How do we build investment in good green collar jobs?
One part is getting the policy framework right. We need electric rates that reward energy-efficiency and renewables more strongly. We need local building codes that incorporate high-performance green features, and code officials who make it easy for the builders to innovate. One part, I believe, is directly creating the next wave of markets through the development of large-scale public or private projects that will demonstrate not only feasibility, but desirability, of green technologies at a significant scale. There has been a project going for ages called One Million Solar Roofs; we’re nowhere close. But it’s my theory that a hundred solar roofs in one community will help a lot more than thousands of them scattered randomly about. Creating demonstration projects at this kind of concentration is our dream in Kingston along the Broadway Corridor, which we have boldly renamed the Green Trail. We’ve started with fairly easy stuff – organizing cyclists to support bike amenities like racks
