Labor Union Blog

The climate crisis isn’t a reason for despair—it’s an opportunity to strengthen our economy as we’re improving our environment, say the panelists of “A New Green Deal,” a session held at Take Back America 2008.

As the AFL-CIO Executive Council noted earlier this month, the new frontier of green technology could provide thousands, even millions, of jobs in building renovation, alternative energy, public transit and upgrading industry and cities to be more environmentally friendly.

The panel moderator, Phil Angelides, is chairman of the Apollo Alliance, an organization of labor, civil rights, environmental and business organizations that has come together to promote solutions to the challenge of global warming that also rebuild the economy and create good new jobs and broadly-shared prosperity. Angelides says while cooperation among all those stakeholders is necessary to move to a green economy, a true transition also will require significant public investment and political leadership.