group, but conspicuously leaves off the veritable who’s who of California’s dirtiest polluters which fill its ranks, including the oil and coal trade organizations, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., California Portland Cement Company, and the California Trucking Association. Though the group has gone to great lengths to conceal its true intentions, the shady maneuverings of the AB 32 Implementation Group were highlighted in a recent article from California Watch, which was featured in Monday’s San Francisco Chronicle and soon picked up by the Bakersfield Californian, OC Register and other news outlets.

Take Action: The state’s largest polluters are ramping up an attack campaign against California’s historic global warming law, so that they can continue dumping pollution into the air, filling our lungs with smog, and jeopardizing our future without having to be held accountable.

We know that these groups do not accurately represent California's business community, and so we’re helping the California Green Chamber of Commerce raise a voice for forward-thinking and environmentally minded businesses.

Add your business’s voice in support of California’s clean energy and climate change legislation – become a member of the Business Alliance for a Green Economy.