Whatever Happened to Green Collar Jobs? Populism and Clean Energy Transition

Abstract

In today’s populist moment, climate change response has become anything but “postpolitical.” The project to decarbonize energy supplies is generating ongoing political clashes today, including between competing forms of capital/ism. In the United States, rising renewable energy industries in places like California contend with fossil fuel blocs and their regional bases. Such confrontations are sparking populist organizing on the right and left. I argue that critical geography must further consider left populist movements’ role in these politics of clean energy transition, grievance, and reparation and openings for collectively advancing more liberatory futures. I survey a wave of coalition-building that has evolved in the United States since the beginnings of the New Economy, allying U.S. environmentalists, organized labor, and, more recently, racial and community justice organizers. This movement became most visible as it built networks around calls for national “green collar” job creation during the late 2000s financial crisis and 2008 presidential campaign. Its organizing shaped noteworthy, if ultimately limited Obama administration programs and continues to influence clean energy rollout in regions such as California, particularly campaigns for job quality and racial diversity in green construction. I consider here both these successes and their limits in a turbulent clean-tech sector: the need for farther reaching transformations in energy–industrial policy and democratic participation in shaping them. Key Words: clean energy transition, climate change, green collar jobs, green economy, populism.

在当今的民粹时刻，气候变迁回应绝非已成为“后政治”。去碳化的能源供给计画，在今日持续产生政治冲突，包括相互竞争的资本／主义形式之间的冲突。在美国，加州等地成长中的可再生能源产业，与石化集团及其区域基础相互竞争。此般冲突正激起左翼与右翼的民粹组织。我主张，批判地理学必须进一步考量左翼民粹运动在这些乾淨能源变迁、不满和修復政治中的角色，以及为集体促进更具解放性的未来起头。我调查美国自新经济开始以降演化中的联盟建构浪潮，其中美国环保主义者、有组织的劳工，以及更为晚近的种族和社区正义组织者相互结盟。此一运动打造2000年代晚期金融风暴和2008年总统选举竞选时号召全国“绿领”工作创造的网络，进而成为最引人注目的运动。其组织形塑了显着的但最终受限的欧巴马政府之计画，并持续影响诸如加州等区域乾淨能源的推出，特别是对绿色工程中的工作平等与种族多样化之倡议。我于此同时考量其在动盪的清洁技术部门中的成功与限制：能源产业政策必须要有更为广泛的变迁，以及形塑这些变迁的民主参与。 关键词: 乾淨能源转换, 气候变迁, 绿领工作, 绿色经济, 民粹主义。

En el momento populista que nos acompaña, la respuesta al cambio climático se ha convertido en algo menos que “pospolítico”. El proyecto de descarbonificar los abastos energéticos está generando confrontaciones políticas continuas, incluyendo las de las formas competitivas del capital/ismo. En los Estados Unidos, emergentes industrias de energía renovable en lugares como California se enfrentan a bloques de combustibles fósiles y a sus bases regionales. Tales confrontaciones están desencadenando la organización populista a derecha e izquierda. Yo sostengo que la geografía crítica debe dar mayor consideración al papel de los movimientos populistas de izquierda en estas políticas de transición a la energía limpia, quejas y reparación; y a las aperturas para promover colectivamente futuros más libertarios. Examino una ola de construcción de coaliciones que ha evolucionado en los Estados Unidos desde los comienzos de la Nueva Economía, que alía los ambientalistas americanos, el trabajo organizado y más recientemente los organizadores de la justicia racial y comunitaria. Este movimiento adquirió mayor visibilidad a medida que construyó redes alrededor de llamados por la creación nacional del tipo de empleo de “cuello verde” durante la crisis financiera de finales del 2000 y la campaña presidencial del 2008. Su organización configuró los notables, aunque a la postre limitados, programas de la administración Obama, y siguen influyendo la promoción de la energía limpia en regiones como California en particular, en campañas por calidad del empleo y diversidad racial en la construcción verde. Aquí considero estos éxitos y sus limitaciones en un turbulento sector de tecnolimpieza: la necesidad de transformaciones de mayor alcance en la política industrial energética y participación democrática en su conformación.

Palabras clave:

• cambio climático
• economía verde
• empleos de cuello verde
• populismo
• transición a la energía limpia.

Acknowledgments

Thanks very much to two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on a draft version of this article, as well as to James McCarthy for his editorial support and guidance. For thoughtful feedback on earlier versions of this argument, my deep thanks also to Peter Wissoker, John Stehlin, Noah Quastel, and participants in the “Biopolitics and Environmental Justice” workshop organized by Alida Cantor and Catherine Jampel at the 2016 Dimensions of Political Ecology Conference.

Notes

Notes

1 And in similar energy-producing contexts—internal conflicts different from the populist possibilities of an external enemy.

2 Ironically, threatened most directly by that same boom in unconventional oil and gas. These explanations remain important, alongside factors like cultural grievance and white racist revanchism.

3 Or to entice fossil fuel industry executives all too likely to abandon existing workers and regions once sufficiently attractive alternatives and exit strategies present themselves—more straightforward here than in places with more complex extractive industry politics (e.g., Andreucci 2018).

4 This discussion of populism and/as strategic alliance building draws primarily on Laclau’s (1977, 2005) Gramsci-influenced theorization (particularly, following Hart [2012] and Andreucci [2018], Laclau’s earlier, more political economic conceptualization)—although with several returns to Swyngedouw’s (2010) notion of the postpolitical. It builds on field-work conducted in the Bay Area between 2008 and 2013, as regional green collar jobs calls consolidated and were incorporated into U.S. federal policy. Besides participant observation and policy analysis in relevant forums (both for green collar jobs organizing and the clean-tech industry), this investigation and follow-ups have involved extensive engagement with contemporary archives—for example, tech industry news and blogs, think tank publications, government gray literature, and labor research published in policy and academic forums (including by geographers; e.g., Luke et al. 2017).

5 And other concessions, as when Jones was let go from his advisory role after attacks from Congressional Republicans.

6 Notably, Koch Industries. Made via the (unsuccessful in this case) use of the ballot initiative, California’s quintessentially populist direct democracy instrument.

7 Less so in increasing gender diversity, an ongoing problem in construction employment.

8 Although rooftop solar is not included within generation sources eligible for California’s RPS, it has been supported by other state policies.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah Knuth

SARAH KNUTH is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests span various topics in the geographical political economy and ecology of property, finance and financialization, urban and regional geographies, work, and technology, with a particular focus on the politics of climate change, clean energy transition, and the green economy.